2018 Yalumba The Y Series Cabernet Sauvignon South Australia 750 ml

The 2018 Yalumba The Y Series Cabernet Sauvignon  is a wine worth shouting from the…well, there’s no mountain high enough around here. This stunning wine, which won a 92-point score and landed at #7 on Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100 Best Buys, packs the juicy fruit, dusty tannins, and harmony to impress any Cabernet fan on Earth. 

This is an affordable Cabernet worthy of an “Aussie icon,” which is how Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate has described Yalumba, which boasts more than 170 years of history in Australia’s Eden Valley. The Hill-Smith family belongs to Australia’s First Families of Wine, and their quality-obsessed operation, which is complete with its own onsite cooperage, is now led by fifth-generation Chairman Robert Hill-Smith. 

When we last visited Australia, we were keen on finally meeting the woman behind this wine, Yalumba’s rising-star winemaker Natalie “Nat” Cleghorn. When we arrived, she greeted us with a brief tour of the Mars-like terrain of one of Yalumba’s most famous vineyards, then proceeded to fill our glasses as we ate roast beef sandwiches in the cellar with her harvest interns.  

Once Nat started pouring, she didn’t stop, and after treating us to some of her under-the-radar experimental bottlings, she popped the Y Series Cabernet—and it showed beautifully. So as we were claiming our allocations from Nat’s cellar, we didn’t forget to lock in as much as we could of this bargain superstar.

Dark ruby with graphite leading the aromatics and a palate of juicy red fruit framed in dusty tannins, this is a wine we’re buying for ourselves—by the case. We recommend you follow our lead on this any-and-every-occasion Cabernet.