Barossa shines beyond the shiraz

Barossa shiraz is such a mega-weight brand in the world of wine that the quality of the region’s cabernet sauvignon often gets overlooked.

But serious wine operators like Sam Clarke, the joint proprietor of Thorn-Clarke Wines, have never lost sight of just how good Barossa cabernet can be.

One of Thorn-Clarke’s best-known wines, the Shotfire Quartage, is a cabernet blend, a generously flavoured red crafted in the style that has made Barossan wines so popular.

The Quartage 2020 – a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and petit verdot – is one of four delicious red blends included in The Australian Wine Club’s mixed dozen deal of the week.

Thorn-Clarke was established by Sam’s parents, David and Cheryl Clarke (nee Thorn), in the late 1990s about a decade after they planted their first vines.

In those early years, they sold their fruit to wineries before taking the plunge and making their first wine in 1998.

Sam said his father, a geologist, took great care to map the soils of vineyards to ensure suitable varieties were planted at the right sites. “In every region, you do have different microclimates as well,” he said.

“There are actually pockets of very good cabernet in the Barossa.”

The family has found that some of the best cabernet grows in the hills in the northern part of the Barossa around St Kitts and in the cool climate of Eden Valley.

Fruit from two of Thorn-Clarke’s vineyards – the Milton Park vineyard in Eden Valley and the St Kitts vineyard – features in the 2020 Quartage.

When Thorn-Clarke was getting started, veteran Eden Valley winemaker Jim Irvine, who became known internationally for his merlot, acted as a consultant for the family and suggested they take cabernet seriously.

Wine critic Dave Brookes, who reviews for the Halliday Wine Companion, remembers the Quartage becoming a hit in “the geeky US wine forums in the early 2000s for its bright, fruit-forward lines and light impact on American wallets”.

Twenty years later, little has changed: the Quartage continues to represent outstanding value and reminds us that the Barossa is not just a shiraz powerhouse.