Yalumba releases Coonawarra-Barossa ‘super claret’

Australian winery Yalumba has released a Cabernet-Shiraz blend made with fruit from Coonawarra and the Barossa, which it is calling a, “super claret”.

Called ‘The Caley’, the wine is made from Cabernet Sauvignon grown at the Menzies estate in Coonawarra and two plots of old vine Shiraz in the Barossa (Yalumba’s Horseshoe Vineyard and the Burgemeister Linke Block).

The wine is named after Fred Caley Smith, the grandson of Yalumba’s founder Samuel Smith, a famed horticulturist who had a “profound impact” on the development of the estate’s orchards and vineyards. He bolstered his knowledge of viti- and arboriculture further over the course of an 18-month trip in 1893-94 to Europe, the US, Middle East, India and Sri Lanka.

Winemaker and fifth generation owner of Yalumba, Robert Hill-Smith, said: “The Caley is the pinnacle of a long winemaking journey seeking excellence – a ‘super-claret’ that rightfully honours one of Yalumba’s most adventurous sons.

“It is the result of an unwavering commitment by Yalumba to Australia’s own unique red wine style – Cabernet & Shiraz – from the Galway Clarets of the 1940s, through the ‘Signature’ and ‘FDR1A’ that started in the 1960s and 1970s and ‘The Reserve’ that was created in the 1990s.”

Speaking of the wine itself he said it combined the, “linear elegance, firm tannins and persistent acid structure of Coonawarra Cabernet with the voluptuous, textural richness of Barossa Shiraz.”

The wine, from the 2012 vintage, was matured for 22 months in 31% new French barriques and hogsheads and 22% in one-year old French barriques and American hogsheads and the rest in older versions of the same. It was then bottle-aged for just over three years before its release.

The Caley is available through agents Negociants UK with an RRP of £225 a bottle.