I’ve waxed lyrical about the quality of the 2007 red wine vintage in Margaret River, WA. This week I’m upping the ante! Regular readers would be aware of my affection for the 2004 Cape Mentelle Margaret River Shiraz. It proved once and for all that this region can produce world quality Shiraz. To me it was preaching to the converted, despite being less than half the price, I rate the last 4 vintages superior to the same makers' legendary Cab Sav! With the brilliant 2004 vintage behind us, it is time to look at its contender for vintage-of-the-decade; 2007, a year that many are rating as Margaret River's finest red wine vintage - ever.
 
The first thing I will say is that they have done it again. Hermitage meets Cornas at bargain basement prices. A youthful deep purple gives way to a generous bouquet of luscious dark fruit flavours. The liberal fruit content continues in the mouth with precise oak handling and the tannins behaving like a guard of honour to the very end of a long finish. It is just gorgeous cool-climate Shiraz and a pioneering style when in a decade we are all drinking Margaret River Shiraz and not thinking anything of it! It is a lesson on how to be powerful and elegant at once. How to be spicy and savoury without being extracted or overripe. A wine finding itself easily in the "Exceptional" rating zone it, very conservatively, has a decade in front of it (said with supreme confidence given the screwcap seal). Forty bucks is bargain city, thirty bucks is a steal for this. It goes without saying, one of the few WineStar Wine of the Year nominations. Now – 2020+; Quality: Exceptional BW; WineStar© October 2009

Shiraz is mainly sourced from Wallcliffe and Trinders Estate vineyards, planted 26 and 13 years ago respectively, where the soils are gravel laterite derived from weathered granite with a gravel-clay sub-soil. About 20% of the fruit was hand-picked and conveyed to the fermenters as whole bunches with the balance machine-harvested and crushed on top of the bunches. The wine was aged in a 50:50 combination of French and American oak barrels of which 35% was new. Cape Mentelle

Dense crimson-purple; spicy fruit aromas on the bouquet, then a voluptuous palate with multiple flavours of spice, licorice and both red and black fruits; exemplary oak and tannin support. Screwcap. 14% alc. Rating 96 Points; Drink 2027 $39 Date Tasted Feb 09 James Halliday Australian Wine Companion

This Cape Mentelle Shiraz just scooped the pool at the Royal Perth Wine Show. Readers of the Big Red Wine Book will, of course, already have heard how good this wine is. Medium-bodied but with great depth of flavour. Notes of pepper, choc-licorice, blueberry and high-quality, spicy French oak. Its tannins are peppery, but everything here is ripe, solid and highly polished. Fabulous wine. Drink : 2010 - 2020 96 points Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
 
Medium-bodied but with great depth of flavour. Notes of pepper, choc-licorice, blueberry and high-quality, spicy French oak. Its tannins are peppery, but everything here is ripe, solid and highly polished. Fabulous wine. 95 Points; Drink 2010–2020. Price $38 Region Margaret River Alcohol 14 Seal Screwcap; The Big Red Wine Book; Campbell Mattinson & Gary Walsh.

An artfully made, dark-fruited and meaty shiraz whose heady, smoky aromas of black plums, dark chocolate, charcuterie meats and musky spices prelude a long, sumptuous palate of excellent richness and weight. It's very dark and ripe, with just a hint of currant, but delivers a finely crafted combination of fruit oak, and smooth, loose-knit tannin, finishing with a lingering core of fruit and savoury suggestions of game meat.(18.5/94, YTD 2015-2019) Jeremy Oliver

Best West Australian Wine - 2009 Perth Wine Show
Best Dry Red Table Wine - 2009 Perth Wine Show
Best West Australian Red Table Wine - 2009 Perth Wine Show
Best 2007 Dry Red Table Wine - 2009 Perth Wine Show
Best Shiraz - 2009 Perth Wine Show