The most prestigious red grape?

Origins

• Bordeaux region, as a natural cross of Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc (established 1997 by DNA analysis)
• Was known as Vidure or Petit-Vidure
• Spread throughout left bank of Bordeaux, supplanting white grapes

Characteristics   

• Fairly easy to grow: hardy, buds late, but also ripens late (so some danger of equinoctial storms)
• Loose bunches of thick-skinned grapes (so good resistance to rain and disease)
• Loves well-drained soils (e.g. gravels of Médoc, Rutherford bench, Coonawarra Terra rossa)
• Low yielding
• High proportion of skin and pip to pulp, hence deep colour and high tannin
• Deep colour (deepest of all mainstream grapes)
• Key fruit quality: blackcurrants
• Melding of fruit and oak: cedary and cigar-box flavours with age               

Vinification / Maturation

• Long macerations to extract colour and flavour
• Long maturation in (often) new, small (225l.) French oak barrels

Homeland       

• Bordeaux: the classic grape of the left bank, especially Graves and Médoc (doesn’t like the cooler, damper, clay soils of the right bank)
• Summit: the five first growths: Latour, Lafite, Mouton Rothschild, Margaux (Médoc) & Haut-Brion (Graves)
• Generally makes up 60-80% of left bank claret.
• N.B. Contrast: in homeland of Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon is usually part of a blend. In New World often made as 100% CS

Also to be found in    

• France (but not that widely planted): S.W. France, e.g. Bergerac; Provence and Languedoc (e.g. Vin de Pays & Mas de Daumas Gassac), Loire
• Italy: North-east and Tuscany  - 100% Cabernets, e.g. Sassicaia - or part of a blend with Sangiovese
• Bulgaria: Huge volume & poor quality, but potential?
• USA: California, esp. Napa Valley & Sonoma Washington State
• Australia: South Australia, esp. Coonawarra; Western Australia, esp. Margaret River; Victoria. Often blended with Shiraz
• New Zealand: Around Auckland and Hawkes Bay, usually in Bordeaux style blend
• South Africa: held back by poor, disease-ridden plant material until 1990s: now new Cabernet clones of promise, both blends and as a single varietal     
• South America: very high quality examples from Chile; and Cabernet of more dubious varietal character from  Argentina