TNs: The day I canned 2010 Margaux…tasting of 2010 Cabernets

Or perhaps the title of this post should be “oeuf sur mon visage”.

I was invited by the Grape and Wine Council and Coonawarra vignerons to help moderate a benchmark tasting of 2010 Cabernets including the venerable 2010 Margaux. How could I say no? Perhaps I could have, if I properly considered that my audience would be 25 winemakers, some of whom had wines in the line up and each one had great technical knowledge.
The wines were served blind and we were to score them out of 20 as they do in Australian wine shows and assign Gold, Silver or Bronze medals to each wine. I was one of three on the panel, flanked by two experienced show judges, Pete Bissell who is a past Winemaker of the Year and Greg Tilbrook who has made wine in both Coonawarra and Margaret River. So Pete and Greg provided the technical commentary and I was the wild card style police!

And so to the wines, each served blind and only revealed after we had bestowed our scores which I have listed. The Coonawarra wines had all scored Golds at the recent Limestone Coast wine show.

2010 Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon
Good berry nose with a savoury edge, slightly briary tannins. Quite a ripe style with fine palate and good length. Slightly meaty edge. Silver.

2010 Brands One Seven One Cabernet Sauvignon (Coonawarra)
Bright fruits in redder spectrum, with violet edge. Abundant but fine tannins give the wine a long and reverberating finish. Silver. Note that when revelaed dvised that this wine was awarded best Cabernet trophy at the Limestone Coast Wine Show.

2010 Cullen Diana Madelaine (Margaret River)
Finer, less ripe style with good detail. Soft, feminine style that gets a bit lost in a line up like this, but it is already drinking well. Bronze.

2010 Te Mata Coleraine (Hawkes Bay, NZ)
Big punchy nose, lots of lift. Ripe style with some spice elements with good palate length on good tannin base. Surprisingly ripe. Silver.
2010 Chateau Margaux
Big mocha and smokey oak noted dominate the wine, sitting above the dense, chewy black fruits. Strong tannins. Very youthful. Bronze from me.

2010 Woodlands ‘Heather John CS (Margaret River)
Slightly seaweedy aromatics . Bright fruits, with higher acid palate, although has good balance and intensity. Silver.

2010 Majella Cabernet Sauvignon (Coonawarra)
Glossy, dense appearance. Lovely cassis fruits, engaging perfumed aromatics with lovely oak base. Ripe, powerful style. Gold.

2010 Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon
Lovely berry fruit aroma, with some oak influence on the palate. Some clovey, spicy overtones, but nice fine tannins on the palate. Silver.

2010 Ch Leoville-Barton
Bright purple. Less fruit character, with more savoury inflections. Some brett detracts but nice long and fine palate. Silver. (Most judges marked it down to No award due to brett)
2010 Domaine de Chevalier (Pessac-Leognan)
Chocoberry nose. Multifaceted aroma with nice balance of primary and savoury elements. Beautiful glossy, layered palate with poise and power. Gold.

2010 Wynns Messenger CS (Coonawarra)
Simpler berry fruits with minty notes. Good richness on palate with tannins a bit blocky at this stage. Overall a strong wine with good potential. Silver/Gold.

2010 Sassicaia
Almost over ripe and savoury, with garrigue notes. Palate diffuse and lacking definition. Strong tobacco notes. Low Bronze.

And so concluded a most fascinating benchmark tasting, which illustrated the vagaries of blind tasting and thus show judging, but also amply demonstrated that our top Cabernets can compete with the best in the world. At least my scores gave the audience a few chuckles.

Cheers,
Kent

Nice notes, Kent.

I agree 100% on the Domaine de Chevalier. It is one of my favorites from the 2010 vintage. I love the gravelly component of the wine and it’s balance. Quite a tasting that you attended!

Thanks,
Ed

Kent, neat notes, thx! That Majella sounds like a great wine.

Also, I can’t find Wynns stateside anymore so quick question on the Messenger Cab - is it a newer tier in between the reg. “Black Label” and the John Riddoch? TIA.

Hi Kent,

The last few vintages of Cullen for some reason have failed to impress. Its ‘too subtle’ a wine for my palate. Many critis have lauded it but I just don’t get it. I will be tasting the latest vintage again on Monday. Lets see. My last purchase of Cullen was 2004.

OTOH, Majella which is much cheaper does strike a chord. I had the 2001 and 2004 recent and both looked very good. Not tasted the 2010 but look forward to it.

We tasted the 2010 Leoville Barton few months ago as part of the GastroVins function where we compared the 2009 and 2010 Bordeaux vintages. All were tasted blind and on my score sheet the 2010 Leoville Barton came tops. In the consensus score sheet the 2010 LLC came tops followed by 2010 L Barton. There was no Bretty issues with any wines.

This thread: Gold

I haven’t tasted the Margaux but the 10 Domaine de Chevalier is a real winner. Great writeup here.

Thanks all for the input, seems like I need to grab the '10. I grabbed some '09 Domaine de Chevalier recently and the '10 was sitting right in front of me. I was on an '09 grab that weekend.

I fine Cullen the biggest puzzler in the top tier of the Langton’s classification. I’m frequently dissapointed by them, and even at their best, I’ve never had one that astounded me.

The last few vintages of Cullen for some reason have failed to impress. Its ‘too subtle’ a wine for my palate. Many critis have lauded it but I just don’t get it. I will be tasting the latest vintage again on Monday. Lets see. My last purchase of Cullen was 2004.

OTOH, Majella which is much cheaper does strike a chord. I had the 2001 and 2004 recent and both looked very good. Not tasted the 2010 but look forward to it.

