Cape Mentelle International Cabernet Tasting – The Class of 2011

It may be a bit of a competition, as much as they say it isn’t, but the annual Cape Mentelle International Cabernet Tasting is certainly one of the great events on the Australian wine calendar and I was lucky to once again attend and speak on the wines in November last year. 

First staged by Cape Mentelle founder David Hohnen in 1982, the 2014 edition of the tasting was held at the winery in Margaret River, with several long tables carrying thousands of glasses running the length of an immaculate barrel room in a glinting salute to their contents – cabernet! 

The exercise is simple enough; take a single vintage (in this case 2011) and assemble 20 great examples from across the cabernet-growing world, taste them blind and see what emerges triumphant. It’s not all about the competition, and opinions are in many instances splayed. But the real exercise is benchmarking Margaret River, as they form the lion’s share of the contenders.

The attention to detail in the Margaret River vineyards, combined with a now infamously unbroken run of good vintages starting with 2007, means that there is tremendous consistency in the quality of grapes coming from the best vineyards. Much has been done to secure the right tannin quality on the vine, leaving winemakers to simply groom them in the winery.

Oak and other additions in the winery have simultaneously become less obvious among the best Margaret River producers as the quality of fruit has increased, revealing a stronger expression of terroir and allowing greater sub-regional expression to come to the fore.

Placed in the international context of this tasting, it is interesting to see the trend of Margaret River becoming more pared back, more expressive of vineyard and less reliant on artifact – more definitive. The three wines from the USA, one Italian and some of the Bordeaux wines looked at times constructed, overly ripe, overly made and burdened with false ambitions of greatness by comparison.

The other striking conclusion was to confirm just how profoundly problematic the 2011 vintage proved for most other cabernet regions in Australia. On the back of this and all my other tastings, I’d say that, of all Australian red wine styles, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet blends bear the scars of a difficult vintage most deeply, outside of Margaret River, in vintage 2011. As Australia’s other great cabernet-growing region of note, Coonawarra was considered too poor to even field a candidate in this tasting of 2011 vintage wines.

You may argue the Margaret River selection was more extensive and weighted unfairly in the region’s favor. I would certainly argue that a number of selections from other Australian regions (Hentley Farm, Domaine A and Mount Mary in particular) had little to add in terms of completing a national picture, but then pickings were indeed slim. But the Bordeaux wines formed a powerful armada on paper and in the glass, and the best Margaret River wines sailed squarely by their side, albeit propelled by significantly better vintage conditions. Photos courtesy of David Dare Parker.

Contributing Editor Nick Stock is a renowned Australian wine writer, author, presenter and filmmaker who reports on his worldwide wine tasting experiences for JamesSuckling.com.