Cape Mentelle and Chevrolet in a context of Cabernet
I like to say that Cape Mentelle saved my life. It was 1993, I was staying at a backpacker hostel in the Margaret River township, and after hiring a bike on a hot December day I’d then drastically over-estimated both my cycling fitness, and my water requirements. Margaret River is not generally considered to be particularly hilly but when you’re unfit and dehydrated and it’s hot, some of those little hills start feeling like Alpe d’Huez. In fact – to briefly digress – it’s often more taxing of your (un)fitness to ride over repeated undulations than it is to tackle out-and-out climbs, because it’s harder to pace yourself. In any case there were no dedicated bike paths back then – unlike now – and I remember beaching myself by the side of the road and sitting down there in the merciless sunshine and wondering whether I was physically capable of making it back to town. Water, if only I could find some water. I struggled on for a bit and then saw a driveway with Cape Mentelle’s name on it. I looked at the cool oasis-like calm of its beautiful old label and nearly went mental, outside Cape Mentelle, with joy.
Not only did they water me but I think they gave me crackers, and cheese. I was a wine drinker then but not a wine enthusiast, but even so I drank through several bottles of various Cape Mentelle white wines in the months thereafter, to pay it back.
It did, then, seem pretty unbelievable when, eight years later, I walked into the Cape Mentelle winery with a wine-journalist hat on. I was with Andrew Wood, of Divine Magazine. We ran through a complete vertical tasting of Cape Mentelle Cabernet Sauvignon that afternoon, with both Cape Mentelle founder David Hohnen and then winemaker John Durham, as our guides. This was around the time when the 1997 Cape Mentelle Cabernet Sauvignon should have been released, but had instead been withdrawn or withheld due to Brettanomyces spoilage.
This tasting, held in the late afternoon in a small room at the winery, was bathed in golden sun. I remember the near-orange hue of this sun falling on the weathered skin of Hohnen. Hohnen is a tall, slender man; he started both Cape Mentelle, and Cloudy Bay. He’s one of the wine world’s most significant humans. His achievements are one thing but his hands are another; I’m not sure if his hands are large, but the bones of his hands feel oversized, as if they were accidentally sized to imperial rather than to metric. These bone-dense hands make for a handshake of noteworthy strength but, more profoundly, result in the impression that you don’t just shake the hand of David Hohnen, you enter his world.
Cape Mentelle’s cabernets, back then, were muscular, firm, boney and distinctive. They were born of Hohnen’s hands. I used to think that there was something a bit Italian about them, or Aussie Italian anyway. Because of this distinctiveness I remember the style of these wines, and the impression they made, twenty plus years later. This impression was made yet clearer, in the orange light of the afternoon, by the pure, sun-bleached honesty of the discussion around Brettanomyces, and by the tough call that had been made regarding its withdrawal. It was the test of times more than it was the best of times, for the brand, but I drove away from that tasting at the winery in 2001 as invigorated and as respectful of the place as I had done that hot December day on a hire bike.
Cape Mentelle is a rare beast in Australian wine. It’s one of the few wineries who many people – who otherwise have nothing to do with this winery or this brand – tend to care about. It is to Margaret River what Wynns is to Coonawarra or perhaps more accurately what Mount Pleasant is to the Hunter Valley; it’s a winery that the general wine community would like to see doing well. They do because – thanks to Hohnen, though of course he’s no longer involved, having sold the place a long time ago – it’s a natural born flagbearer. If Cape Mentelle is doing well, Margaret River is doing well. These sentiments and statements aren’t quite what they once were, for sure, courtesy of the history of this winery’s ownership. The care has arguably been watered down a bit, if not passed to others. But the pulse of that inherited care for Cape Mentelle still continues to beat.
At some point, I can’t recall the year, I stood on the very top of a stack of barrels at Cape Mentelle with the late Simon Burnell, who worked as a winemaker there at the time. These barrels were stacked outside, and so we had a wide view of the property. I sat down to the latest 2021 Cape Mentelle Heritage Cabernet Sauvignon this week. In fact I sat down to two different bottles of it, in two different settings. With the first of these bottles, consumed in a hotel room, it felt as though I was still standing atop that stack of barrels at the winery, and was still looking down both over the estate vineyards and also over my history of memories of this place. This bottle and this moment wasn’t about Simon Burnell, who sadly has since passed. But I did think of him as I sat and drank a glass, and I thought of him again the next morning when I visited Prevelly. Once upon a time Burnell had wanted the job as chief winemaker at Mentelle. He never got the chance.
What struck me about this 2021 Cape Mentelle Heritage Cabernet Sauvignon was its softness. It has nothing of the feel of David Hohnen’s hands. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, or a criticism; it’s simply a difference. As it turns out I drank the whole bottle of this wine, myself, over the course of three nights. It is accessible. It can be cellared, but it doesn’t need to be. I reviewed the wine to The Winefront site here, though every night when I sat down to another glass of it I wondered if I’d overrated it by a point.
The second time I tasted this wine, or the second bottle, was at the Cape Mentelle International Cabernet Sauvignon tasting. It was served blind, so there was no musing, no memories, and no vistas. This is a stand-up tasting in a crowded barrel hall. The air smells sweet, and of cedar. The light, mostly, is artificial. Cape Mentelle Heritage Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 was wine number eight, of the twenty wines served.
The first thing I noticed about this wine, on this second occasion, was its gum leaf aromas. I was pretty sure, because of this, that it was Australian, but from there the wine had something of an Italianate feel. There was a balsamic note, some leather, some dried herbs, some black olive flavours, and some licorice. The score I put beside it was 93-94. I didn’t put two and two together at the bench that day. But now that I have, it pleases me to know that Cape Mentelle is still Cape Mentelle.
David Hohnen, it turns out, was also at last week’s tasting. In fact he drove an old Chevrolet pick-up truck there, and parked it front and centre at the entrance to the estate, in pretty much exactly the place he would have parked when he owned the place. In-between bracket two and three of the tasting I strolled down to take a look at this pick-up truck, which is a rich chocolate brown with an orange sunset tinge, in parts. I even peered into the cabin. On the front bench seat there was an unlabelled bottle of what looked like a spirit; it looked like moonshine. I wondered if it was real or whether it had been placed there for effect. This Chevrolet is left hand drive. It was shipped over from America, and then restored here. It is an international car. I found out later, via writer Huon Hooke, that David Hohnen has tracked down all the (five) previous owners of this pick up truck, through the course of decades. These owners are spread across America, though most of them are in the south. Hohnen is planning to travel and visit these owners, apparently, to talk to them about their old truck. These are the objects and obsessions of our lives. The personal is political. The liquid is emotional. The wheels of the pick-up trucks continue to go round and round, so long as someone cares enough to drive them. Huon Hooke tasted his first Cape Mentelle cabernet in the late 1970s, either during or just after his time at Roseworthy. This first Cape Mentelle cabernet was important to Hooke, as it helped him know what was possible in Australia, or in Margaret River at least. The connections are everywhere. Hooke tells me that he once asked Hohnen whether he is proud of what he has created. I imagined both Hooke and Hohnen looking back up the grassy rise towards the Cape Mentelle buildings, as if the answer was in there somewhere. I imagined that Hohnen had paused before offering his answer. Hooke tells me that Hohnen, gruff, wise, kind and stern at once, replied, “I don’t do pride.”
