No matter how high my expectations, there’s no denying the buzz I get when opening a mature bottle of wine that has really hit its straps. It happened again last night, with my second-last bottle of Oakridge Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 1991, a wine I have rated extremely highly ever since I first tasted it in barrel twelve years ago. Oakridge no longer resembles the company that made this wine. Founder Jim Zitzlaff sold his excellent, but small site high in the hills overlooking the Yarra Valley some time ago, its wine now appearing under the disappointing Five Oaks label. The maker of the 1991 Reserve, Jim’s son Michael, oversaw Oakridge attempt to swim in the big league with an ambitious move onto the Maroondah Highway in Yarra Valley central. After several years of largely under-achieving wines, Oakridge has since been swallowed by Evans & Tate. Zitzlaff jnr has moved on. Credit, however, where it’s due. The outstanding quality of this classically elegant, but substantial cabernet sauvignon just makes me wonder what might have been had the original proprietors of Oakridge been happy simply to focus on and refine the very significant merits of their original site. In my view this complex, cedary, cigarboxy cabernet, which simply builds in power along the palate, is one of the best reds made in Australia over the past two decades. Oakridge also made very creditable wines in 1986 and 1990. Given the recent string of warm vintages in the Yarra Valley, it might indeed have produced even better wines of late. If only I had taken my own advice and kept more of the 1991 for longer!
