2013 Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon Margaret River 750 ml

Wine Spectator’s Top 10 — Peter Gambetta’s Margaret River Knockout

As treacherous as it is beautiful, Western Australia’s rugged southwest coastline is littered with shipwrecks. Among them is an unidentified ship sunk in the late 1800s just off Cape Leeuwin remembered only by a washed-up ring bolt that, for Australian wine enthusiasts, is the most notable of all.

At Ringbolt Bay on the southwesternmost tip of Australia, the Southern and Indian Oceans merge. The remote lands around the Margaret River were targeted by a Group Settlement Scheme hatched by the Australian and British governments around 1920, designed to lure settlers to the unchartered areas of Western Australia. But most of the would-be dairy farmers who claimed the land grants in the Margaret River region soon gave up in despair and moved away. Some stalwarts toughed it out, and those who planted vineyards became the forefathers of what we now know as the Margaret River wine region.

The Margaret River enjoys a uniquely temperate, maritime climate thanks to the convergence of the two oceans. Unlike much of Australia, where vines are increasingly challenged over summer months by drought and dehydration, Margaret River’s water table is replenished with plenty of winter rain. Summers are sunny but cool, and those sea breezes off the ocean keep vines clean and disease-free.

In the unforgettable growing season of 2013, Peter Gambetta, who first began crafting wines off the gravelly loam of Margaret River in 1986, turned out one of the most astonishing Cabernet Sauvignons of his career, which Wine Spectator recognized among the Top 10 Under-$60 Cabernet Sauvignons of the Year.

Gambetta’s 2013 Ringbolt is that rare Aussie Cabernet Sauvignon that straddles the line between New World ripeness and Old World cut — a wine that truly reflects this rugged terrain, the brisk ocean breezes, and an extreme summer diurnal temperature shift that allows Cabernet to ripen effortlessly without any risk of tumbling acidity.

Brilliant ruby-purple. Plush aromas of blackberry, black raspberry, violets, and ripe black cherry. Rich, juicy, and high-toned on the attack, showing off its cool-climate underpinnings, filled with a mouthwatering mix of black cherry and raspberry preserves, rose petals, and rose oil, finishing with plenty of vibrancy and soft-tannin tension. Drink now-2022.

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