‘A warrior variety’ – Cabernet’s resilience from the Maipo to Margaux

‘A warrior variety’ – Cabernet’s resilience from the Maipo to Margaux As the climate and consumer tastes change, how does the future look for Cabernet Sauvignon? Still pretty bright, if the views of the winemakers of Casa Real and Château Lascombes are anything to go by. Richard Woodard reports. London is sweltering in the throes of an unprecedented June heatwave, the mercury surging rapidly into the mid- to high 30s celsius. Over in Bordeaux, the conditions are even more extreme, prompting Château Lascombes winemaker and CEO Axel Heinz to admit that this year makes the infamously torrid 2003 growing season look “almost normal”. Heinz is in town with Chilean winemaker Sebastián Labbé, the man in charge of Casa Real, Santa Rita’s icon single-varietal Cabernet Sauvignon, to discuss how a changing climate – and also, perhaps, an evolving fine wine market – is affecting one of the world’s most famous and beloved grape varieties. Spoiler alert: they think it’s going to be ok. Beyond Cabernet Sauvignon, you might think that the Alto Maipo and Margaux have little in common (and, historically, Lascombes has arguably been as famous for Merlot as for Cab; we’ll get to that later). But there are connections. From Casa Real’s first vintage in 1989, says Labbé, it had a notable French influence, its 20 hectares of Alto Jahuel vineyard centred on the Carneros Viejo and Población parcels, sitting at an altitude of 565m and benefitting from the cool air wafting down from the nearby Andes. In a country where conditions often create rich, powerful wines, “this particular place is able to produce delicacy, with structure and a lot of freshness”, he explains. Then there is Casa Real’s use of press wine – a technique more commonly associated with Europe than South America. This, says Labbé, is “very important to build the solid core of the wine” and, since he has pulled back on extraction in the winery, its quality has improved. In a fiercely hot and dry year like 2020, when the wine has a savoury, saline profile, Labbé believes that “the magic of the press wine helps to build structure and the viscous character”. The other obvious common factor is the need to adapt to a changing climate. Heinz poses a question that verges on the existential: “Are the wines we’re going to produce in the near future and tomorrow wines that are still going to be recognisable as being from Bordeaux?” The notion of “recognisable as being from Bordeaux” has always been a bit of a movable feast. Heinz harks back to the days when the region had more Malbec than Merlot, and more white wines than red. “We all like the idea of typicity being fixed, but it isn’t so,” he says. “Bordeaux in the 2020s is not Bordeaux in the 1980s, and it never will be.” A safe bet? From the 1970s to the 1990s, Heinz adds, Merlot was considered “the safe bet” versus Cabernet’s reluctance to ripen. “Today it’s almost the opposite. Merlot has become a bit of a problem child in Bordeaux. It doesn’t like the drought, or too much rain. Even in 2024 [a challenging, wet vintage], where you might expect Merlot to be better, Cabernet is the more reliable grape variety.” This is also reflected in recent changes at Lascombes. The property has long been an outlier in Margaux, having amassed a sprawling collection of 120ha of vineyard parcels located across the appellation, with an unusual focus on Merlot (the 2009 blend was evenly split between the variety and Cabernet Sauvignon). Under Heinz, who joined Lascombes from Ornellaia three years ago, the focus has narrowed to the historic heart of the estate, with Cabernet making up 67% of the first wine’s assemblage in 2022, and 60% in 2023. “In 2017, I think the grand vin was sourced from a lot of different terroirs,” he says. “One of the things we thought about is that, yes, it seems tempting when you have different terroirs to say that’s a great tool to achieve consistency… But it’s a little bit to the detriment of a more precise expression of the wine.” The old vineyards around the château, which helped Lascombes to secure second growth status back in 1855, constitute “one prevailing terroir that shapes the character of the wine”, according to Heinz. “It speaks of Margaux, but it also has its own identity.” Partner Content He plans to uproot Merlot in favour of Cabernet Sauvignon in certain parts of the estate – especially where there are gravel soils. But he hasn’t by any means forsaken the variety, launching the 100% Merlot La Côte Lascombes in 2025, at roughly twice the