Cabernet sauvignon flourishes

At this time of year, many of us often look for reds with intensity in the flavours and some weight in the texture. There’s plenty of choice, including malbecs, shirazes, cabernet francs and merlots, but one of the more popular varieties is cabernet sauvignon. You’ll find it throughout the LCBO because it’s grown in many wine regions.

Today’s quartet of cabernets — from South Africa, California, Australia and Chile — represents only four New World regions. We could add Canada, Argentina, and New Zealand, before moving to Europe.

There, Bordeaux stands out as the “home” of cabernet sauvignon, and its presence in so many great wines earned it the title “King Cab.” But cabernet is the fourth most widely grown red wine variety throughout the whole of France. It’s also popular in Spain and Bulgaria, and in Italy it’s a key component of many Super-Tuscan blends.

Finally, it is one of the main grape varieties in China’s burgeoning wine industry.

So it’s grown just about everywhere grapes are cultivated, but it doesn’t necessarily do well in all these regions. Cabernet sauvignon needs a long growing season if the grapes are to fully ripen. If they don’t, the flavours can be green and weedy (generously called “bell pepper” notes), and while traces of greenness can be fine, too much is not. Some parts of Chile and California provide that long growing season every year. Others (like New Zealand and Ontario) don’t, and it’s important to look at the vintage when you’re buying cabernet from those regions. (Recent very good years in Ontario are 2007, 2010 and 2012.)

When cabernet does ripen, it over-delivers in just about every department. It’s a small, thick-skinned grape, so there’s a high ratio of skin to flesh. The skin contains flavours, colour and tannins, so cabernet produces plenty of those — so much, in fact, that winemakers have to try to control them. Because cabernet delivers so much structure and tannins, winemakers often blend in another variety to soften it.

That job frequently falls to Merlot, and so a classic blend is cabernet-merlot, with cabernet the major partner.

The tannins give cabernet sauvignon lasting power, and some can be cellared for decades, as their tannins drop away and the various components integrate. But most, like today’s four, are ready for drinking much earlier, although many have mediumterm keeping potential.

In fact, as these four are permanently in the LCBO, you could buy a bottle of one now, then one of each new vintage as it comes into the LCBO. For a total outlay of $60 to $100, you’ll have an interesting vertical of five vintages to taste in 2017.