This juicy, full-of-fruit red sums up the best of Aussie wine – gorgeous ripe flavour, good intensity and freshness. Way & Cat is short for ‘wayfaring catador’, catador being Spanish for taster.
So the name is a tribute to how the team source their fruit – they head out into the vineyards to taste the grapes of their grower friends. When they find the selections they like, they vinify each parcel separately, then blend the results into fruit first expressions of the varieties they chose. That blend changes vintage by vintage, depending on what performs well that year. It's top for versatility too – great as a glass on its own, tasty with roasted vegetable quiche, sausage and mash. And just the ticket at a barbecue.
As far back as 1982, the founder of this cellar, Pablo Morandé, was discovering the benefits of Chile's great coastal-cooled regions. That was a decade before anyone else. He set up his winery in 1996 and has won scores of awards since then, including being five times Chile's Winery of the Year. Pablo was also named a 'Winemaking Legend' by MW Tim Atkin in 2017, while James Suckling called his "a leading and innovative winery", "a bold, experimental winemaking adventure project".
His winemaker is Jorge Martinez, who has worked at cellars worldwide, including Napa's Kendall Jackson and Pauillac's Léoville Poyferré. Carignan from 40-year-old vines in the warm Maule valley, this is a velvety, dark, spiced red. An ideal match with lamb shanks.
