A few years ago, 2006 to be precise, Yalumba released a wine crafted by their winemaker Peter Gambetta. It was a cabernet sauvignon with the fruit coming from a cigar shaped parcel of vines inside Yalumba’s Menzies estate in Coonawarra.
Unsurprisingly the wine was named Menzies The Cigar, which over the subsequent years dropped the Menzies part off the label to become The Cigar to avoid confusion with one of Yalumba’s flagship wines, the Menzies Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2006 Cigar was incredibly good, I picked mine up for much less than its $20RRP at the time, and it went on to win a heck of a lot of awards, it drinks perfectly still eleven years later, significantly better than the current vintages are.
Peter joined Yalumba in 2002 with outstanding red winemaking experience and skills gained during his tenure as Group Red Winemaker at Orlando Wyndham. He also brought with him an intimate understanding of the premium wine-growing regions of Coonawarra and the Barossa and Eden Valleys.
Peter recently retired but the wines he has had a hand in are still available on the shelves of your local bottleshops. The ones that interest me the most, that don’t carry the Yalumba label, are his Chardonnay and Riesling that are made under the Heggies label, part of the greater Yalumba group since 1971 when Yalumba’s Wyndham Hill Smith purchased the vineyard from his great friend, Colin Heggie, and Gambetta’s clever ring.bolt cabernet sauvignon from WA.
Now I’m sure anyone that has wandered through the bottleshop would be familiar with both the Yalumba and Heggie’s labels, but the ring.bolt may have you scratching your head.
ring.bolt is Yalumba expanding their winemaking eye to Margaret River, an area that has shown that with a skilful winemaker and switched on growers, you can knock out world beating Cabernet without costing the world to boot.
Named after the shipwrecked vessel the Ringbolt, which went down in the late 1800’s on the southern tip of the Margaret River wine region, the wine has had some pretty fine moments over the years since their first vintage, the 2001 ring.bolt Cabernet Sauvignon, was released in 2002. Its ticked along quite nicely thanks to its high quality and great price point.
In 2014 it was joined by a premium label named after a small wine barrel, the 2010 ring.bolt 21 Barriques (pronounced bar-reeqs), since its release the 21 Barriques hasn’t failed to take at least 95pts every vintage.
The fruit for both wines are sourced from contracted growers that have been carefully selected by Gambetta and Viticultural consultant, Bruce Pearse. The fruit for the entry level ring.bolt is crushed and initial fermentation carried out in WA under Peter’s instructions, and then sent to SA for barrel fermentation.
However fruit for the 21 Barriques comes from a unique site in Wilyabrup that is planted out with the Houghton clone of cabernet sauvignon, the grower works very closely with both the winemaker and viticulturist to ensure that the fruit is of premium quality and carries those unique flavours that make the wine unmistakably Margaret River. Those grapes are then sent via a cold storage facility to SA where they are crushed and fermented.
Despite that cost heavy investment, the 21 Barriques doesn’t carry a cost heavy price tag, coming in at around $38 RRP, but able to be found for just a tick under $30 online, and the entry level ring.bolt available for about $21.
We sat down recently to a compared vintages of the ring.bolt range and can honestly say that compared to some of the other great Margaret River Cabernets of similar quality, this is a steal, find it and buy lots of it.
ring.bolt Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 – I tasted this wine twice as the first time I did it a disservice by not taking it below the 38degree room temp on the day and it showed as thin and sharp. The second time around I left it in the fridge for 20mins before opening it and found it to be a different beast, that sharp taste evolved more toward thick, aged balsamic vinegar over dark fruits and dark chocolate notes, touches of green capsicum and menthol as it warmed. It has a great length of flavour, with a mild bitter astringency that worked in the wine’s favour, will carry well in the bottle over the next eight or so years.
ring.bolt Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 – served just off room temp, the wine was deeper in colour than the 2014 showing more dried herbs and black olive tapenade on the nose. Elegant and refined with the fruit really driving this wine, blackcurrant, mulberry, that black olive and cedar and tobacco notes. Just the faintest wisp of tomato leaf in there. Long savoury finish to the wine, almost demanding you to go back for more. The 2013 can still be found on the shelves of some of your local independent bottleshops.
ring.bolt 21 Barriques Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 – found this online for about $25 bottle, and a few of us bought a case between us, I now wish I had bought more. Think wet rainforest floor, earthy and musty but add in dark tropical sapote, mulberries, blueberries and dark chocolate a faint trace of white pepper. It’s a masterclass of how to balance the fruit with the oak notes, its all in perfect balance with a restrained vibrancy to it. It’s a great wine that is incredibly drinkable and split the tasting panel on the day as to their favourite wine. Hard to find you will need to ask your independent bottleo to get it for you, which they can easily, or find it online.
ring.bolt 21 Barriques Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 – the 2012 is the current release from ring.bolt, and was my pick of the bunch and I think that this is what premium Margaret River wine should be about, elegant and refined, powerful and fruit driven, yet still at an affordable price. The 2011 is more elegant, but the 2012 is richer and more complex, since its release last year, its taken a swag of awards and a whopping 97pts from Halliday who even gave it a special value star at its full RRP of $38. Dark notes of blackberry, dark plum and mocha, complex earthy and leafy notes are balanced by ripe, fresh notes of bright red fruits, very long savoury finish. Exceptional wine, made even better with a $30 online price. With careful cellaring this will easily see another decade or two.
