The Caley is Yalumba’s flagship wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz blend, reflecting the long and unwavering commitment of Australia’s oldest family-owned winemaker to this classic Australian blend. The Caley is named for Fred Caley Smith, grandson of Yalumba founder Samuel Smith.
The Caley combines Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon and old-vine Barossa Shiraz, matured in Yalumba-coopered French oak.
Released five years from vintage, with three years of bottle-age, The Caley is designed to claim, in time, a place alongside the most famous Australian reds. While deceptively attractive in its youth, the wine is built for the long haul, bringing together seamlessly the linear elegance, firm tannins and persistence of Cabernet with the richness and texture of old-vine Shiraz.
A beautiful wine in all respects, its heart soft and generous, its head stern and serious, the combination as complete as it is complex. It tastes of an assortment of red and black berries, tobacco and cloves, with tremendously well integrated smoky oak and plenty of tang, tannin, flavour and run through the finish. An exhibition in both power and elegance... will mature gloriously.
97 points, Wine Companion, March 2018
Very deep, vibrant, youthful red/purple colour, young for its age, with a bouquet that emphasises graphite, sooty and earthy Barossa Shiraz over Cabernet that's fully ripe and not at all herbal or minty. It's full-bodied and very intense, with elegance and freshness assisted by seemingly quite high acidity. The tannins are fine and supple, the oak component understated. Tannin extraction is mild leaving the fruit flavour in centre-stage. Cabernet's blackberry, cassis, subtle herb and grip chimes in on the back-palate and finish, which is very long. An exceptional red wine. 55% Coonawarra Cabernet, 45% Barossa Shiraz, aged in 40% new French oak barriques. Drink to 2038.
96 points, Real Review, September 2018
This blend of Coonawarra Cabernet and Barossa Shiraz has performed well in 2013 with an array of cassis, blackcurrants, redcurrants, some richer blackberries, as well as leafy and gently herbal accents. The palate is the real story though, showing a bright, even-tempered and fleshy core of red plums and darker cherries. Silky and even-paced tannins and a lithe, juicy finish. Drink or hold.
95 points, jamessuckling.com
So much going on here, a wine definitively in the zone of ‘complex’ but also ‘seamless’ and quietly ‘powerful’ and for sure ‘long, regal, refined’, and if you like bold, powerful red wines that hold tight and true, then you’re in the zone of a ‘serious’ wine. The flavour rolls distinctly and densely across the palate but feels lifted and tightened with chew of ropes of tannin. Freshness is inherent too. All dark fruits, tobacco, earth, clove and cedar – a seamless mesh. It’s a very, very good wine for its ilk and an emphatic statement about Yalumba, on many levels.
95+ points, The Wine Front (September 2018)
Samuel Smith established Yalumba in 1849 and 165 years later descendant Robert Hill Smith now presides over Australia's oldest family owned wine company. Yalumba owns vineyards and sources fruit primarily in the Barossa and Coonawarra. Robert Hill-Smith manages to combine conservatism and tradition with up-to-date winemaking technology and thinking. Yalumba produces a considerable number of different wines across the price-point spectrum from a multitude of varieties, all with a focus on quality, varietal and regional expression. The strong winemaking team is headed up by Louisa Rose, a brilliantly intuitive winemaker whose white wines are some of the best in the country.