price of the château’s grand vin. By comparison, Casa Real’s approach has been consistent. Always a single-varietal Cabernet, always sourced from the same blocks, the oldest planted in 1970 and all featuring massal selection. But there has been an evolution, says Labbé: “I think over time we have learned to let the place speak more strongly – much more hands-on in the vineyard and hands-off in the cellar. The concentration that we have naturally from the vines, it’s something we have to be very delicate with, to not push it and affect the balance of the wine.” Light touch To anyone with even a passing interest in recent fine wine trends, it will come as no surprise to hear that both winemakers have been pursuing that “hands-off in the cellar” philosophy, encompassing everything from picking dates to maceration, extraction, fermentation temperatures and maturation. “The fruit is so much more concentrated and ripe that we don’t need to force anything,” says Heinz. “Twenty or 30 years ago, the winemaking stepped in to fix some shortcomings in the grapes. Today, we keep things simple.” This also leads him to ponder the concept of ripeness. “It’s not something that can be strictly defined,” he argues. “We know what very unripe is, we know what overripe is, but what is in between leaves huge space for interpretation.” In particular, ‘aromatic ripeness’ remains elusive, defying precise scientific analysis. And then there are changing attitudes towards pyrazines – the ‘green’ flavours sometimes found in Cabernet. “At winemaking school, that was the devil in disguise – no greenness, no pyrazine,” recalls Heinz. “Now a certain degree of it is adding complexity. We’re nowhere near as anti-pyrazine as we used to be.” Are these developments prompted by a changing climate, evolving consumer tastes, or a bit of both? For Heinz, it’s more about preserving identity, but he acknowledges: “The period of bigger, more alcoholic wines – that period is over.” No longer are people content to sit on wines for 15 or 20 years, trusting that they will, at some point, become drinkable. “You can’t get away with that,” says Heinz. “[These wines] should be more enjoyable and readable when they’re young.” Climate challenges Other shifts are more explicitly climate-related. In Alto Jahuel, where the grapes have a natural tendency towards a higher skin-to-pulp ratio, Labbé is trying to increase vigour to achieve larger berries and greater balance – but Heinz is cautious about this. “The amount of fruit on the vine is also increasing your susceptibility to drought stress,” he warns. Canopy management is especially complex: on the one hand, you might try to ease the pressure on vines by reducing the canopy size in a drought year, but on the other, you still need to protect the grapes from the sun. Heinz counsels a focus on removing younger leaves, which are more physiologically active, to reduce evapotranspiration. Some aspects of the impact of climate change can appear counter-intuitive. In Margaux, 2017 could be classified (in contemporary terms) as a ‘cool’ year with a relatively late harvest – but mainly because the vine cycle was set back by severe spring frosts. “Elements that delay the ripening process allow us to produce a wine that’s closer to the Bordeaux ‘typicité’,” explains Heinz. Meanwhile, 2020 was “by far the hottest vintage in the history of Casa Real”, says Labbé, with no rain during the growing season, and only 73mm during the preceding winter. Even so, some blocks were harvested very late because the vines temporarily shut down, pausing their growing cycle. “The resilience we see with the vines is surprising,” he admits. That word – resilience – is proving to be arguably Cabernet’s most important attribute today, whatever curveballs the climate may throw at it. “I think it’s definitely a very resilient variety,” observes Labbé. “It’s a variety that has a lot of character, and it can adapt to a lot of different growing conditions. It’s a real fighter – a warrior variety.” Heinz agrees, highlighting Cabernet’s history. “Resilience was the reason why it was planted in Bordeaux in the first place,” he points out. “It wasn’t planted because it was making better wine; it was planted because it was more robust.” Maintaining that strength and stamina – as well as its undoubted quality and character – will be key to Cabernet’s fortunes in the years ahead, wherever in the world it is grown. Related news Brane Cantenac unveils label celebrating 100 years of Lurton family ownership French vineyards battle extreme heat as climate pressures mount