The Moya Meaker wines, as made by Jean Smit, come from Habibi farm in Elgin, owned by David Curl and wife Genevieve Hamilton-Brown – Genevieve’s late mother, Moya Meaker, who was crowned Miss South Africa in 1959, lending her name to the range.
Moya Meaker Riesling 2022
Price: R300
Fermented and matured in concrete. Enchanting aromatics of pear, peach, lime, green apple, white pepper and spice with just a touch of reduction in the background. The palate shows good clarity – clean, sweet fruit playing off against punchy acidity, the finish super-dry. Alc: 12.35%.
CE’s rating: 92/100.
Moya Meaker Pinot Noir 2022
Price: R300
Matured for 11 months in 300-litre barrels, 20% new. Exotic aromatics of red cherry, orange, rose and white pepper. The palate is luscious but not weighty or sweet. Lovely bright acidity to go with super-fine tannins, this grows in refinement with each new vintage. Alc: 13.37%.
CE’s rating: 92/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
This year marks 20 years since May de Lencquesaing, of Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande fame, purchased Stellenbosch property Glenelly. Maiden vintage of the pinnacle wine called Lady May was in 2008 and it has quickly become one of the best examples of a Cape Bordeaux Red Blend to be had, the 2015 rating 96 points, the 2016 95 and the 2017 97 on this website.
The recently released 2018 (price: R795 a bottle) is more than just a commendable effort in what was a super-dry vintage. A blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet franc, 6% Petit Verdot and 3% Merlot, the wine matured for a total of 24 months in French oak barrels, the first 12 months as individual components in 30% first-fill barrels and then, after blending, taken back to 70% first-fill barrels for an additional 12 months.
The nose shows black cherry, cassis violets, chocolate and pencil shavings while there is very little herbal character to speak of. The palate is super-concentrated and smooth textured although not entirely without verve. A sleek and powerful wine, alcohol is 14.8%.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
The Newton Johnson label may date from 1997 but the first Chardonnay and Pinot Noir bottlings entirely from their own Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley fruit only came in 2008, a reminder that the modern fine wine project in South Africa is remarkably young.
On a recent visit, managing director Bevan Newton Johnson and wnemaking brother Gordon showed various older vintages but declined to pour anything further back than 2012. “We aren’t embarrassed by those older vintages but it’s only from 2012 that we feel we started getting wines illustrative of what this property is truly capable of,” says Bevan.
It was an insightful tasting in the sense of a refinement of approach over time was obvious. Combine favourable vintage conditions and this cellar is capable of some of the best examples of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in the country, the Family Vineyards Pinot Noir 2017 and the Family Vineyards Chardonnay 2019 being two of the finest local examples of these two varieties I’ve tasted in recent times (both rated 97 points).
The Newton Johnsons are positive about the 2022 vintage, the heatwaves that affected other areas just before harvest less of an issue here. Tasting notes and ratings as follows:
Newton Johnson Family Vineyards Chardonnay 2022
Price: R490
Grapes from three blocks, two north-facing and one south-facing. Matured for 11 months in 228- and 500-litre barrels, 25% new. Aromatics are still very primary with notes of citrus, oatmeal, a hint of vanilla and some flinty reduction. The palate is intense but not overly weighty – extra-concentrated fruit and scintillating acidity before a savoury finish. Pure, energetic and beautifully poised, this is years off drinking at its best. Alc: 13%.
CE’s rating: 96/100.
Newton Johnson Family Vineyards Pinot Noir 2022
Price: R590
Grapes from multiple blocks on the farm, each with a slightly different soil structure but essentially granite based. Limited whole-bunch fermentation. Matured for 11 months in 228-litre barrels, 29% new.
Exotic aromatics of red and black berries, orange, earth and a touch of reduction. Impressive depth of fruit, bright acidity and fine-grained, tight-knit tannins. Rich but balanced, this is Pinot at its most seductive. Alc: 14%.
CE’s rating: 94/100.
Newton Johnson Seadragon Pinot Noir 2022
Price: R800
From the oldest vineyard on the property planted in 2003, the soil being granite on clay. The nose shows cherry, cranberry and strawberry, some floral perfume, vanilla and flinty reduction. The palate is medium bodied with bright acidity and fine tannins. Elegant, balanced and dry. Alc: 13.5%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Newton Johnson Windansea Pinot Noir 2022
Price: R800
From a vineyard featuring heavy clay, the resulting berries having thicker skins. Red and black cherry, earth and spice on the nose while the palate has excellent fruit density, punchy acidity and admirably ripe fruit tannins. A wine of both breadth and depth – succulent fruit upfront, the finish decidedly long and dry. Alc: 13.5%.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Immediately after the recent Ireland-New Zealand Rugby World Cup semi-final won by the latter, All Blacks centre Reiko Ioane apparently said to outgoing Irish captain Johnny Sexton, “Enjoy retirement and don’t miss your flight”. Some may view this as not very classy, but the Irish give as good as they get, their flank Peter O’Mahony last year memorably telling New Zealand counterpart Sam Cane that he was a “shit Richie McCaw”, McCaw being Cane’s predecessor as captain and all-round legend.
