Winemaker Notes
The rich dark palate is filled with blackberry and black olive. Classic supple, powdery tannins and balanced acidity, frame the dense core of fruit creating a beautifully balanced wine. Refined French oak supports the pristine fruit ensuring the wine finishes with poise, balance and seamless length.
A wine of style and stature, and a perennial favorite in auction circles, the 'Black Label' is one of Australia's most collectable wines. It consistently delivers the potential for medium to long-term cellaring. The average vineyard age for Wynns 'Black Label' is over 35 years.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Medium-bodied with lovely line and length, this sophisticated Coonawarra stalwart shows very persistent and juicy, perfumed cassis fruit, savoury black olive and cedar oak. Polished to perfection and stunning value.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
A picture of Coonawarra perfection, the expansive 2012 Wynns Cabernet Sauvignon is as multidimensional as a cab can get. While one get too glib about this wine by simply calling it elegant, I am more inclined to label this one as intricate and refined. Perfect with grilled chicken as well as a well-marbled charred on the outside ribeye of beef. Dark ruby in color; alluring aromas of ripe red and blue fruits with an accent of flowers, excellent depth and persistence; medium bodied with supple textures and sweet tannins; delicious juicy berries in the flavors; long finish and quite lush in the aftertaste. (Tasted: February 12, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Spectator
Grippy tannins frame a bright beam of raspberry and spice flavors as this cuts through to a long and zippy finish. Shows appealing clarity. Best from 2016 through 2020.
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.