Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon 2016

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon 2016.

Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon 2016
14% alcohol, screwcap, Margaret River.

This 2016 edition of Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon won the Jimmy Watson Trophy in 2018. We reviewed it to The Winefront site at the time. This note it from a vertical tasting of Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon at the winery in late 2024. In other words, this note is from when the wine was 8.5 years old.

Sheesh this is in good shape. It has mellowed and meshed but it’s as fresh as it is complex, and its flavours glide along. It tastes of currants and chocolate and an array of dried herbs, with subtle earth, tobacco and leather notes expanding throughout. Tannin is just so beautifully judged, and extended. Mint notes add some lift. Once upon a time Jimmy Watson Trophy winners had a reputation for not ageing so well; this wine is the opposite, it’s in great shape, with a good 5-10 peak drinking years ahead of it.

I tasted this wine fresh from having tasted the 2014 and 2015 Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon releases. This 2016 felt like a clear step up; more seamless and more sustained and arguably more textural too.

95 points.

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Xanadu sits among Australia’s Best Wineries as a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.
Xanadu reviews.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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