Chateau Claret: Australasia’s Top 50 Cabernet blends
Those cunning French know a thing or two about wine. While they’re busy flogging off pinot noir (OK, Burgundy) for the highest prices the world is prepared to buy for wine, their favourite tipple is actually claret. According to wine-searcher.com, Bordeaux labels make up four of the top five most popular wine searches in France (the fifth is champagne).
And why wouldn’t they? Pinot noir might be seen as the wine industry’s holy grail but Bordeaux blends offer much better value thanks partly to their sheer volume of production. The home of sainted labels such as Lafite, Latour, Haut-Brion and Margaux – to name just a few – also produces wines revered for their longevity and complexity.
Claret – the English name for wines produced in the Bordeaux – is principally the product of cabernet sauvignon and merlot. The combination of the two yields a mild, subtle wine whose vibrant colour emulates fresh blood. Other varieties such as cabernet franc, malbec, petit verdot and carmenere can also make cameo appearances to help bolster the blend’s depth.
Australasian wine shows have varying attitudes to this aristocratic blend. While some still classify exhibitors under this class as “Bordeaux blends”, some adopt the more prosaic “Cabernet blends” label or simply just throw blended entries in with varietal cabernet sauvignon or even just “red blends”.
Trying to identify wines under this appellation can therefore sometimes be a bit more art than science, especially when it comes to separating a cabernet-dominant blend from a shiraz-based one. The most ambiguous of these is, of course, cabernet shiraz which we treat separately anyway (see our list published on 21st January).
Winemakers submitted more than 1200 cabernet blends to Australian and NZ wine shows last year. Consistent with their ambivalent classification, these wines don’t capture show judges’ hearts in quite the same way as, say, pinot noir. Last year clarets attracted not just a lower average score than pinot noir but they attracted proportionately fewer gold medals than either pinot noir or the average of all wines shown at the NZ and Australian wine shows.
Wines hailing from Western Australia dominated our list of the Top 50. Perhaps this is to be expected given the similarities between the maritime climates of Margaret River and Bordeaux. The same could also be true in NZ where Waiheke Island has produced some magnificent examples.
Good clarets/cabernet blends/Bordeaux blends – call them what you will – might get a hard time from wine show judges but they’re hard not to like. Here’s our list of the Top 50 in Australasia:
| 1 | Miles From Nowhere Cabernet Merlot 2015 |
| 2 | Deep Woods Estate Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 3 | Amelia Park Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 4 | Mandoon Estate Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 5 | Lake Breeze Wines Arthur?s Reserve 2013 |
| 6 | Mandoon Estate Cabernet Merlot 2015 |
| 7 | Deep Woods Estate “Hillside” Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 8 | Nugan Estate Cookoothama Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 9 | Brookland Valley Estate Cabernet Merlot 2013 |
| 10 | Brookland Valley Estate Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 11 | Watershed Premium Wines Senses Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 12 | Windance Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 13 | Blue Pyrenees Estate Red 2013 |
| 14 | Sandalford Wines Margaret River Range Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 15 | Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2015 |
| 16 | Redman Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 17 | Serafino BDX 2015 |
| 18 | Davis Premium Vineyards Stonefields ‘Arbitage’ Cabernet Merlot Shiraz 2013 |
| 19 | Te Awa Single Estate Gimblett Gravels Hawkes Bay Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 |
| 20 | Petersons of Mudgee Jamie’s Pick Cabernet Shiraz 2013 |
| 21 | Rusty Bike Wines Sa The Tandem Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 |
| 22 | Beach House Cabernet Malbec 2014 |
| 23 | Grant Burge 5th Generation Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 23 | Saint Clair Premium Gimblett Gravels Cabernet Merlot 2015 |
| 25 | Lindemans Coonawarra Pyrus Red 2013 |
| 26 | Arimia Cabernet Merlot Petit Verdot 2013 |
| 26 | Clairault Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2015 |
| 26 | Harvey River Estate Pty Ltd Fishbone Premium Black Label 2015 |
| 29 | Amberley Secret Lane Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 30 | Church Road Merlot Cabernet Malbec 2014 |
| 31 | Lindemans Coonawarra Pyrus Red 2014 |
| 32 | Bleasdale Vineyards Frank Potts 2015 |
| 33 | Credaro Family Estate Kinship Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 34 | Houghton C.W. Ferguson Cabernet Malbec 2013 |
| 35 | Davis Premium Vineyards Stonefields ‘Arbitage’ Cabernet Merlot Shiraz 2012 |
| 36 | Evans & Tate Metricup Road Cabernet Merlot 2013 |
| 37 | Rosily Vineyard The Cartographer 2014 |
| 38 | Flying Fish Cove Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 39 | Brookland Valley Verse 1 Cabernet Merlot 2014 |
| 40 | Villa Maria Cellar Selection Hawkes Bay Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 |
| 41 | Yeringberg Cabernet blend 2014 |
| 42 | Lake Breeze Wines Arthur?s Reserve 2014 |
| 43 | Sacred Hill Helmsman 2014 |
| 44 | Graham Stevens Wines Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot 2015 |
| 45 | Abbey Cellars Testament Cabernet Merlot 2013 |
| 46 | Lake Breeze Wines Arthur?s Reserve 2012 |
| 47 | Willow Bridge Dragonfly Cabernet Merlot 2015 |
| 48 | Esk Valley Winemakers Reserve Gimblett Gravels Hawkes Bay Merlot Malbec Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 |
| 49 | EVOI Wines EVOI “The Satyr” 2013 |
| 50 | Flametree Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2014 |