Rymill Cabernet Sauvignon

There must be a lot of winemakers in Coonawarra wondering what the hell is going on right now. A few years ago Coonawarra cabernet was easily Australia’s most talked-about red wine. Sure, Coonawarra had some shiraz, but that really was a second-class citizen after the grape that created its reputation here and overseas; cabernet sauvignon. These days Coonawarra’s shiraz is perhaps more sought-after than its cabernet, even though it’s nowhere near as consistent. Look around the retail shelves and in relative terms there’s a lot of very affordable Coonawarra cabernet lying around. One of those is made by Rymill.

Peter Rymill was a substantial owner of red Coonawarra vineyard for some time before doing what several other local growers like the Lynns Majella and Balnaves have also done, by building a winery and creating a new brand. He set up a trial vineyard in the region in 1968, then established The Riddoch Run vineyards fifteen kilometres north of Penola in 1974. Its 100 ha are largely planted to cabernet sauvignon and shiraz.

Prior to 1990, when he turned the first sod for his winery, Rymill completed a degree in Wine Science and a diploma in Wine Marketing. That year he also employed John Innes, a young winemaker with experience in Mudgee with Montrose and in Coonawarra with Leconfield, who is today his company’s chief winemaker and general manager.

Rymill has also developed a 55 ha site called Three Mile Lane, five kilometres sought of Penola on terra rossa soils with a profile similar to the main Coonawarra strip. It is planted to cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc and merlot. At time of writing the judge is literally out as to whether or not this vineyard will qualify for the name of Coonawarra, or whether in will be listed inside another region, possibly Penola.

First made as a trial in 1987, the Rymill Cabernet Sauvignon has yet to establish itself amongst the leading bracket of Coonawarra cabernets, but it is nowhere near as expensive as many of these wines. I recently tasted every vintage from 1988 to the currently available 1998 wine, and was pleasantly surprised by several of the wines, especially those from 1990, 1996 and 1998.

There’s little doubt that while early vintages were made in a lighter, more supple and restrained style – with the notable exception of the rather firm and blocky 1993 vintage – recent wines are being built around more concentrated and riper fruit. John Innes doesn’t think that Rymill are necessarily doing much different to what they did before, but recent vintages have tended to be warmer than the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Against the trend in Australia today, Innes is aiming to making a less obvious and more subtle cabernet, a style he believes makes a better accompaniment with food. I agree, and find many Australian wines made today are simply too fruity and too oaky to enjoy around the table. There are only so many rich casseroles and strong cheeses you can eat.

Innes has been strongly influenced by his six vintages with Carlo Corino at Mudgee, where he picked up on Corino’s philosophy that tightness, balance and fineness of oak and tannin were more important than overt wood and aggressive extract. Much of the oak in his premier wines is older than used in other wineries, and the Cabernet Sauvignon uses a significant amount of wood aged between 4-6 years. Innes has been focused on tannin ripeness well before it entered most winemakers’ vocabularies and entirely shuns the modern return to the old practice of adding tannins to red wines.

He looks at the ‘vertical’ definition of a wine, aiming to achieve the sorts of layers of flavour and complexity he sees in the great wines from Italy and France. The 1998 vintage is the best Rymill Cabernet Sauvignon released to date. It’s been blended with less ‘greenish’ and herby cabernet than other vintages, but also reflects Innes’ willingness to allow the development of slightly wild and rustic complexity in his recent wines. I consider it to be quite a departure in style for Rymill, and believe it represents a strong future option for the winery. Innes doesn’t entirely agree, and says the 1998 wine isn’t necessarily all that different. ‘It’s possibly part of the evolution of the wine’, he says. ‘If you looked at it again in two years time, a lot of the characters in the wine may have come together. The style is relatively consistent.’

Other than the 1998, over the last decade and more, Rymill’s viticulture and winemaking have indeed been consistent. Cabernet is typically harvested at around 7-8 tonnes per hectare, and at the time his wines are assembled, Innes usually has around twelve different components on his blending bench. These different components reflect a range of different clones harvested from different parts of the vineyard over a period that might be anything up to a month apart. The Cabernet Sauvignon has also included a significant proportion of merlot, between 2-15, whose impact on texture and flavour is substantial.

I like what John Innes is trying to achieve at Rymill and believe he is on the path to success. It will be fascinating to watch the progress of the 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon and the succeeding vintages to see just how much of an impact it has on the evolution of this very approachable, fine and affordable Coonawarra cabernet. Please login to post comment