Australian red Bordeaux varietal over £10

DWWA Reguional Trophy

(Image credit: DWWA Reguional Trophy)

Find out who won the regional trophy for over £10. And the winner is...

2009 Amelia Park Cabernet Merlot, Margaret River

Jeremy Gordon’s impressive winemaking pedigree all helps and it’s neither coincidence nor luck that Amelia Park should wine this trophy with its first vintage.

Gordon began his career in Western Australia with Evans & Tate and Houghton before moving to the eastern states. He returned to found Flametree in 2007, who’s first Cabernet Merlot, the 2007 vintage, was a runaway success, awarded five trophies in the 2008 wine show season including the coveted Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy.

Experience in Margaret River has enabled him to build strong relationships with the region’s premium vineyards. He sources a number of small batch parcels from within the region specifically aiming to build wines of complexity and consistent quality.

Having a number of small batches in the winery allows him the winemaker’s luxury of playing with different blends.

The 2009 Cabernet Merlot, for instance, is mainly Cabernet from Amelia Park’s best parcels in northern and southern Margaret River – the north bringing richness and robust flavours, the south subtle elegant flavours and tannins, along with Merlot from southern Margaret River and a small percentage of intense Malbec.

The wine has won several gold medals, was a finalist for the Jimmy Watson Trophy and awarded the trophy for Best Cabernet/Cabernet Blend, against a raft of international wines, at the Hong Kong International Wine and Spirit

Competition.

According to Daniela Gordon, ‘Jeremy tends to put a lot of himself into his wines. So much so that he actually fell into one of the open fermenters during the vintage after a particularly long 18 hour day. It seems to have given the Cab Merlot that little something extra’.

Written by Anthony Rose

Anthony Rose is the wine correspondent of the Independent and i newspapers and contributes to various other publications, among them Decanter Magazine. He was a solicitor in a previous incarnation but decided it was time to get a steady job. He is co-chair of the Decanter World Wine Awards Australia panel and has won a number of awards for wine writing. In 2014 he published The Tapas Bar Guide (Grub Street, £10.99), co-authored with Isabel Cuevas, a guide to tapas bars in the UK. Anthony spends far too much of his time nosing his way around the world in wine competitions, having judged in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, California, Japan, China and France. He is fascinated by Japanese sake and is co-Chairman of the Sake International Challenge in Tokyo and teaches a consumer course at Sake No Hana in London. Anthony is also a published photographer and a founding member of The Wine Gang at ,. Anthony lives in South London and in what spare time he has, he likes to cook, eat and drink the best wines and sakes he can afford on a wine writer’s budget.