Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon comes from Bordeaux, and it wasn't planted on purpose so much as it happened. Sometime around the 17th century, the white grape Sauvignon Blanc crossed naturally with the red grape Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon was the result. The connection went unproven for centuries. DNA fingerprinting, published in 1997 by researchers John Bowers and Carole Meredith, finally confirmed it.

From that accidental start in Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon became the most widely planted wine grape on the planet. It now covers roughly 5% of the world's vineyard area, spread across nearly every serious wine-producing country there is.

Bordeaux's Left Bank, particularly Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Saint-Estèphe, and Margaux, is where Cabernet Sauvignon still makes its most structured, age-worthy wines. The gravel soils there drain well and hold heat, which suits a grape that needs every bit of warmth it can get to ripen fully. It's rarely bottled alone in Bordeaux, blended instead with Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and sometimes Petit Verdot to round out its edges.

Napa Valley, and Oakville in particular, gives Cabernet Sauvignon a warmer, more consistent climate to ripen in, producing riper, richer wines than its Bordeaux counterpart. Coonawarra, in South Australia, does something else again: a narrow strip of red "terra rossa" soil over limestone gives its Cabernet a distinctive mix of blackcurrant fruit and graphite minerality that's become the region's calling card.

Cabernet Sauvignon buds and ripens late, which helps it dodge spring frost but means it needs a long, warm growing season to fully mature. Its berries are small and thick-skinned, giving an unusually high skin-to-juice ratio. Since colour, tannin, and flavour compounds all live in the skin, that ratio is the whole reason Cabernet Sauvignon wines run so deep in colour and so firm in tannin. The vine itself is vigorous and reasonably disease-resistant, which is part of why it's traveled so well to so many different climates.

Extended maceration, leaving the fermenting juice in contact with the skins well past fermentation, pulls maximum colour and tannin out of those thick skins. Most serious Cabernet Sauvignon then goes into oak, often new French barrels, for a year or more. That's where the cedar and vanilla notes come from. They're not native to the grape; they're a product of winemaking. In Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon is almost always blended with Merlot and Cabernet Franc for balance. New World producers, especially in Napa and Coonawarra, are more likely to bottle it on its own.

Cabernet Sauvignon is a useful grape for understanding the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary aromas, since its four signature notes come from three completely different sources.

On the palate, expect full body and firm, sometimes gripping tannin, the direct result of those thick skins. Acidity sits at medium, enough to keep the wine from feeling heavy despite its weight. Sweetness is bone-dry across the board. Young Cabernet Sauvignon can taste closed and tannic; the best examples need years, sometimes decades, to unfold into something softer and more complex.

• Château Latour (Pauillac, Bordeaux)
  One of Bordeaux's five 1855 First Growths, and the Left Bank estate built most directly around Cabernet Sauvignon; the Grand Vin typically runs 75–90% Cabernet depending on vintage. Made to age for decades, not drink young.

• Opus One (Oakville, Napa Valley)
  Founded in 1979 as a joint venture between Robert Mondavi and Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Château Mouton Rothschild, the first major Bordeaux–Napa collaboration. Typically 70–80% Cabernet Sauvignon from the historic To Kalon vineyard.

• Wynns Coonawarra Estate (Coonawarra, South Australia)
  Its Black Label, first made in 1954, was the first commercially labelled Cabernet Sauvignon in Australia. Grown on the region's terra rossa soil, it's known for blackcurrant fruit alongside a distinctive graphite edge.

High tannin and full body make Cabernet Sauvignon a natural partner for food with enough fat and protein to stand up to it.

• Red meat - The tannin binds to protein and fat, softening on the palate as it does

• Aged hard cheese - A firm cheese like an aged cheddar or gouda has enough richness to match the wine's weight

• Lamb - Rich enough to hold its own, with herbal notes that echo the wine's own green streak

It's a poor match for delicate or light dishes, which the tannin will simply flatten.