One Saturday afternoon in late July about 25 of us got together and ripped the tops off nine different cabernet based wines from the 2016 vintage, with the wines identities known, but not the order in which they came out. 2016 was a great vintage both here in Margaret River and also in Bordeaux so this had the makings of a great tasting. Included in the line up were three of Margaret Rivers best wines, plus the Jimmy Watson winning Xanadu, some mid priced Bordeaux (to test the theory that you can buy down the ‘ladder’ in great vintages) plus two Aussie classics in the Mt Mary ‘Quintet’ and Coonawarra’s Bowen Estate. All these wines would have tasted pretty superb if they were on your table accompanying Wednesday nights lasagna but here the finite details & imperfections have nowhere to hide when one of their peers is appearing 12 minutes later. So the context makes it a great way to pick a few producers that you like best, find out your own personal preferences and subsequently make the decision on which wines (if any) to cellar. Surprisingly enough the last three times we’d done a tasting like this the Bordeaux wines had more or less come out top, thought often (not always) they were priced well above their MR counterparts.
So, big ideas aside and on to this tasting, I pulled the nine wines order out of a hat & had enough decanters on hand to give each bottle a 60 minute decant. Lalande Borie, the third wine from Ducru Beaucaillou in St Julien was the first wine poured and it received the least amount of votes. Someone remarked it was a bit over-oaked & that seemed fair though I suspect it will integrate nicely in time. Adding to that, it was reasonably light weight and lacked fruit but interestingly enough both myself and my wife enjoyed it, perhaps more use to that particular style. This wine was followed by the Moss Wood, a wine I tasted from barrel and thought was borderline spectacular at the time. I was quite busy hosting and only snuck a quick mouthful, seduced by the fruit but a bit surprised by the lack of weight and tannin. Perhaps my expectation clouded things as this polled quite well but all things considered (and I’m probably wrong though) I suspect it might drink well a bit younger than both the 14 and 15. Following this was the new big gun from Woodlands, who frustratingly change the name of their top wine each year and I’m not too sure about using the name ‘Clementine Eloise’ when the ‘Clementine’ is already quite a new stand alone wine in the Woodlands range. Nevertheless, when it came to what was in the glass this was wine of the night, absolutely brained them in the votes and got the full three from me as well. This is a superbly proportioned wine that had so much cabernet perfume and classic claret flavours. I’ve long held on to a personal preference, for mine this is the pinnacle of Wilyabrup with more weight than Cullen, a bit more precision and detail than Vasse & more expressive and full of far more raw beauty & ethereal flavours than Moss Wood. The best wines of the world are opulent, resplendent in their combination of elegance and power; a hair out of line in any direction and you can begin to find faults of course but I’m a true believer that you can say more if what it is you have to say is worth listening to (or tasting in this case) & this wine fits that bill. All that considered, I’ve often questioned my own Woodlands bias but on the night the quality was quite clear & the admiration of this wine was well and truly widespread.
Wine number four was another from Margaret River (the hat had its own ideas about mixing up the order), the Jimmy Watson winning Xanadu cabernet. This was impeccable for the price ($35 ish), and had a bit more fruit than the quite tight but equally impressive & age-worthy 2015. You know, I didn’t mind the 15’s in general – I didn’t buy a lot mind you, but they were a bit like 2014 Bordeaux (or even 2009 Coonawarra) in that they were restrained, proper wines without the opulence and fruit of the bigger, riper vintages; hardly under ripe but just lacking a bit of power or oomph. Wines to come back to perhaps, rather than revel in now. Back to the Xanadu, this didn’t poll amazingly well & was a fraction off the pace of the other three from Margs – I thought the acidity was just slightly angular/off putting – but most people commented that they enjoyed it and I suspect it’ll evolve nicely from here. Following this was a very powerful Chateau Meyney, an unclassified but well situated estate in St Estephe which displayed a massive amount of tannin and firmness and probably could have done with another hour or two in the decanter. I had it as my second favourite (again, quite use to the style perhaps) but the majority of the crowd did not enjoy it, picked it as a French wine and scored it very poorly on their note sheets. Feedback noted(!), she won’t be in the lineup next year. Wine number six was the Bowen Estate from Coonawarra & peoples reaction to this was quite fascinating. There was a group outside that were convinced it was the Mt Mary, whilst inside a few thought it was pretty ripe and words like ‘redskins’ were thrown around. Either way, both groups loved the wine and the conclusion was reached that Coonawarra at this price point ($30 odd) really should be a go-to wine if you want to drink cabernet more often than not. The great thing about blind tasting is that the only thing that counts is what’s in the glass, and despite being the cheapest wine on the night and presenting to a room full of proud West Australians, it came second in the votes.
Leading the last three wines was the Mount Mary and this polled strongly, with roughly half the crowd sneaking it a singular vote. This was a wine of real character & finesse that was nowhere near as shy as I’ve sometimes encountered. Tastings like this hardly do it justice and it would have been lovely instead to sit down for a meal and share a whole bottle, watching it slowly evolve over time. While no-one absolutely adored the Le Parde Haut Bailly, (second wine of Haut Bailly in Pessac Leognan) it was probably the Bordeaux the crowd enjoyed the most. It was a bit more easy-going/early drinking than the first two, with less tannins and obvious oak but the fruit was similarly restrained & savoury.
The final wine, the 2016 Cape Mentelle cabernet was a wonderful example of the style & snuck plenty of votes even though many had probably already made up their mind and had to adjust their preferences. This is a wine I think continues to sneak under the radar as they make a great wine here for a more than reasonable price given what is in the bottle. Personally, I find it refreshing that their isn’t a stack of different top end Cape Mentelle Cabernets along the lines of what neighbours Voyager and Xanadu are doing with all these different plots and seemingly every year changing names and labels to cater to the short-attention-span crowd or sure up some more room in the Wine Companion. Instead, Cape Mentelle just make a bloody good wine year in year out for those in the know, which makes sense when you have a treasure trove of old vines and exemplary wine making history to draw on, leaving the flashy, erratic marketing to others.
The night of course descended after that as people voted (three votes to their favourite, two to their second favourite and one to their third) & we had the big reveal of the wines identities with some ooh’s (and possibly even some ahh’s). Following that we all got stuck into some Noble One and Chateau Coutet to go with the cheese (and later into some Gembrook Pinot, Grampians Shiraz & NZ merlot – as you do).
The votes on the night were:
Woodlands ‘Clementine Eloise’ 38 votes
Bowen Estate 29
Moss Wood and Mt Mary ‘Quintet’ 17
Cape Mentelle 14
Xanadu 8
Chateau Meyney 5
Le Parde Haut Bailly 3
Chateau Lalande Borie 2
The Wine Accomplice 