COLOR:
Light! Extremely light for a Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact, I’m not even sure that the wine in this bottle is what the label says it is. This wine looks more like a Pinot Noir than a Cab. This doesn’t bode well.
ON THE NOSE:
What a dramatic letdown on the nose of this Australian Cab! We’ve been holding this bottle for about a year and so far we are highly disappointed. This nose smells like a toss between a $5 Spanish Monastrell, an immature Virginia Cabernet Franc, and a terrible, cheap Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. Basically, this wine smells inexpensive, unimpressive, and unappealing. The overwhelming aroma is a cross between green-pepper and eucalyptus, not in a good way, but rather very sour. This first nose comes right upon popping the cork, of course, so to be fair we will be very patient and see what this wine offers in a few hours; I will say here, however, that virtually every bottle of good wine we have ever had has had a great nose immediately, just after opening, so …
After two hours that sour, green-pepper nose has not subsided at all …
After four hours the nose has indeed improved some, but the operative word here is some! There is some creaminess that comes through now, a hint of sweet caramel surrounding the extremely sour cherry, and perhaps a little bit of chocolate. Put together these aromas smell something like a brownie, but that may just be wishful thinking. Essentially the nose does finally shed some of its initial brutality, but never all that much, even seven hours later with full decanting.
ON THE PALATE:
Yup, this tastes a little too much like cheap wine, alright. This is NOT what we expected at $29 from this well-respected Australian winery. Something went wrong, terribly wrong, obviously. We just opened a $50 Torres before this wine and found it to be corked – CRAP. We’ve had so many corked and bad bottles of wine in the past year (largely because we’ve drank more this year than ever) that Darcey and I really, REALLY know what a corked bottle smells and tastes like; we also know the effects of oxidation and the results of a bottle spoiled by heat. This Leeuwin Cab could be spoiled in some way, perhaps by heat, but we rather doubt it.
Basically the acidity takes over on this wine completely, foreshadowed honestly by the sour nose. For the life of me I cannot believe this wine! Part of it might be our expectations, yet one can’t help but have expectations when spending close to $30 on a wine. Ultimately a few nice things can be said: there is a medium-firm grip that gets into the gums nicely, and there is actually a level or two of complexity, but even that may be stretching the truth in simply trying to be polite. The acidity is just too much here. Darcey and I would never have guessed that this wine was a Cabernet Sauvignon. Neither of us have tremendous experience yet in all varietals, but simply put we would say this tastes like a blend of poorly ripened Pinot Noir and Mourvedre.
I’m going to have to email Gary Vaynerchuk and ask if this is perhaps not a fake! I wouldn’t guess it based on its price-point, yet what better way to scam a dealer than on a medium-priced bottle of wine, just high enough to warrant the effort and make a decent profit while not raising any eyebrows. Truly this concept is not out of the realm of possibility. I remember buying this wine after seeing Gary Vaynerchuk taste it on episode 143 of WineLibrary TV, and liking it so much he gave it a 92; thus I ordered a bottle. From what I taste here in the bottle I received I can’t see how this wine is a 92. In that episode he does smell the green-pepper, which is indeed profusely evident, and speaks of a smoky aroma (which I guess I can grok), but the other things he mentions are simply not extant in this wine. I have in front of me the “Parker’s Wine Buyers Guide” in its sixth edition from 2002 (Simon and Schuster, NY, NY). In it he rates the Leeuwin wines and says “The Art Series Cabernet Sauvignons are powerful efforts. The dense ruby/plum/purple … offers textbook aromas of tobacco, cedar, cassis, and new oak in addition to deep, full-bodied flavors with good acidity, moderate tannin, and excellent texture.” I grant that these notes were for past vintages, but almost none of these qualities can be found in the crap-juice we tasted tonight. There are simply zero textbook aromas, and the color could not be considered dense by any stretch.
This wine is not really all that great. If it had been $10 we would still not like it, but we would at least understand it. At $29 this wine is a whopping disappointment. This just CAN’T be right. Gary, could you PLEASE send me another bottle because I think one or both of us have been taken. If this IS indeed the actual wine that Leeuwin Estates offered in 2000, then, well … YUK.
One of three things has likely happened here:
- The bottle was spoiled, even if just a little, most likely by heat
- The bottle is a fake (unlikely, but possible)
- We don’t know what we’re talking about, our palates are pathetic, and this is a great wine tasting exactly as intended but we’re too obtuse to appreciate it
Of course perhaps we just don't like it. But BOTH Darcey and I? Darcey did like it a little better than me, but neither of us believed this was a Cabernet Sauvignon, nor worth $29.
Hmmm … I’m willing to give another Leeuwin Estate Cab a try, but I don’t know if shelling out $30 or more is wise given what we experienced here today. I’d be very interested to see what any other folks out there have experienced with this particular wine. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to tip the musician on the way out the door.
(Click here for an explanation of our ratings ...)
Our Rating: 83
Would we drink it again? 
No way!
Would we buy it again?
Nope. We'd really like to try another from this winery as they are supposed to be really good, but too expensive to try if being this disappointed is imminent. Probably someday we will try another.
