Duane Coates, the winemaker and owner of Coates Wines, has a passion for Australian Wines, but with a very European slant. Duane is based in McLaren Vale and he is a highly sought after contract winemaker for many wineries in South Australia. Coates makes wines on a tiny scale, generally only a few hundred cases of each wine. It is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec which is a very traditional Bordeaux blend, a wine style that Duane loves, each sourced from different vineyards in South Australia.
Duane Coates is an outstanding wine maker who is taking his philosophy of minimal handled wines and applying it to the well known regions of S.A. This particular blend shows his thinking that the final wine must be good, and that region specific wines are not necessarily the only way to go about it. By blending both varieties and regions he’s built complexity