I’d never visited this prolific producer of great-value wines of both colours until last weekend and was not disappointed. Chester Osborn’s sprawling small industrial estate would never win a Best Kept Winery award but, surely more importantly, the vineyards are in great shape – lots of old vines, many just next door to the winery, with their yields and any chemical inputs having been steadily reduced over the last 15 years so that the fruit is truly intense and well balanced.
I’ve chosen this wine from many possibilities from the 33-strong range I tasted, partly to emphasise what a great vintage 2002 was in South Australia. Buy up stocks now because in general 2003 is not nearly as successful (see my Guide to recent Australian vintages). I also wanted to highlight how good Australian Cabernet can be in today’s climate when the spotlight is so firmly trained on Shiraz. In a sweltering Sydney last week I took part in a fascinating blind tasting comparison of Cabernets and Bordeaux blends from Margaret River, Coonawarra and Hawkes Bay, the prime regions for these styles in Australia and New Zealand. It was most revealing and I will be reporting on it in detail. But Clare Valley, McLaren Vale and to a certain extent Barossa Valley can all make succulent Cabernets too – as witness this offering.
This particular bottling is named after one of the original blocks on the d’Arenberg property which was retrellised from its former height of about 18 inches off the ground to the 26 inches or so that has since become standard, but was then known as High Trellis. Some of d'Arenberg's Cabernet vines are 60 years old but most of the fruit for this wine will presumably have been bought in from some of the hundred McLaren Vale growers from which d’Arenberg buy. It was fermented in the company’s old open-topped fermenters with oodles of flavour extracted from the deliberately submerged cap of skins and, I am assured by Chester Osborn, the whole lot foot-trodden “by people in waders”, as are all d’Arenberg reds before gentle basket pressing.
This 2002 is admirably complex for a wine that costs well under £10 or $14. You can drink it with pleasure any time over the next five or more years. See winesearcher.com for stockists in many different countries, notably US, UK and Australia. It has really very smart mainly-French oaking with fresh, dry-but-not- drying tannins on the finish and is much tighter and better balanced than the 2003 at the moment which starts sweet and easy but finishes very tough. The alcohol level of 14.5 per cent (which seems moderate in the current Australian wine climate) is well handled.
I’d nominate d’Arenberg in Australia, Bonny Doon in California and Flagstone in South Africa as three of a kind. Each enterprise offers a constantly expanding range of intriguingly named reds and whites at very fair prices which generally deliver not just good wine to drink (rather than ambitious wine to impress) but some entertainment too. Chester Osborn of d’Arenberg and Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon share long hair and an abstracted but creative manner (or was it just Chester’s hangover?). But Bruce Jack of Flagstone arguably needs a wig if he is truly to join this worthy triumvirate. If Charles Back of Fairview gets the hippie look first, the honour is his.