In the 19th century, many Bordeaux winemakers proudly
stamped “hermitaged” across their wine labels, indicating they had added syrah
(shiraz) from France’s Rhone Valley to their cabernet-based wines,
It was apparently done to add body and richness to their
wines in cooler or rain-affected vintages and was tolerated although never
fully authorised and eventually died out as a practice.
It was ironic that a multi-regional blend was frowned upon,
given that Bordeaux generally is a multi-varietal blend based on cabernet
sauvignon with varying amounts of merlot, malbec, cabernet franc and petit Verdot
added to make a more complete wine.
And that, really, is what blending is all about – mixing two
or more varieties to make a better wine than the individual components.
Perhaps the extreme examples occur in Champagne, where
houses can blend more than 100 components to make their NV or non-vintage,
wines, although some houses call their styles multi-vintage to give more of an
idea of what they are about.
The other well-known example from France comes from the Rhone
region of Cotes-du-Rhone, where wines are made from a combination of grenache,
syrah (shiraz) and mourvedre (mataro), frequently referred to as GSM and
produced in several regions of Australia, notably McLaren Vale and the Barossa.
However, it is the common practice of blending of cabernet
sauvignon and shiraz in Australia that has led to it being named the Great
Australian Blend. And there’s no doubt that some examples have lifted it to
rarefied levels.
Indeed, Penfolds have been
trying to recapture that magic with numerous blends of cabernet (usually
Coonawarra) and shiraz (usually from their extensive and high-quality Barossa vineyards)
such as 1967 Bin 7 and Bin 80A and 90A and a series of Bin 620s.
Many people don’t realise that Penfolds most famous wine,
Grange, itself is a blend, usually made up of a large portion of fruit from
their Kalimna and Koonunga Hill vineyards supplemented with high-class parcels
from other Barossa growers, McLaren Vale, the Clare Valley and frequently a small
portion of cabernet sauvignon.
And Bin 389, one of Penfolds' most popular reds, is always a blend of cabernet sauvignon and shiraz.
Mildara also made a series of multi-region and
multi-varietal blends using Coonawarra shiraz and cabernet and Hunter Valley shiraz
in the 1960s and 1970s under its Yellow Label range.
Coonawarra itself goes in for some multi-varietal blends, with Wynns releasing a V&A Lane cabernet shiraz in appropriate years and Lindemans frequently releasing its Limestone Ridge shiraz cabernet blend, which is one of my favourite wines. Its stablemate Pyrus was originally a cabernet merlot but now is a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and malbec depending on the vintage.
Majella also puts out its well-priced The
Musician cabernet shiraz that provides a great earlier drinking example of
Coonawarra style that repays short to medium-term cellaring.
No mention of blends can go past the current trend to
pair shiraz and pinot noir, with Yarra Yering and Giant Steps producing
excellent examples from the Yarra Valley. It’s not a new idea, with the late
Maurice O’Shea having made some wonderful wines in the 1940s and ‘50s from
Hunter Valley fruit.
While multi-varietal blends are more common, Clare Valley based Taylors, through its Jaraman range, has put out a series of single varietal but multi-regional blends, thus you can find Jaraman cabernet sauvignon (Clare and Coonawarra), shiraz (Clare, McLaren Vale), grenache (McLaren Vale, Barossa), pinot noir (unusual in that it is all Yarra Valley fruit) and chardonnay (Margaret River and Clare Valley). The range has also included a riesling (Clare and Eden Valley fruit) but I am not sure if that is still made. The reds generally cost about $23-$30 and the chardonnay $22-$25.
It’s a well-made and tasty range that represents good value
for money and gives you some insight to the varietal strengths of various
Australian regions.
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