Cabernet Sauvignon

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Cabernet Sauvignon

Bordeaux's most famous grape and a major component of Bordeaux's red wine blend is Cabernet Sauvignon. Possibly the best known of all varieties of Vitis vinifera, Cabernet Sauvignon is the progeny of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, originating in France and brought to the Medoc in the late 18th century by Baron Hector de Brane, once owner of Chateau Mouton. Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the important grapes grown in California and is a major constituent of the Meritage blend, but, as a single component in the wine, it is also widely grown in the Napa Valley, making some of the most popular, and expensive, single varietal Cabernet Sauvignon wines in the world.

Regarded internationally as a premier single varietal as well as a versatile blending grape, Cabernet Sauvignon is grown widely in Chile's Maipo Valley, Argentina, New Zealand's Hawkes Bay, Stellenbosch, South Africa, Coonawarra in South Australia, Central Italy's Tuscany as a component of the Super Tuscan wines, and in Spain, Eastern Europe and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Cabernet Sauvignon contributes powerful structural quality when blended with Merlot, Shiraz, Zinfandel, Tempranillo, Pinotage, Carmenère, Malbec and Nero d'Avola, making these blended wines some of the world's most expensive.

Cabernet Sauvignon is late budding and late ripening, gives low yields of thick-skinned, high acid fruit with a distinctive tannic structure suitable for long ageing, with or without oak, and offers exact fruit flavours that include blackcurrants, blueberry, black cherry, tomato leaf, mint, eucalyptus, cinnamon, cedar, vanilla, fruit cake, chocolate, jam, nutmeg, prune, tobacco, cigar-box, leather.