One of the Great Bottles: Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 1986

Still in its prime at 40 years old, Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Limited Release Cabernet Sauvignon 1986, the fourth vintage

I took a bottle of Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Limited Release Cabernet Sauvignon out of the rack with a couple of other wines a few weeks ago, thinking that at 30 years old (the bottles not me) it was a good time to open them. If nothing else, I really couldn’t expect the corks to hold out any longer – if indeed they had held out and were not letting too much air in or, worse, letting wine seep out.

On the cellar tag, I had written, long ago, 1996. It was only when I came to open the bottle last week to drink with new season’s High Peak lamb (from Mettrick’s Butchers – highly recommended) that I was brought up short. Both the front and back labels showed the vintage clearly, unlike some of my damp-cellar stored bottles. It was 1986.

Labels don’t lie (we’re not talking here about bottles sourced by Hardy Rodenstock or Rudi Kurniawan), so the wine, far from being 30 years old, was 40, and the cork wouldn’t be much less.

There was no mention of cellaring on the back label but, if there had been, you can be sure it wouldn’t have suggested four decades. It wasn’t a wine with a track record: 1986 was only the fourth vintage. The first was 1982 and Wynns passed over the rain-soaked, rot-challenged 1983.

Although Wynns Coonawarra Estate launched the John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon as their new flagship, they limited themselves on the label to saying: ‘A big full wine that has benefited from 18 months in wood, a superb blend of aromas and flavours in the classic style’. (Scroll down to see photo.)

There’s not even a mention of Coonawarra’s famous terra rossa soil, a 20km by two kilometre (at most) ridge of shallow, free-draining clay on a limestone base that's ideal for Cabernet Sauvignon. No mention either of the wine being a selection of the estate's best grapes. Today’s it’s less than one percent of their Cabernet harvest.

The winemaker was Peter Douglas, Wynns’ senior winemaker from 1985–1998. He was succeeded by Sue Hodder, carrier of the torch ever since.

I first met Peter when I visited Coonawarra in 1993. I flew in from Melbourne on a tiny commercial flight and discovered, after waiting on my own for some time in the, by then, unstaffed one-room airport, that Coonawarra time was half an hour behind Melbourne. I also learned from a poster on the wall that Coonawarra was ‘Home of the potato’. No mention of wine.

After a while, a man came in looked around, sat down and started reading a newspaper. Half an hour came and went, so I decided to ask him if he knew Wynns or Peter Douglas. “Are you Joanna?” he asked. When I said yes, he said: “Oh. I was expecting someone more matronly.” It made my day. Mind you, so did the wines and my first close look at the celebrated red soil.

TASTING

Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Limited Release Cabernet Sauvignon 1986, Coonawarra, Australia

13.5%. The cork came out in several pieces, but quite cleanly in the end. There was a degree of wine saturation, but not much for a cork of such age.

Deep garnet colour, thinning slightly at the rim, but not as much as I would expect. First impressions on the nose: great intensity, dark chocolate, a fresh green, slightly minty eucalyptus note and dark ripe fruit – blackcurrants above all. Palate: sumptuous, concentrated and lively with a glossy, rich texture, effortless structure, tremendous depth of fruit and emerging notes of cedar, incense, sandalwood, black liquorice, coffee and a hint of truffle. Ample, structured, full of energy, beautifully balanced and very long, finishing eventually with a final flourish of chocolate and freshness – and it didn’t fade in the hours that it was open. One of the great bottles (and the lamb was worthy of it).  98

Wynns Coonawarra Estate flagship John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon, named after the pioneer of grape growing and winemaking in the 1890s in South Australia's famed Coonawarra region

Photographs by Joanna Simon

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