Cabernet Sauvignon [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONCabernet Sauvignon is the vi^orld's most successful wine grape. It is not the most vvidely planted - that dubious honour goes to the insipid Spanish Airén. It may not be, at the moment, quite the most fashionable - in a world which craves white wine, that honour is Chardonna/s. But not even Chardonnay has been transplanted with such notable success to quite so many comers of the earth.Cabernet Sauvignon's homeland is Bordeaux, and especially the Médoc and Graves areas which surround the city and extend sixty miles north on the left bank of the Gironde. It is there, still, that the world's most satisfyingly complex, elegant and long-lived red wines are made. This guide reflects the continuing primacy of Bordeaux, which accounts for nearly half the producer entries. You will never see, however, a 100 per cent varietal Cabernet Sauvignon in Bordeaux. Following the traditional practice of the region, Cabernet Sauvignon is blended with Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot in ever-changing proportions. 'We do not make Cabernet Sauvignon wines,' I was told repeatedly while visiting Bordeaux châteaux.The Napa Valley in California, as different a landscape as could be imagined, with its conifers, crags and intense light, from the flat and Dutch-looking Médoc, is the place to find 100 per cent Cabernet Sauvignons bursting with ripe fruit. California Cabernet Sauvignons, like other American products, can be larger than life and excessively glossy; wines to admire but lacking the quirks which compel love. The best, though, produced by the world's most articulate and technically advanced wine-makers, are magnificent by any standard.Australian Cabernet Sauvignon can be as vividly, vibrantly fruity as any in the world. There is, namrally, a great range of styles in the span of an entire continent, but the refined yet