Ahmed’s picks: 15 top Coonawarra reds to try
Balnaves, The Tally Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2008
96 £68-£71.95 (2008) Oz Wines, Highbury Vintners Imposing and very complex with classic Coonawarra aromas and flavours of dried herbs, black olive, tufa soil and cassis. With powerful ripe supporting tannins, it builds in the mouth, the long finish showcasing the region’s stony minerality and fresh porcini mushroom notes. Drink 2018-2030 Alc 14.5%
Majella, The Malleea 2010
96 £ 39.75 Aged in Oak, Alliance Wine Toasty oak is swiftly outpaced by this lithe flagship Cabernet-Shiraz’s confident, juicy blackberry and blackcurrant fruit. Dried sage, eucalyptus and limestone notes bring great nuance. Supple chocolatey tannins enhance the tremendously persistent length. Drink 2016-2030 Alc 14.5%
Majella, Cabernet Sauvignon 2012
95 £ 19.50-£ 24 Aged in Oak, Alliance Wine, Australian Wines Online, Hay Wines, Noble Green, Selfridges, Valhalla’s Goat A pure, hedonistic seam of cassis runs through this wine, keeping it tightly focused. Throaty tobacco and gravelly minerality bring complexity and great back-palate resonance. The ultra-fine tannins offer seamless support. Drink 2016-2025 Alc 14.5%
Parker Coonawarra Estate, First Growth 2012
95 £ 57.50 (2010) Hennings A tight-knit blackcurrant nose and palate with subtle earth, dark chocolate undertones, savoury tobacco, sweet rosemary and cedar lift. Lovely tension and focus, showing fine tannins and lovely length. 2016-2032 Alc 14%
Penfold’s, Bin 169 Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
95 £ 195 Harrods Very perfumed from start to finish with rosemary, mint, lavender and cedar lifting the elegant blackberry, boysenberry and mulberry fruit. A fine-grained plume of papery tannins suggests a long life ahead. Drink 2016-2030 Alc 14.5%
Redman Wines, The Redman 2004
95 £ 29.95-£ 35 Connollys, Field & Fawcett Screams Coonawarra! A seamless on-song blend of Cabernet, Merlot and Shiraz. Fine, elegant tannins, mint, linseed, boot polish and limestone notes mingle with juicy plums, red berries and cherries. Drink 2016-2020 Alc 14%
Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate, Messenger Cabernet Sauvignon 2010
95 £ 30 Treasury Wine Estates Complex, very slinky and succulent with mintinflected mulberry, cassis and red cherry fruit plus savoury notes of liquorice, roast chestnut and black olive. Long, fleshy, very sensual and complete wine. Drink 2016-2030 Alc 13.5%
Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate, Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2012
95 £ 16-£ 19.75 Harrods, Waitrose Medium-bodied with lovely line Coonawarra], which is not possible in some Cabernet-growing regions’. Calling it a ‘unique situation of a kind of maritime continentality’ (Coonawarra is some 100km inland), Bell describes how the perfectly timed Bonney upwelling – a cold coastal current that lasts for seven months, starting in November each year – induces cold nights ‘which ensure the last part of our ripening weather is not impacted by the heat extremes of other places’.
The proof is in the pudding. Jim Barry Wines grows Cabernet from the same clonal material on terra rossa in Coonawarra and Clare Valley. Peter Barry says Coonawarra’s cooler climate ‘results in a much longer ripening season, with Coonawarra and Clare fruit ripening three weeks apart, which in turn produces excellent fruit flavours and unique tannin structure’.
Barry’s comments would have surprised old-timers, given his vineyard is one of Coonawarra’s southernmost. Observing ‘weather conditions were a lot cooler and wetter than in the last 25 years’, thirdgeneration winemaker Bruce Redman of Redman Wines reports: ‘In recent years we have seen many Coonawarra myths debunked. My favourite, to which my father and grandfather subscribed, was that grapes from vines south of the V& A Lane [the dividing line between north and south Coonawarra] would not ripen!’ Contrasting the south’s ‘more