I’m pleased Cullen is making a more subtle style wine, I find it is more suitable to my palette. I’ve had the 2010 a couple times now and it’s a really elegant wine. It does easily get lost in a lineup of other cabs as Kent mentioned but it does have good concentration and depth and works very well with food. On the other hand I found the 2010 Majella Cabernet was more in the stewed fruit spectrum and too overdone for mine. Granted I’ve only had the 2010 Majella at the 2013 Coonawarra road show but it had already garnered a good amount of press and I was fairly disappointed.

Kirk, I agree about the 2010 Brands One Seven One. Here’s my note from last year.

Totally eclipsed the 2009. Very fine and balanced. Excellent length. A lovely wine.

I’ve had the 2010 Moss Woods a couple times in the past few months as well and I was quite impressed by it, it’s drinking very well now. If you thought the Messenger has blocky tannins be glad the Riddoch wasn’t being poured! I’m pleased you enjoyed the Woodlands, they’re fantastic year after year and I always lay a few down. Pity y’all didn’t have a 2010 Cloudburst Cabernet Sauvignon, I’d be interested to see how you’d rate it.

Alex Stewart wrote:
I can’t find Wynns stateside anymore so quick question on the Messenger Cab - is it a newer tier in between the reg. “Black Label” and the John Riddoch? TIA.

That’s right Alex. Here in Australia you can find it for ~$45-65 retail. From the Wynn’s website.

The 2010 Messenger is our second release from this vineyard, planted in 1985. This dry-grown block has deeper terra rossa soils which produce great wines in warmer seasons, and it is fitting to acknowledge this quality with an individual label. The warm and even 2010 vintage was ideally suited for this vineyard, on the southern end of the terra rossa strip, providing the perfect showcase for this elegant, fine wine.

Thanks for the comments guys.
Sanjay,
Re the LB - I had a bottle the weekend prior to the event to tune my palate and did not really detect any brett, but then again I was not looking for it. All of the winemakers were over it like a cheap suit. Yes it was there, but it was quite subtle and not the bandaidy type. However I have a few more bottles of this wine and am concerned about their future.

Andrew,
the Majella Wines are generally quite robust, with a good base of oak. I was very impressed with this one. The oak treatment though means that they are not to everyone’s taste.
Vanya Cullen seems to be following her own vision, and it is a nit of an outlier, but there is room for all styles. I like the wines and have the Cabs back to 1996. I was a bit disappointed with the 2007 last year though from a very fine vintage.
I had a bottle of the 2010 Moss wood with dinner on Saturday night with the Leoville Barton and enjoyed slowly with a meal I was surprised at the oak influence in the wine. I was a bit disappointed at the time but strangely did not recognise the wine in the tasting line up. I do love Moss wood cab sauv, but have been hearing whispers that the wines post 2006 or so have not been up to the usual high standards. I buy a dozen or two every year and intend to drink them with at least a decade to 15 yrs on them, so it will be interesting to see.

Alex,
The Messenger does fit between the Riddoch and Black Label and it is part of a range from individual vineyard sites. I suspect production on these is quite small with a focus for them on cellar door and on premise distribution.

Thanks for the notes Kent. I wonder if Chateau Margaux will adorn their 2010 wine with a sticker advertising a Bronze medal from Kent Comley?

Kent, thanks for the response. Your comments regarding the Majella are pretty spot on. Obviously I’m stretching my memory a bit here but I suspect if the wine had more acidity it would have been more amenable to my palette. I also suspect this is why I prefer the Moss Wood, even with the oak the brightness and acidity of the wine while young balance it out more to my palette. I don’t think it’s quite in the “Ripe, powerful style” that the Majella displays.

I do love Moss wood cab sauv, but have been hearing whispers that the wines post 2006 or so have not been up to the usual high standards.

I’ve heard the same. I don’t have the historical expertise in Moss Wood but it seems this recent opinion is quite prevalent. A mate of mine ITB with a lot of experience with their wines reckons the newer offerings show well on release, close up, and then emerge on the other side muddled and disappointing. As said, a mate’s opinion, not my own, but I trust his palette and access to Moss Woods offerings. Any guesses as to why? To my knowledge they’ve had the same owners since Bill left in 85 and they haven’t made any drastic changes since 06.

Actually, this might be indicative of the change…

After 21 years with the company, Ian Bell resigned in 2006 and returned home to his Yallingup Vineyard to further his fortunes with his Glenmore wines. He was replaced as Senior Wine Maker by Josh Bahen, who commenced work at Moss Wood in 2002 as Assistant Winemaker, having completed his Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Oenology) from Adelaide University.

source: http://www.mosswood.com.au/home/explore/history

FWIW, I just tasted the 2012 Cullen Cabernet. Its much better than the 2011 that I tasted last year. The 2012 has got fruit intensity and good tannins. But its not mind blowing. Doubtful whether I will spend $100 or thereabouts on this wine.

Perhaps they will just quote my review on their website?

Maybe not but I can see the Te Mata website: “Better than 2010 Margaux” (K Comley). That’s a more likely endorsement than “I can’t finish a glass” (Mikey D), I reckon.

Exchanged notes regarding Cullen 2012 with another person who also tasted it. He convinced me that I should try it on its own (the tasting I attended was a massive show of all the distributor’s wines) liesurely with a meal to appreciate it better.

So I will buy a few to try.

I think that’s a smarter way to approach the DM Sanjay. All too often it doesn’t show well at large tastings as it doesn’t have the oak or extraction of most Aussie cabernet.