The absence of banter in the world of wine debates, at least when it comes to formal channels, is curious. Why is this? For one thing, wine is not a binary matter of right or wrong, winners or losers. There’s an unavoidable subjective element to wine appreciation and this inevitably requires some circumspection and humility on the part of debate participants. One commentator might be more knowledgeable and experienced than another but ultimately, no one can argue that their personal taste is superior to someone else’s.
One of the best ways to learn about wine is to appreciate that everyone’s experience is different, and discussions are an opportunity to enrich your own understanding. Seeking to grasp the nuances of another person’s encounter with a wine and how it differs from your own is a highly effective way to enhance appreciation.
Another, less admirable, reason to explain the absence of banter when it comes to wine is that egos are fragile and reputations supposedly easily damaged. Criticise a leading winemaker or prominent property, however playfully, and you stand the chance of being quickly ostracized by the wine establishment.
Still, the missing banter in wine discussions is something of a disappointment. Wine enthusiasts are often regarded as having an exaggerated respect for the subject by the uninitiated and the absence of banter only exacerbates this. It is, to put it bluntly, a missed opportunity for a livelier and more engaging discourse.
As the rugby anecdotes above demonstrate, banter adds an element of entertainment and excitement. Wine discussions all too often become overly serious or academic and could certainly do with more light-hearted fun.
Those of us highly involved in wine world are kidding ourselves if we don’t recognise that outsiders see it as overly complex and elitist. More banter can humanize the discussion, making it more approachable and relatable to a broader audience. Describing wines as “masculine” and “feminine” is so last century and “minerality” is baloney. There, I said it…
Nor does banter always have to be confrontational. One area of wine where there certainly is a difference of opinion is between proponents of natural as opposed to regular wine and this often gets acrimonious. What would be far more useful is a bit of good-natured banter as a tool for mutual edification – participants encouraged to explore and justify their viewpoints, leading to a richer exchange of ideas and knowledge.
Wine appreciation is too often dominated by received wisdom – a set of beliefs and standards that people have come to accept as true: “Sauvignon Blanc doesn’t make serious wine” or “Added sulphur is bad” or “Swartland is hipper than Stellenbosch”. Banter, however, allows individuals to express their unique perspectives more openly, helping to keep the wine scene as vibrant and open as possible. Established norms and trends need challenging and those of us who love wine could all afford to take ourselves less seriously.
In closing, I can recommend the following three Instagram accounts that treat the wine industry with refreshing irreverence: 1). @frau.foudre – wine writer, Australia/New Zealand wine ambassador: 2). @shittywinememes; and 3). @six_parallels_south – producer of kosher wines from the Yarra Valley, Heathcote and Bendigo.
There are two kinds of wine cellars – those which are too big, and those which are too small. I’m referring here to proper personal wine stores, not a stash of bottles to keep you going for a few weeks, and not a single wine fridge which, at full capacity, would run dry in less than a year.
It’s pretty clear what is meant by “too big:” it’s any collection which, at the normal rate of consumption, doesn’t reduce in size in accordance with the life expectancy of the wines. If you are aged 50, consume 200 bottles a year, already have 5000 bottles in storage, and you’re still buying wine with the same voracious enthusiasm you did when you were 30, it’s just possible that a significant percentage of your wines will die before you do. You either have to start drinking with greater enthusiasm, or selling/giving away the wines which are ageing too fast. This may not be a concern for you. If, like me, you aren’t worried about the age-ability of your stash and you’re ready for your off-spring and your friends to dispose of whatever is in your cellar when you no longer have any mortal interest in its contents, this isn’t a problem at all.
It’s the other side of this equation which concerns me. Any wine cellar is too small if it doesn’t have enough capacity to allow you to age wine beyond its primary stage of evolution. This is far more serious than the downside risk of a few bottles slipping over the hill. Risk is an intrinsic to buying, storing and serving wine. Some bottles don’t live up to their promises; some just don’t perform well when they are hauled out for the special occasion you kept them for; some are corked, some are oxidised, some simply don’t catch the mood on the day. You cannot be seriously engaged in buying/drinking wine and also deny that variability, performance, the fragile connection between what went into bottle, what goes into your glass, your mood, your companions, all play a role in your engagement with it.
There is something very special about properly aged wine, wine that has passed the fresh flush of youth, of primary fruit, and has moved onwards onto the plateau of maturity. There is a harmony which is usually missing in the first few years of its existence, even if all the elements are properly knitted together. It’s a kind of braidedness which emerges as time buffs away even the finest of tannins, lifts aromatics and coaxes spice and detail from the exuberance of the fermentation. Even before the secondary notes truly appear there is a polish from the composite parts discovering their “fit.”
Then the real work of time begins, when the fruit-related bouquet transforms into something less ribena-like, more cerebral. In Bordeaux varieties the cassis is gradually replaced with hints of tea-leaf and freshly sliced mushroom; in pinot noir the strawberry and cherry is superseded by cigar-box and cedar-wood, forest-floor and crushed pimento; with chardonnay the lime, citrus and tropical notes pick up whiffs of grilled hazelnuts and crème caramel.
