The 2021 Devil’s Lair Cabernet Sauvignon went under the radar
Devil’s Lair Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 is a highly-structured beauty.
A wine that jumped out at me at the Cape Mentelle International Cabernet tasting last week was Devil’s Lair Cabernet Sauvignon 2021. We don’t hear a lot about Devil’s Lair nowadays, for whatever reason, though the wines are made by Travis Clydesdale, who I interviewed many moons ago during his stint as winemaker at Mitchelton. Because of this interview I know that Clydesdale had previously worked at both Vasse Felix and Deep Woods Estate, and that as a kid he’d lived (at Nagambie) across the road from legendary Mitchelton winemaker Don Lewis. More recently Clydesdale also worked at Blind Corner in Margaret River. The take-home here is that Clydesdale has been in and around wine all his life, and has a trove of experience.
Add to this experience the vineyard resources of Devil’s Lair itself – which is at the cooler, more kangaroo-strewn, southern end of the Margaret River region – and it all looks pretty good on paper.
It also, it turns out, looks good in reality. The 2022 Devil’s Lair Cabernet Sauvignon didn’t just win its category at the most recent Margaret River Wine Show, but also went on to win the Wine of Show award. Then, last Friday, at Cape Mentelle’s celebration of cabernet, the 2021 Devil’s Lair Cabernet – tasted double blind – sat there in a sea of glasses and announced itself, in whispers, as something truly beautiful.
It did so in the best of ways; by way of lightness, and by way of length. It’s a sinewy, perfumed, red-fruited cabernet, and for these reasons and for the extra linger on the finish it stood out, or to me it did. My note read: “Elegant, light, insistent, almost new wave grenache-like. Florals and spices. Some coffee grounds and cedar but with a light hand. Red berries, spices, peppercorns and mineral. Firm-but-long tannin. This is a super wine; light, strict, structured and ethereal at once.”
The list price on Devil’s Lair Cabernet Sauvignon is around $50, though the award-winning 2022 is already being widely discounted to $39.95. The fact that we don’t hear much about Devil’s Lair is working in the buyer’s favour here; it’s keeping and driving prices down. I haven’t (yet) tasted the 2022 but if you can find the 2021 in that price territory then by golly it’d be worth jumping on. It was one of my favourite wines in a field of wines at four, five, and ten+ times the price. I give this recommendation with one caveat; the 2021 release is a lighter, more red-berried expression of cabernet than many may prefer, and has pretty keen tannin too.
The thing is, the 2021 Devil’s Lair Cabernet Sauvignon is a less-is-more wine. It’s unforced, and it’s elegant. It wasn’t even made to be the top cabernet in its own stable – and that, I suspect, is part of its secret.
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Since this experience, I’ve tasted the Devil’s Lair Cabernet Sauvignon 2023.
