Woodlands Wilyabrup Cabernet Merlot 2018 - Margaret River Western Australia

94/100 Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
93/100 James Suckling
92/100 Huon Hooke, The Real Review
92/100 Ned Goodwin MW, Halliday Wine Companion
94/100 Gary Walsh, The Wine Front (2017 vintage)
93/100 Wine Enthuasiast (2017 vintage)
92/100 Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion (2017 vintage)
90/100 Huon Hooke, The Real Review (2017 vintage)
90/100 Jeremy Oliver (2017 vintage)
93/100 The Wine Front (2016 vintage)
90/100 CellarTracker (2016 vintage)

Bronze - International Wine Challenge
Commended - Decanter World Wine Awards (2016 vintage)

5 Red Stars - Australian Wine Companion

Langton's "Outstanding Cabernet Sauvignon"

Top Cabernet and Family of the Year 2024 - Halliday Wine Companion 

Served in Qantas Business Class

Gary Walsh, The Wine Front "...And the value is outstanding. Medium-bodied, but dense in feel with savoury flavours of black olive and earth, dark chocolate, blackcurrant and blackberry, some sage and floral perfume. Tannin is tightly packed, acidity fresh and cool, and the finish is again all pencil and black olive, and pretty long with it, a slick of tannin as it goes. Lovely wine. Very adult in style, if you will."

James Suckling "Attractive, fresh aromas of roses, red plums and red berries with light chocolate notes, as well as fresh-earth accents, too. The palate has a very supple, juicy feel with a bright core of red plums and lighter mulberries."

Huon Hooke, The Real Review "Deep red/purple colour, with a bouquet that leaps out of the glass: black fruits, smoked plums, traces of regional nori, the palate very drying and savoury, the tannins winning the tussle, leaving a very dry finish that lingers on well. Black fruits, violets, nori and iodine traces. A well-structured wine, and a good food wine."

Ned Goodwin MW, Halliday Wine Companion "A swab of black olive. Thyme and dried scrub. Earthen. A gentle whiff of cassis emerges from beneath the leafy foliage of an immensely savoury, mid-weighted cabernet. My wine of choice on Qantas Business Class. Aussie Petit Chateaux."

Wine Enthusiast "Savory spice precludes the fruit on this Cab-Merlot blend from a well-reputed winery in the heart of Margaret River's most esteemed subregion. First comes tar, tobacco, bay leaf, seaweed and iodine notes. And then, the fruit: fresh plum and black currant. The palate is full-bodied but fresh, linear and focused. Sappy, well-integrated tannins support the fruit, and all those savory, earth spice and herb notes flow right to the finish." (2017 vintage)

Gary Walsh, The Wine Front "An interesting exercise tasting the 2016 alongside 2017, and while similar, you can certainly see a marked difference between the wines, not only due to an extra year of bottle age. His Most Purpleness on show here. Boysenberry, mulberry, violet, slight youthful char, liquorice, spicy biscuits. It’s medium-bodied, so brightly lit and well-defined, a coolness and distinct ‘minerality’ to the acidity, precise and tight, fine graphite tannin, and an effortlessly long finish. This is one out of the box." (2017 vintage)

Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion "This sets the scene for a leafy fresh, lighter framed red best enjoyed in its youth. It offers cassis, mulberries, spices and a tangy succulence plus sandpaper tannins." (2017 vintage)

Huon Hooke, The Real Review "Deep red colour with a good purple tint, the aromas fresh and ripe, cassis and blackberry, the palate fruit-first and firmly structured, with length and grip all in harmony. The tannins are a trifle grippy and there is a faint edge of sappy greenness at the end. Well priced in the scheme of things." (2017 vintage)

When David and Heather Watson first established Woodlands in 1973, they were amongst the first six pioneers to plant vineyards in Margaret River and can certainly stake a claim in having helped establish the region's reputation for Cabernet Sauvignon. With the addition of a second vineyard site, purchased in 1998, the Watson family now have 25 hectares of vineyard in the Wilyabrup Valley, which are all maintained by hand using traditional and organic methods and without irrigation - a rarity in this arid corner of Australia.

A true family affair, son Stuart is the winemaker and brother Andrew is in charge of operations. Five red stars from Halliday, consistent excellent ratings for its wine and an "Outstanding" rating for the Cabernet Sauvignon from Langton's, identify Woodlands as one of the best producers in the region.

Woodlands ‘Margaret’ is sourced entirely from the Woodlands Vineyard. The Cabernet Sauvignon portion comes from a slope on the south of Woodlands that wraps around a 90-degree radius from east to north. The fruit on this slope receives a great deal of direct sunlight from morning to mid-afternoon, leading to rich full-bodied wines. The Merlot and Malbec plots that make up the remainder of ‘Margaret’ come from our west-facing slope of deep loam soil. This slope receives the most direct afternoon sunlight at Woodlands, and produces more exotic fruit characters in the finished wine.

Margaret River is one of the best-known wine regions in Australia, recognized internationally for the quality of its wines and the natural beauty of the region. Although originally renowned for its unusually refined Cabernet Sauvignon and intensely citrusy Chardonnay varieties, the region now produces Semillon Sauvignon Blanc blends and Shiraz.

Located in the south-western corner of Western Australia, it is famous for having a more 'European' wine style than its counterparts across Australia, owing to the regions temperate, coastal location which is very similar to that of Bordeaux.

Cabernet Sauvignon – Merlot wines are made from two of the world's most famous and most widely grown wine grapes. The pair form the foundation of many of the great wines of Bordeaux, where this classic blend (often dubbed "Bordeaux Blend") is thought to have originated. For centuries, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot have been the quintessential Bordeaux wine grapes, but their fame and popularity have now taken them far beyond the banks of the Garonne, Dordogne and Gironde, to the furthest reaches of the wine world.

In California the blend is often labeled as Meritage – providing the producer meets the requirements of the Meritage Alliance. The Australian regions of Coonawarra, Margaret River and Yarra Valley are highly regarded for their unique expressions of the blend. A Bordeaux Blend is any combination of those grape varieties typically used to make the red wines of Bordeaux. Cabernet Sauvignon is widely accepted as a compulsory component of any Bordeaux Blend along with Merlot. In fact, the majority of Bordeaux Blend wines are often made exclusively from a blend of these two varieties. The remaining components are Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec.