Ever since its first vintage in 1980, Katnook Estate has showed plenty of promise with cabernet sauvignon. Well do I remember its first wine, for I spent just enough time in 1983 working for the company to drink at least my share and that of twenty others. It was the smoothest, finest, raciest alcoholic Ribena ever made. Shiraz was another matter, though, for back then nobody gave a hoot, let alone ten bob for it. Katnook had access to shiraz, sure enough, but the small quantity it picked for its own purposes ended up being blended into the mid-market Riddoch Cabernet Shiraz blend. Twenty years on and Katnook not only produces two of Australia’s best and most aristocratic cabernet sauvignons, but could well become one of its most sought-after – if perhaps one of its most ephemeral – makers of distinguished shiraz. Since its earliest days when Dr Tony Jordan (now at the helm of Domain Chandon) consulted to the company, Katnook has been a Coonawarra name to watch. Winemaker Wayne Stehbens, who has been there for the duration since 1980 and before, says that 1988 was the turning point in his red wine making experience, for that was the year he was able to ‘throw more resources’ at the Cabernet Sauvignon, making a ‘more sophisticated’ style. Until then, he says, while Katnook’s cabernets were of good enough quality, they tended to be ‘fruit-rich’, and ‘without too much oak’. With the exception of cooler seasons like 1992 and 1995, Katnook’s Cabernet Sauvignon enjoyed a brilliant decade in the 1990s. Its response to the erratic 1999 season, which has produced a raft of disappointments from some big names in Coonawarra, was exceptional. The Katnook Cabernet has acquired fineness, a typically seamless length, a tightness of tannin and a definition of fruit that stands it apart from the bulkier warm region cabernets and the greener expressions so common from the cooler climates and indeed still from Coonawarra itself. Remarkably, given that while the quality of Katnook’s Cabernet Sauvignon has been improving and consolidating, its volume has trebled. Wayne Stehbens is rather coy about the actual volume produced, but I’d expect it now to be between 10,000 and 15,000 cases. Even more remarkably, during this same period the wine itself has been partially cannibalised – theoretically at least – to create Katnook’s icon cabernet, the Odyssey. For these three things to have occurred simultaneously is an enormous feather in Stehbens’ cap. Katnook Estate has the luxury of being able to cherry-pick from 300 hectares of established Coonawarra vineyard. The rest of the fruit it harvests either makes its way under the second Riddoch label or is sold to other wine producers. In the fashion of other ‘reserve’ wines, the Odyssey comes from a particular vineyard within Katnook’s extensive domain that was singled out in the 1980s to provide the backbone for the Katnook cabernet label. Stehbens describes it as ‘a particularly red and shallow knob’ on the main highway that runs through Coonawarra, near the V&A Lane corner. It crops low by Coonawarra standards, around 6 tonnes per hectare, and typically produces small berries with excellent skin to juice ratios that just ‘rattle through the receival bin’. All Katnook’s cabernet sauvignon rated at estate label standard and above is given around nineteen to twenty months of maturation in a combination of small French and American oak, of which a high percentage is new. This is actually the period of preliminary maturation for the Odyssey, for it is chosen from the best barrels at this time, although Stehbens will of course at this stage have a pretty good idea where they’re going to come from. Racked and returned into barrel, the Odyssey then spends around another twenty months in small French oak, between 40-100% of which can be new, depending on the quality of its fruit. Any barrels that then don’t quite make the Odyssey grade fit neatly back into Katnook’s estate wine, about which Stehbens is particularly conscious of not ‘stealing from’ too much. Other than the additional time in oak, and perhaps one component which might receive additional maceration after fermentation, Stehbens doesn’t do anything extra to the Odyssey that he doesn’t do to Katnook’s estate cabernet. What sets the Odyssey apart from so many ‘reserve’ style cabernets is that other than the fairly assertive oak it expresses in its youth, it isn’t a tricked-up wine. There’s disarming honesty about its pure, seamless expression of intense, concentrated cabernet fruit, which in better years has an essence-like quality about it. It’s a wine that says “only drink me young if you have to, for I can do ever so much better with time”. Wines of this class and quality depend more on their vineyards than anything else, and it’s here that Stehbens sees scope for future development. He’s already delighted with younger plantings of new cabernet clones (he has absolutely no idea of the clonal origins of the original Katnook cabernet plantings), much of which have been trialed on a two metre row spacing, narrow for Coonawarra’s mechanically ordered plantings. Three years ago Wayne Stehbens surprised himself and not a few others by winning the Jimmy Watson Trophy again. First time it was for a slightly greenish 1986 cabernet-merlot blend bottled under the Riddoch label. Second time around, it was for a shiraz of all things. It wasn’t destined for the Riddoch label, yet it wasn’t for the Katnook Estate brand either. It was a new icon label; a shiraz to sit alongside the Odyssey. It was also from the rather challenging 1997 vintage, so I must admit I was just a shade more than sceptical. Katnook’s first Prodigy is a contradictory sort of a wine. It’s not difficult to see why it won a trophy – it’s everywhere all at once. Like so many from 1997 in South Australia, it’s thick, meaty, cooked and treacle-like, with powerful dried fruit characters and a decent punch of alcohol. It hasn’t escaped the greenish influences now detectable in such a large percentage of South Australian wines from this vintage and is to me more of an admirable wine than an enjoyable one. It’s not about fruit sweetness and vitality, it’s more about power, strength and intensity. Remarkably, however, the 1997 Prodigy was from a first crop vineyard. It was also the first 100% Coonawarra shiraz to win the Jimmy Watson. ‘It’s a real show wonder’, says Wayne Stehbens. ‘It’s not the typical sort of shiraz I want to make, for I’d prefer more pepper and more balance between fruit and oak. It just didn’t matter how much oak we threw at it; the fruit just kept on launching itself right at it.’ On the other hand, the succeeding 1998 wine is everything imaginable in Coonawarra shiraz. Beautifully ripened and vibrant shiraz fruit is presented in a pure, luxuriant and velvet-smooth wine. It lacks the strength and density of the 1997, but more than makes up with its superlative intensity, focus and harmony. It’s exactly what Stehbens would like every year. Having just pulled the pin on the 1999 Prodigy, Stehbens is realistic enough to realise that he won’t be making it as often as he can the Odyssey, which also skipped vintages in 1993 and 1995. ‘When shiraz is good in Coonawarra it’s outstanding. It gives richness and concentration along with elegance. I don’t expect to make other wines like the 1997, but there are not too many Coonawarra shirazes that show the togetherness of the 1998. Katnook’s first estate Shiraz was made in 1998, a year after the first Prodigy, from the same young vineyard, planted on two metre spacings near the main road on the eastern side of the winery. The soils are quite shallow, described by Stehbens as ‘not classic Coonawarra terra rossa, but a motley, chocolatey loam with a sprinking of red’. But they must be doing something right, he suggests. ‘It’d also be bloody nice to get these wines (the Odyssey and Prodigy) up to a reasonable volume, but they’re restricted by the fruit we get. Then I’d really be able to say that our viticulturists have got it right!’
