Cabernet Sauvignon

Few wineries have been to the brink and back like Evans and Tate have. Their story starts just over forty years ago when, in 1974, two mates John Evans and John Tate, and their wives Jan and Toni, find the perfect site to build their dream vineyard on the banks of the Wilyabrup River in the Margaret River region of WA. In 1975 they planted out their first vineyard, naming it Redbrook, and set about creating some of the bestselling wines that WA has to offer, in fact thirty y

I’m often asked what the best value wine is, and it often has me stumped. It’s the idea of value that gets me, for example I hardly ever go past $15 for an everyday wine. These are wines that may have an RRP of $24-$29, wines that are 95 points but have a real world price point of $15 -$20. I go to around $30-$50 for something that I want to put away, I can find great value in different labels at that price point as you start to gain wines with more complexity in that price b

Back in 2009 the lads at Winefront nominated the 2007 Yalumba Scribbler Cabernet Shiraz as their #1 in the Top 100 under $20 in the 09/10 Big Red Wine Book. By the time that Gourmet Traveller Wine had decided to jump in and give the 07 Scribbler a pretty solid 94 points, I’d already bought a few bottles and put them away in the cool dark lonely spot. Last week I finally cracked the cap of a couple of the last few bottles that I had, and the wine had aged perfectly. Deep dark

I’m pretty lucky with the group that sit around the tasting table with me, the range of life experiences, skills and trades are so different, it gives us all different points of view on life let alone what we are tasting on the day. We have different things we look for in a wine/beer/spirit and have different price points that we won’t go past. I find myself running things past them when I want more feedback, especially when I think there is something that doesn’t quiet sit

A few weeks ago, just as I was packing our camper trailer to head off for the long weekend, I received a call from Gavin Berry, Winemaker/Owner of West Cape Howe Wines in Western Australia’s Great Southern region. He was in town and wanted to swing past to show his new vintages of his fantastic wines. It was stinking hot in the shed, I was covered in sweat, had just realised I had mistakenly rewired the trailer with five core instead of seven core, leading to me having to rew

A few weeks ago, while out for lunch with a mate, I snuck into a wine tasting for Yalumba’s Rare and Fine wines, and learnt two things. The first was that Yalumba’s 2008 The Cigar Cabernet Sauvignon is going to be winning a few wine medals this year, and the second was that it’s not a good idea to take somebody else’s glass when you’re not even supposed to be there in the first place....... The 2006 Yalumba The Cigar made its mark on the Australian wine scene when it won th

I was looking at the Port Douglas Carnivale website the other day and noticed that it mentioned they will feature the first ever North Queensland release of the Penfolds Bin 389 and Bin 407 wines. This will be Queensland’s first public release of the “baby Grange” outside of Brisbane. This would be an awesome way of trying these wines along with several others all matched to fine food…..I’d book a ticket now, along with a detox course to follow…. Penfolds are doing some inte