This South Australian boutique winery seems to have entered the market with a bit of fanfare, and then sort of disappeared. The managing director Simon Austerberry clearly has an eye for dramatic branding; the first thing anyone notices about Marlargo wines are the labels. Austerberry commissioned a series of paintings by Australian artist Sharon Wedel featuring slightly abstract very postmodern female figures. Each wine also bears a somewhat confusing subtitle, ostensibly tied to the art on the label. The Cabernet Sauvignon is "Latina," the Chardonnay is "Gypsy Spirit," etc. Marlargo sources their grapes from a variety of vineyards, but each of their varietal wines is associated with a specific growing area. Each is blended by a different winemaker. Their wines include Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Rosé, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonna, a Riesling, and several blends.

Although Marlargo has won some decent awards, it seems to have been less than successful in the long run. Their wines were initially priced for retails sales between $18.00 and $30.00 dollars. I picked them up at a local bargain grocery store for $2.99 for the whites, and $3.99 for the Cabernet Sauvignon. Their Web site is pretty useless. Marlargo is now very much targetting the bridal/wedding markets, with a redirect to a Web site called "One Perfect Day," and featuring "bomboniere" bottles to use as party favors for guests. There's almost no information about the company or the wines.

Marlargo 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon

This wine won more awards than any of their other wines, including silvers at 2007 Houston International Wine Competition, the 2007 Royal Melbourne Wine Show, the 2006 New Zealand International Wine Show, the 2006 National Cool Climate Wine Show, and the 2006 Australian Small Winemakers Show. The grapes were from Perricoota and the wine was made by Greg Dedman. Perricoota is a small area near the township of Moama on the northern bank of the Murray River, in New South Wales. It has less than twenty years history in terms of commercical vineyards, and it's not particularly known for Cabernet Sauvignon, which makes me suspect that this wine was made with all of a particular grower's Cabernet Sauvignon production.

The Marlargo 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon is a very dark, dense purple-red, and the fragrance is slightly reminiscent of blackberries. It was quite nice twenty minutes after opening the bottle, but forty minutes later and it was lovely. It's very hard to believe that this is a 14.5% ABV; it really doesn't taste like it. It's very complex in terms of the initial fruit impression giving way to a realization that yes, there's real depth here, and a nice tannic edge. The other Australian Cabernet Sauvignon I've been enjoying lately, the AU Cabernet Sauvignon Coonawarra 2004 has a chocolate note that this wine doesn't but it's not a lack. I realize that this is not a standard pairing, but I'd very much like to try this wine with a char-broiled tuna steak.