The Rymill winery in Coonawarra. Rymill Wines

Attention all cabernet lovers! There’s something going on down at the Rymill winery in Coonawarra. I confess to having been less than totally impressed with some of the Rymill reds in the past, but the latest crop of cabernets to come my way had me sitting up and taking serious notice.

There were six bottles, ranging from AUD $19 The Yearling to AUD $120 The Surveyor.

What is different about them? To generalise, there’s much less of the herbal, crushed-leafy, sometimes minty characters of past vintages and more of the riper, richer, more satisfying characteristics of good Coonawarra cabernet. Fleshier structure, more balanced acidity.

Of course the cheaper wines were lighter, simpler and more approachable young, with less tannin and less oak—not that oak was overdone in any of the wines. It wasn’t.

I would say all of the lower priced wines were good value in their price-band, while the two expensive wines (Sandstone and The Surveyor) were competitive at the high end.

These two wines, especially The Surveyor 2022, can take their place alongside the flagship Coonawarra cabernets, the likes of Wynns John Riddoch and Balnaves The Tally.

What’s changed on the ground at Rymill?

Nine years ago, in 2016, the founding Rymill family sold the business to Landbridge, the Chinese company that currently holds the 99-year lease on the Port of Darwin. Landbridge is a private company owned by billionaire Ye Cheng.

A few personnel changes followed, and today a young man named Lewis White is the winemaker. There have been fewer changes in vineyard management. Lewis has been at Rymill for just over seven years, succeeding longtime winemaker Sandrine Gimon and intermediate winemaker Shannon Sutherland.

The Rymill winery has deep roots in the Coonawarra region. Peter Rymill, who founded the vineyard and winery in 1974, is the great grandson of John Riddoch, the Scottish-born ‘father’ of Coonawarra. Riddoch arrived in Australia in 1852 during the Gold Rush, and founded Coonawarra in 1890. He built the grand three-gabled stone winery that later became Wynns Coonawarra Estate.

John Riddoch’s daughter Mary grew up at Yallum, a farming property just outside Penola, and married Robert Rymill, the neighbouring farmer. Their son, John Riddoch Rymill, was a distinguished polar explorer who led the 1934-37 British Graham Land Expedition to the Antarctic and surveyed the Antarctic Peninsula.
Rymill The Surveyor Cabernet Sauvignon is named in homage to him.

Since Peter Rymill sold the business, the Rymill family have no further involvement.

Today, Rymill Wines has 140ha of vines, 50% of them cabernet sauvignon—a serious vote of confidence in the variety’s suitability to the region.

The main vineyard and winery are at the northern extremity of the Coonawarra cigar-shaped strip of terra rossa soil. A second, younger vineyard is at the opposite end of the region, just south of the Penola township. This is where the Sandstone cabernet comes from.

Rymill The Surveyor Cabernet Sauvignon 2022

A barrel selection of the best parcels of cabernet from vines planted in 1979.

Rymill Sandstone Cabernet Sauvignon 2021

Made from a 2ha block of vines with exposed sandstone rocks, located at the southern end of the Coonawarra region.

Rymill ‘Coonawarra Cab’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2023

Good value at AUD $30 and 92 points.

Rymill The Dark Horse Cabernet Sauvignon 2023

Good value at AUD $26 and 90 points. They are very horsey at Rymill, and this wine commemorates a famously high-spirited Coonawarra horse that triumphed at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games.