We’ve selected a chorus of six Australian wines singing in the key of Cabernet. From Margaret River to Coal River Valley, this is a coast-to-coast survey of opulent cabernet that includes two Classified wines, one of which is the 2011 Domaine A, a museum masterpiece. Indeed each wine heralds a different vintage, with call and response reviews from a variety of top wine critics. We do very well with Cabernet in this country, where we do it best is a matter of delicious debate.
In this mixed six-pack, you find one bottle each of the following: Howard Park Leston Vineyard Margaret River Cabernet 2017 Voyager Estate Margaret River Cabernet Merlot 2015 Domaine A Coal River Valley Cabernet Tasmania 2011 Oakridge Wines 864 Winery Block Yarra Valley Cabernet 2018 Xanadu Margaret River Cabernet 2019 Leasingham Classic Clare Clare Valley Cabernet 2016.
Explore Australian Cabernet >>
...there’s no denying the wine’s presence. It’s all about the vibrancy of plush black fruits for me, so enticing. It grabs you, you in, and it’s a sweet ride counterbalanced by dark chocolate, typical Margaret River bay leaf and bramble with light, spicy background oak. Tannins are ripe and smooth. A wine to savour, as they say, over the years to come. And there will be many.
95 points, Wine Pilot (August 2020)
Deep red colour with a good tint of purple and a sweetly ripe blackberry aroma, the palate likewise driven by its true-blue cabernet fruit, but it has a solid backbone of tannin, and oak that is happily subtle and complementary. A mass of sweet ripe berry flavour sits in the mid-palate and is surrounded by firm, distinctive cabernet tannins. A very smart cabernet indeed.
94 points, The Real Review (September 2021)
50% new French oak. It's as much about texture and length as it is about flavour, though there's certainly no shortage of the latter. It tastes of dark chocolate and coffee, blackcurrant and black licorice, with gum leaf notes adding lift. Tannin. We need to talk about tannin. It's so fine and yet so firm in this wine; it's like a wise old cope, perfect in its under-zealous application of the law. What we have here is a wine perfectly positioned to age magnificently.
96 points, Wine Companion (January 2019)
...precise, complex thoughtful and joyous...Intensely concentrated blackcurrants, sloes, liquorice, black plums, tobacco, chocolate, coffee, wood smoke, leather, mulberries, vanilla, pencil shavings, cedar, I could go on but I’m sure you have things to do today. This wine has everything going for it, complexity, mouthwatering acidity, ripe and well-structured tannins and an abundance of concentrated fruit characteristics, spices and only the merest hints of maturity sneaking in. Long after the wine has left my mouth, all of these flavours linger and off my brain goes again on a whimsical journey through flavours and other incredible wines that I have tasted over the years. At ten years old, it is still youthful with many years still to come...decant a bottle of this from your stash in the cellar and pop on a classic album, open a favourite book or talk with your friends about your favourite artists. Wine is not beautiful in isolation, but it is a very pleasant addition to all the other delightful things that exist in this world.
98 points, The Wine Front (May 2021)
Hand-picked and sorted to static fermenters, 4 days cold soak, daily delestage, wild-fermented, 14 days post-ferment maceration, matured in French barriques (40% new) for 15 months. Immaculate balance of blackcurrant fruit, oak and tannins. The fresh fruit flavours are protected by the low alcohol.
96 points, Wine Companion (March 2020)
The colour is deep, bright youthful purple/red. The bouquet is lovely bell-clear, perfectly ripe cassis cabernet fruit, the palate full-bodied and bright, vibrant and promising to age superbly. The tannins are gentle and fine-grained; the fruit does nearly all of the talking. A benchmark cabernet.
96 points, The Real Review (March 2020)
With 5/4% malbec/petit verdot. Fruit from Wilyabrup, Wallcliffe, Treeton and Yallingup. 14 months in oak (40% new). Scintillatingly pure and taut, this is elegant, supple cabernet at its finest. Garden mint and purple fruit dominates; the length of flavour an enduring ripple on a still lake. Brilliant stuff, even more so given the price and its ability to age gracefully.
96 points, Wine Companion (December 2020)
Trophy - Best Wine of Show
Trophy - Best West Australian Wine
Trophy - Best Red Table Wine
Trophy - Best West Australian Dry Red Table Wine
Trophy - Best Cabernet Sauvignon
Perth Royal Wine Awards 2021
Trophy - Best Cabernet Sauvignon Wine of Show
Gold Medal and 96 points - Class 25
Royal Adelaide Wine Show 2021
Gold Medal and 95 points - Class 40
Royal Queensland Wine Show 2021
Gold Medal - Class 13
Wine Show of Western Australia 2020
The term 'Classic' is entirely apt with the Clare's signature billow of dark fruit and spice, sluiced by a verdant lift of peppermint patty, drying across a bed of astringent tannins. These serve the purpose, though, corralling the flavours toward a signpost of poise and length. Bay leaf and thyme, too, This will age well.
92 points, Wine Companion (December 2017)
