Rogers & Co. presents the Voyager Estates Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon at the LCBO.

“Few young Cabernets display such effortless grace and relentless endurance. Pure, perfumed, immaculately poised and elegant, yet deep, enduring and concentrated. Classic Margaret River.” – 97 points, Decanter

Voyager Estate’s Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon ($66.00, LCBO 478800) is now available in limited quantities from the LCBO Vintages Classics Collection.

Voyager Estate works magic with Cabernet Sauvignon. You’ll find the winery in the Margaret River region of southwest Australia. (Take a look on a map – It’s the little coastal spur south of Perth.) The climate is moderate and maritime-influenced. Similar to Bordeaux in some ways.

The Cabernet core of this exceptional wine comes from three vineyard blocks, including the estate vineyard’s 33-year-old vines. The mature vines yield exceptionally consistent fruit with great intensity and individuality, and the winery takes an intensive, single-minded philosophy to coaxing out the best possible fruit. There’s a real sense of back-to-basics farming that strips away extraneous additives, relying instead on meticulous hand-pruning, shoot thinning, yield management, hand-harvesting, and hand-sorting. The vines have a head start, being rooted in gravelly soil with an underlying clay base. The soil structure drains well when water is abundant, then stores and slowly releases moisture through the growing season. The winery’s founders, the Wrights, have been farming for over 150 years – a steady hand and holistic knowledge.

The 2012 vintage was tricky (one of the driest seasons and earliest harvests on record), but Voyager’s high standards, experience, and attention to detail ensured healthy fruit. The winery made the most of outstanding ripening conditions through autumn, harvesting grapes with fully-developed tannins and concentrated flavours. A difficult season for some, at Voyager, it will be remembered as a year for clean, pure fruit with great varietal expression.

The winery harvests by hand, then de-stemmed the bunches without crushing to retain as many whole berries as possible. Vineyard parcels were fermented in small lots at cool temperatures, then left on skins to soak. Handling is gentle, intervention is minimal. The wine from each parcel was kept separate through 20 months in tight-grained French oak (50% new) prior to blending.

While the bottle label says “Cabernet Sauvignon – Merlot”, the moniker should be taken with a grain of salt: the finished wine comprises 91% Cabernet, 6% Merlot, and 3% Petit Verdot. The lifted bouquet shows dark red berries, dusty oak, and cedar. That sweet dark and red berry fruit continues through the palate with earthy, gravelly bass notes. Graphite and bay leaf add a savoury element to the wine. It’s rich and complex with great length and balance supported by fine-grained tannins and seamlessly integrated French oak.

Voyager Estate is represented in Ontario by Rogers & Company. If you’re new to Rogers & Company: Welcome! Wines are sold in unmixed cases of 12, 6, or 3, depending on the item. Some wines are available by the bottle at the LCBO. Delivery is easy: We can bring the wine to your door, or you can stop by our office to pick up and meet the crew and the company dog. To learn more about our producers, or to place an order: rogcowines.com.

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