Cabernet sauvignon is doing it tough. How tough? When one of Australia’s benchmark wines, Wynns Black Label Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon is regularly on sale below $20, the answer is simple: very. For at least thirty years until the mid-1990s, cabernet ruled as king of Australian red wine. It’s still made and grown in unprecedented tonnages and volumes, but wine makers and wine drinkers are steadily ditching their remaining affections for cabernet in favour of shiraz. Cabernet’s plight is deepened by a global oversupply of the grape. It is also being damaged by what has traditionally been accepted as one of its greatest strengths: its ability to replicate its classic varietal qualities wherever it is grown, provided it was planted in a favourable site. Being a relatively forgiving grape that enjoys a warm climate, it has favourable sites all over the world. So, while most people can differentiate between shiraz from Australia, France, California, New Zealand and South Africa, it’s harder to pick the difference between quality cabernet from places like Australia, Chile, South Africa, France and California. Australia finds it much harder to export cabernet than shiraz. So, in the face of the present global clamour for shiraz, it’s little wonder that Australia crushed 20% more cabernet sauvignon grapes in 2004 than it could find a market for, a trend that continued in 2005. Despite cabernet’s loss of glamour, our leading examples taste better than ever. In his capacity as wine buyer for Vintage Cellars, Jeremy Stockman probably buys more high-level Australian cabernet than anyone else in the world. He identifies Margaret River and Coonawarra as Australia’s finest cabernet regions, arguing that makers like Cullen, Moss Wood, Penfolds (with Bin 707 especially) and Mount Mary are making world-class cabernets (or blends with its family of merlot, cabernet franc, malbec and petit verdot). Others, he says, like Devil’s Lair, Balnaves, Brand’s, Katnook Estate and Redman are close to the mark. As one of Australia’s most high-profile winemaking consultants and wine show judges, Gary Baldwin gets to taste and play a hands-on role in cabernet sauvignon all over the country. He also places Margaret River ahead of Coonawarra as Australia’s best cabernet region, with the Yarra Valley an erratic third. ‘The driving notes of Margaret River cabernet are generally chocolate and cherry, with some cassis behind them’, he says. Stockman admires their elegance, complexity and savoury qualities. ‘The great ones have richness, but aren’t overtly jammy’, he says. Baldwin describes Coonawarra’s cooler climate expression of cabernet as ‘bright cherry, mulberry and cassis, with a hint of chocolate’, while Stockman highlights its berry flavours and structure. Cooler still, the Yarra Valley’s cabernets are perhaps less consistent, revealing what Baldwin describes as ‘cherry, cassis and light chocolate qualities with a hint of dried herbs’. ‘How many Yarra makers get it right year in, year out?’ Stockman ponders. ‘But when they do, they’re delicious.’ So, given that it boasts three cabernet-producing regions on or around world class, why does Australian cabernet have such an image problem? Stockman blames much on the glut of ‘young vine, overcropped cabernet from new regions’. Baldwin agrees, saying that being a late-ripening grape, cabernet has been introduced to a number of regions where it should never have been planted. He identifies the cooler regions in southern Victoria, inland New South Wales, southern Western Australia and Tasmania. ‘Of course the people in these regions who are serious about site selection and viticulture and who take the trouble to get fruit fully ripe can make good cabernet, but too many of their wines are thin, green and weedy’, he says. Overall, Baldwin believes while our cabernet is as good as it was ten years ago, drinkers are actively seeking riper tastes in their reds than ever before. He also points out that the series of difficult Australian vintages between 2000 and 2003 simply accentuated the herbaceous aspects of many cabernets. ‘Because shiraz is less likely to taste greenish, people have experienced instead just big, blocky and sometimes extractive shirazes from these vintages that the gatekeepers of wine style have preferred to the cabernets’, he says. Cabernet will only regain its former place if its wines are competitive enough, and right now Jeremy Stockman believes that while it might still provide better value for money than merlot or pinot noir, it lags behind shiraz at all price-points with only a few exceptions. As for the future of the hundreds of acres of cool-climate cabernet unable to rid their wines of green, herbaceous characters? ‘Same as the dodo and the dinosaur’, says Baldwin. A lot of unspecified and ordinary cabernet is sold in the cleanskin and traditional markets at prices that are cheap but frankly unsustainable. The underlying issue, suggests Gary Baldwin, is that the market is not static. ‘Consumers reach a certain level, and then they want to go higher. The bar is being lifted every few years. If you stay the same as you were ten years ago, you’ll end up beneath the bar. I don’t think we’ll ever go back to the days of thin, weedy and greenish cabernets’. Clearly, it’s up to its makers to help cabernet evolve and improve. Australia’s Best 6 Cabernets: Cullen Diana Madeline Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot (Margaret River, WA) Lake’s Folly (Lower Hunter Valley, NSW) Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon (Margaret River, WA) Mount Mary Quintet (Yarra Valley, Vic) Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon (South Australia) Petaluma (Coonawarra, SA) Australia’s Best Value Cabernets (regularly priced under $20 or well below) Deakin Estate (Sunraysia, Vic) McWilliams Coonawarra (Coonawarra, SA) Morris (Rutherglen, Vic) Sacred Hill Cabernet Merlot (Riverina, NSW) Seppelt Victorian Cabernet Merlot (Victoria) Water Wheel (Bendigo, Vic) Australia’s Top Emergent Cabernets Balgownie Estate (Bendigo, Vic) Balnaves The Tally Reserve (Coonawarra, SA) Domaine A (Coal River Valley, Tas) Epis & Williams (Macedon Ranges, Vic) Houghton Jack Mann (Frankland River, WA) Voyager Estate (Margaret River, WA)
