Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The fruit for Jim Barry-s 2008 Cover Drive Cabernet Sauvignon comes from 50% Clare Valley and 50% Coonawarra. Deep garnet-purple colored, it gives pronounced aromas of eucalyptus, warm blackberry and crushed blueberries with some cinnamon and cloves plus a whiff of cedar. Medium to high acid and a medium to high level of finely grained tannins support the ample flesh in the mid palate of this full bodied style. The finish is long and minty. Approachable now, it should be best 2011 to 2018.
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Wine Enthusiast
Representing a good value in top-flight Cabernet, Jim Batty's 2008 The Cover Drive features subtle hints of cinnamon, coffee and vanilla layered over blueberry and plum fruit. It's on the full-bodied side, with plush, velvety tannins balanced by crisp acids. Drink now-2018. Editors' Choice.
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.