Wendouree Cabernet Malbec Vertical 2009 -2014

Wendouree Cabernet Malbec Clare Valley, South Australia

If Wendouree is the iron fist in a velvet glove, the Cabernet Malbec is where that contradiction is most beautifully resolved.

This is a blend with serious vineyard pedigree behind it — co-fermented from old, dry-grown plantings that in some vintages reach back to 1975, 1971 and even 1920. Vines like this don't get replanted; they get inherited. The result is a wine of structural complexity that no young vineyard could ever produce, year after year, regardless of how the season behaves.

In the glass it offers blackcurrant, mulberry, violet and graphite up front, layered with cedar, earth, tobacco leaf and a savoury, almost European edge that sets it apart from anything else on the Australian shelf. The palate is full-bodied yet restrained — cassis, dark plum and savoury spice wrapped in firm, beautifully integrated tannin — carrying through to a long, mineral finish that is unmistakably Wendouree: dense yet poised, demanding yet generous, built to reward patience rather than instant gratification.

Vibrant and lively in acidity one moment, tight and bony in classic old-school structure the next, with notes of ironstone, rosehip and redcurrant jelly running through an assertive finish of real length. It is a wine that asks something of the drinker. It also gives back considerably more than it asks.

This is one of the most acclaimed wines in an already acclaimed range — frequently the highest-scoring release in any given Wendouree vintage, and a wine critics return to year after year with genuine excitement rather than professional obligation. Allocations are tiny. The mailing list is famously closed to all but a handwritten letter. If you have this in stock, you have something that very few retailers in the country can say they hold.