2017 Woodlands Clementine Margaret River

For Napa or Bordeaux Cabernet-dominant blends, a 96-point score and a price like this one is an either/or proposition. Even in Margaret River—Australia’s epicenter of Cabernet value—you don’t often see those kinds of numbers side by side, which is why Woodlands’ outstanding Clémentine red virtually never leaves the country. 

Yet we scored a tiny allocation of this spectacular Cabernet-based blend—and it’s ready to make Margaret River fans out of anyone who tastes it. 

This wine is a picture of structure and precision—more sculptor’s chisel than jackhammer—with bright fruit and pleasantly grippy tannins. Flavors of cranberry, black raspberry, cedar, sweet tobacco, and exotic spices mingle harmoniously on the palate, conveying a “suave blend of depth and liveliness,” according to Vinous. 

Critics have argued that Western Australia’s Margaret River belongs in the pantheon of the world’s greatest winegrowing regions—Wine Spectator has even said the area’s best Cabernets stand “in the top rank of the world.” Few wineries are as firmly entrenched in the region’s elite as Woodlands, which Vinous says is producing “some of the best Bordeaux-style red wines of Australia.”

Woodlands’ wines have proved their quality at the Cape Mentelle Cabernet Tasting—an international blind tasting of Cabernet-based wines—where they’ve previously bested the likes of Haut-Brion, Pichon-Longueville, Sassicaia, Leoville-Las-Cases, Spottswoode, Ornellaia, and others.

A blend of 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Malbec, 13% Merlot, 9% Petit Verdot, and 6% Cabernet Franc from vines rooted on a bed of gravel in the winery’s organically farmed Woodlands Brook Vineyard, this 2017 Clémentine is ready to show you why Aussies normally lay claim to just about every bottle there is. Don’t miss your chance while it’s here.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Acidity
• Tannin

• ABV 13.50%
• 15 mins
• Now – 2027
• 56% Cabernet Sauvignon16% Malbec13% Merlot9% Petit Verdot6% Cabernet Franc
• Serving temperature – 60°
• Stelvin