George Wyndham was one of the founding fathers of the Australian wine industry after planting the first commercial vineyard in 1830. Wine like this Cabernet Merlot pay tribute to George with its rich blackcurrant and cassis flavours, complemented by plum flavours and soft tannins. A great match with a variety of red meat and game dishes, Mediterranean cuisine and cheese.

Howard Park are Western Australia's largest family-owned winery whose reputation is unsurpassed. Their Madfish range of wines continue to provide great value-for-money while still offering that Western Australian quality we've all come to enjoy. The Cabernet Merlot has a luscious smooth ripe flavour profile without being sweet with regional notes of black olives and eucalypt.

This WA winery continues to impress with its well-crafted value for money wines. This Cabernet blend has ripe berry fruit characters enhanced by toasty oak and balanced with fine-grained tannins.

The gravelly soils and sunny climate of Hawkes Bay are producing some of New Zealand's most exciting reds. This classy Merlot from Oyster Bay shows soft spicy varietal flavours such as, juicy plums and ripe dark fruits. Accompanied by well intergraded oak and subtle tannins, making this wine one of the easier matching to food.

Ripe and generous, the leafy, minty characters of Cabernet are complemented by the softness and plummy fruit coming from the Merlot. A nice touch of sweet oak completes the picture.

At last an affordable Merlot with some real varietal character! Grant Burge Hillcot range has soft ripe red berry and raspberry aromas on the nose. Followed by ripe plum and cherry flavours enhanced by well-integrated oak.

The typical Margaret River Cabernet characters of red berries and leafiness are neatly balanced with the softer, plummy notes of Merlot.

From a 37-acre vineyard, Château Pavie Macquin is stunningly situated on the clay-limestone plateau of Saint-Émilion on the right bank of Bordeaux. 2010 has produced a formidable wine: a blend of 70% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, this is a top release of the harvest year and a highlight from St-Émillion in 2010. Tannins, restraint and inward concentration are motifs, this is a wine for the patient, sophisticated collector who wishes to embellish a cellar with pedigree wines that need time and maturity to come to the fore.

The 2010 Chateau d'Issan is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot, showing 'classic Margaux' in its perfume, finesse and apparent elegance. Soils are gravel and clay, which contributes to the high-tones of perfume from the wine, and though an estate that is neccesarily clawing its way back to a higher profile, is doing so with deeds in bottle over showmanship. On its side, the vineyard is dense with older vines that naturally offer lower yields, allowing for a higher quality of fruit for the winemaking team, in turn producing a wine of stellar quality from 2010.

Château Gloria is the lifes work of Henri Martin, who's Cabernet based wines are very individualistic. The Château has never joined the Syndicat des Crus Bourgeois. This allows Henri to be a little more creative and produce wines of great concentration for prices that are easily approachable. The 2008 is a great example of the Château Gloria style and has been rated 90 points by Robert Parker Jnr.