Price: $18
Maker: Banrock Station, Kingston on Murray, South Australia, Australia
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Packaging: 3-liter box
Alcohol: 13.5%
Our Rating: 8.7 out of 10
Banrock Station Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 is a very pleasant wine, one of the nicer boxed Cabs in mass distribution in the U.S. It’s a fruit-forward Cab, with blueberry and plum flavoers, along with some chocolate, spice, and oak. The finish is reasonably long with medium tannins.
The packaging is a convenient 3-liter box in a kraft-paper brown color. It’s distinguished by the very subtle embossing of the picture that looks like a little tree in a bottle. It’s almost too subtle, as I’m sure it added to the cost but is likely to be unnoticed by 99 out of a hundred shoppers.
The Banrock Station winemaker is Paul Burnett. Their website notes:
Paul is passionate about the Riverland region, a hub of industry-leading viticulture and winemaking research and innovation. Paul is a South Australian local, completing his Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Oenology) at the University of Adelaide. He has travelled throughout the Californian wine regions, a highlight of which was a stint with Blackstone winery, specialising in small scale premium winemaking
Whether you want a 3-liter box for party duty or just prefer the package’s ability to keep wine fresh for a month or longer, Banrock Station Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 is a nice choice. This inexpensive wine is available in bottles, too – you can likely find the 750ml bottle for closer to $5 than $10. Banrock Station also makes a couple of blends – Cabernet-Shiraz and Cabernet-Merlot. Based on the evidence of this Cab, those would be worth a try, too.