Balnaves The Blend 2014
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Dark red in color, this wine offers an intense nose with aromas of mulberry, wild blackberry and licorice combined with delicate, smoky French oak. On the palate, it is medium-bodied with a generous mouth-feel dominated by black fruit flavors and a touch of dried herbs. The Merlot component adds plushness while Cabernet provides the structure.
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Peter Bissell blends this wine from the Balnaves family’s vineyards on the terra rossa soils of Coonawarra, including fruit from cabernet sauvignon vines planted in 1976. The Blend focuses on cabernet sauvignon (56 percent) and merlot (38 percent), along with some cabernet franc, offering a fresh, elegant, pretty wine at a pretty great price. The lean cherry flavors fill delicate tannins, their deeper tones darkening the fruit to blueberry skin. Notes of eucalyptus and violets add to the sense of coolness. Pour it with seared beef tenderloin.
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Robert
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One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
Distinguished by a thin, subterranean band of crumbled, red clay loam, Coonawarra is a fairly flat, otherwise unobtrusive region with a cool Mediterranean climate, actually not dissimilar to Bordeaux.
In Coonawarra, this unique layer of red clay is called, "terra rossa" and gets its color from iron oxide. The terra rossa soil overlies soft, penetrable limestone, in a continuous area that is part of the Limestone Coast zone of South Australia. This uncommon layering of soils creates a substrate that is both well draining and at the same time, offers good water retention to support vine roots through dry summers.
Not surprisingly, Coonawara experiences great success with the Bordeaux varieties, namely Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, but also Shiraz. However Cabernet reigns superior and accounts for half of the Coonawarra harvest each year. Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon develops powerful, yet polished tannins, ripe, red berry fruit and often sweet herb or dried mint qualities. The region has an increased focus on the individual expressions of single vineyards.