Wynns Coonawarra Estate
John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon
Coonawarra S.A.
2016

The producer

There are few more memorable emblems on Australian wine labels than the triple-gabled bluestone winery building in Coonawarra. The building graces the labels of an extensive range of wines from bargain-priced Riesling and Shiraz through various price and quality levels to the imperious John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon.

Established in 1897 the wines came of note with some stunning wines from the 1950s that aged for decades and set Wynns firmly on the Australian wine map.

The wines gained more fame in the early 1980s with the creation of John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon (named after the man who built the winery and established the Coonawarra Fruit Company) and Michael Shiraz (named after Michael Wynn in the 1955 vintage - the story behind which is not for here). Winemaker Sue Hodder (herself a viticulturist) and viticulturist Allen Jenkins lifted the wines to another level with their work in assessing every plot owned by Wynns and crafting single vineyard wines when the vintage proves benevolent.

The wine

Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon was created in 1982,  and is the flagship of the range, produced from the best barrels of Cabernet Sauvignon from all the Wynns vineyards. The 1982 is still drinking beautifully at 40 years of age foreboding many other wines of outstanding quality and longevity.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.