Winemaker Notes
This Cabernet Sauvignon impresses with impenetrable violet hues, it has intense aromas displaying red berry fruits coupled with hints of sweet blackberry jam and a touch of vanillin oak. Subtle fine tannins marry perfectly with the intensely concentrated palate of ripe blackberries, black currant, and well-integrated oak.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A big and rich cabernet with currant and light jam character. Some pine needles. Full and layered with round and chewy tannins and a flavorful finish. Drinkable now, but some age will soften it.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Berton Vineyard Metal Label Cabernet Sauvignon is well-built and lasting on the palate. TASTING NOTES: This wine shines with aromas and flavors of black fruit, oak, and rustic spices. Enjoy it with Coq au Vin. (Tasted: November 1, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
Distinguished by a thin, subterranean band of crumbled, red clay loam, Coonawarra is a fairly flat, otherwise unobtrusive region with a cool Mediterranean climate, actually not dissimilar to Bordeaux.
In Coonawarra, this unique layer of red clay is called, "terra rossa" and gets its color from iron oxide. The terra rossa soil overlies soft, penetrable limestone, in a continuous area that is part of the Limestone Coast zone of South Australia. This uncommon layering of soils creates a substrate that is both well draining and at the same time, offers good water retention to support vine roots through dry summers.
Not surprisingly, Coonawara experiences great success with the Bordeaux varieties, namely Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, but also Shiraz. However Cabernet reigns superior and accounts for half of the Coonawarra harvest each year. Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon develops powerful, yet polished tannins, ripe, red berry fruit and often sweet herb or dried mint qualities. The region has an increased focus on the individual expressions of single vineyards.