If you’ve been following either myself or Ant on twitter this week you’ll have seen how many people are lovers of this wine. I haven’t seen Ant all week, but I can hear him giggling with glee in anticipation of popping some corks this week. And rightly bloody so. As I said in an earlier post, Cabernet Sauvignon from Coonawarra has become a New World Classic!
But why?
Well first you’ve got to have a think about Cabernet Sauvignon as a grape. It can be a really tough bugger to get right. It buds (starts growing) quite late in the season and needs plenty of time on the vine. So you need a fairly long growing season. It’s also pretty thick-skinned so you need at least a bit of heat to ripen the grape fully. Too hot though and the wine will taste a bit jammy. Ok? Got that? Right…
So Coonawarra has a long hot growing season, but it’s got the southerly weather patterns coming up from Antarctica to cool it down enough. That’s why you get some of the best examples of Cabernet Sauvignon anywhere in the world. There are intense blackcurrant flavours, with the high acid and the high tannin making all ageing options available.
Now to be a real classic you need to have something different. In Coonawarra there’s a famous eucalyptus, even menthol, flavour to the wine. It’s what makes Cabernet Sauvignon from Coonawarra distinctive. That’s why it gets to call itself a genuinely classic wine of the world.
I really hope you all agree.
Cheers
Other posts in NWTW Week 14:
#NWTW Week 14: Cabernet Sauvignon, Coonawarra (Part One) (Includes Poll)
#NWTW Week 14: Cabernet Sauvignon, Coonawarra (Part Two)
#NWTW Week 14: It Helps If You Know Where Coonawarra Is…
