Wine and Spirit

Cabernet sauvignon is planted just about everywhere, and sits next to its white counterpart, chardonnay, on the throne of the modern wine grape world.

It produces some of the world's longest-lived reds.

Bordeaux is its heartland, but upstarts in Napa Valley (California), Tuscany, and South Australia are staking a claim.

As a point of reference, cabernet sauvignon is the offspring of sauvignon blanc and cabernet franc.

In general, cabernet sauvignon is medium to full in body, and has blackcurrant fruit and sometimes a green bell pepper character, plus leather and earth in Bordeaux and riper, sweeter fruit and heavy oak in the New World.

Through cabernet sauvignon we can clearly see a reflection of origin, vintage, and especially, winemaking techniques, most notably those that increase concentration, alcohol, and oak influence.

Just as chardonnay loses its identity through heavy-handed winemaking, so too does cabernet sauvignon.

The higher the alcohol, more concentrated the wine, and more lavishly oaked it is, the harder it is to tell where the wine is from, let alone what grape has been used.

In Tuscany, for example, cabernet sauvignon is blended with the more delicate sangiovese, which is quite easily overwhelmed by it.

Sangiovese does make a more delicate wine with paler colour than cabernet sauvignon, and therefore is unjustly written off as 'light and pale'.

By adding cabernet sauvignon, producers have an easier time selling the wine in the current marketplace.

The patriarch of Bordeaux, even though it is out planted by merlot there, cabernet sauvignon dominates the blended reds of the Médoc on the left bank, as well as the Graves south of the city of Bordeaux.

In Pauillac, the wines have a characteristic pencil-shaving/graphite note and very fine tannins.

In Graves, the wines tend to have a dusty, tarry quality.

Cabernet sauvignon has been cultivated in the northern part of Italy for centuries, especially in the Veneto, predating the first plantings in Bordeaux.

Napa Valley and South Australia are other important areas of productions.

Premium South Australia cabernet sauvignons are the deepest, blackest, chewiest, ripest, and most powerful in the world.

While impressive, this kind of power only goes far at the dinner table as these wines tend to overwhelm and tire the palate rather than refreshing it. They also overwhelm the food.

Californian winemakers tend to follow their Australian counterparts.

Cabernet sauvignon is widely planted in South America.

In Chile, the wines are reliable, often elegant.

In Argentina, they represent excellent value and range from a pure, unoaked varietal expression to concentrated, lavishly oaky styles.

A new style of fruit-forward but unoaked cabernet sauvignon is cropping up in California and Australia in the inexpensive, everyday-drinking price range.

Many of them are candied like a zinfandel and have little varietal character or originality.

- blackcurrant

- green bell pepper

- violet

- mint

- leather

- earth

- vanillin