A surprising number of wine drinkers who are happy to spend north of R1000 per bottle choose to consume their purchases within a year or two of buying them. They don’t know about this next phase in a great wine’s life. Those who do argue that when it ages, it becomes less showy: they admit they want the opulence of the primary fruit, the palpable evidence of new oak barrels. “When all that’s gone,” they say, “there’s not enough left of what made the wine so striking when it first came to market.”
There’s real truth in that, and the wine industry isn’t setting out to show that the next phase can be more gratifying, complex, savoury and nuanced. And there’s a reason for that too: as long as your punters are flattening the vinous treasures you sold them on the strength of a high score and an “exclusive” tasting, they will have to keep on buying. Every bottle knocked off young creates a gap which must be filled. Nothing feeds the cashflow better than a depleted pipeline.
There’s another sound reason which drives the pressure to sell wines that are too young, and to persuade buyers they can and should be drunk “a soon as you like.” Velvety, creamy, palpably soft reds with super-ripe fruit notes have no visible acidity, no discernible tannins. To make them accessible and showy from the moment they go to bottle, they are stripped of the components which would carry them over an extended plateau of maturity. The producers know this, and in promoting this style of pumped-up wine they need to make sure it gets consumed before it keels over.
What is “transparency” in wine? If it’s the intention on the part of the production team to show the influence of site with the minimum of artifice in the cellar, then this is very much the ethos behind Roodekrantz, the joint venture between former Windmeul export manager Marius Burger, son Marius Junior and winemaker Danie Morkel.
The range largely showcases old-vine Chenin Blanc and winemaking for this is the same throughout – inoculation with a neutral yeast so that the fermentation process doesn’t obscure terroir, maturation lasting 10 months in older oak. Tasting notes and ratings for the new releases as follows:
1983 Old Bush Vine Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R150
Grapes from the same Paardeberg vineyard that supplies Rhenosterbosrug. Matured for 10 months, 90% in tank and 10% in barrel. Peach, tangerine and hay on the nose while the palate has good fruit concentration and well-integrated acidity. Deep and smooth textured in the best sense. Alc: 13.57%.
CE’s rating: 90/100.
Rhenosterbosrug Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R300
Subtle aromatics of citrus and peach plus traces of hay, herbs and earth. The palate is understated and doesn’t have quite the same clarity and tension as the previous vintage (2022 marked by heatwaves in the lead-up to harvest) – a wine that intrigues on account of its elusiveness. Alc: 12.69%.
CE’s rating: 92/100.
Die Kliphuis Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R370
From a vineyard on the of the Paardeberg planted in 1976 on granite. Pear, peach, citrus, hay and herbs on the nose while the palate has a striking tension about it – a dense core of fruit is matched by snappy acicdity before a finish that manages to be pithy in texture and saline in flavour. Direct and focused. Alc: 12.3%.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
1974 Old Bush Vine Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R300
Grapes from a Paarl vineyard on shale. Peach, nectarine and honeysuckle on the nose while the palate is rich and round with tangy acidity – well balanced and full of flavour. Alc: 14.01%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Brand se Berg 2022
Price: R300
Grapes from a Paarl vineyard planted in 1975 on granite with a slightly higher clay content. Exotic aromatics of stone fruit, melon and pineapple. Generous fruit and moderate acidity before a gently savoury finish. Again one of the plusher wines in the range as you would expect from this district. Alc: 13.14%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Donkermaan Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R370
Grapes from a Helderberg vineyard planted in 1976 – the last vintage to be made as the farm in question was subsequently sold and replanted. The nose is complex with leesy complexity preceding citrus and peach with traces of flowers and herbs in the background. Great fruit definition matched by bright acidity, the finish long and savoury. Wonderfully poised with layers of flavour. Alc: 12.45%.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
1954 Old Bush Vine Cinsaut 2022
Price: R300
Grapes from a Paarl vineyard planted in 1954 on shale. 15% whole-bunch fermentation. Enticing aromatics of red cherry, cranberry and plum plus herbs and earth. Pure fruit, lemon-like acidity and powdery tannins – delivers a lot of flavour for a wine with an alcohol of just 12.42%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
1976 Old Bush Vine Pinotage 2021
Price: R300
The first of only two vintages from a Helderberg vineyard on granite. Conspicious minty, herbal notes but also red cherry, flowers and earth on the nose while the palate has pure fruit, bright acidity and tannins that are firm to the point of astringent. An example of the variety that’s very much New Wave in style that comes across as a bit rustic but equally full of character. Alc: 13.05%.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Driving up the gravel road into the Aprilskloof to visit Lammershoek just the other week, I was struck by the thought that it must be at least 20 years since I made my first visit to the Paardeberg – and that was probably also my first wine-stop in any part of the Swartland other than one at Spice Route. Since then I’ve negotiated that road so often; sometimes it has been badly ridged, sometimes smoothly graded, just occasionally rainwater lingered in the ruts, but travelled always with a sense of pleasure and expectation. To a real extent, the Paardeberg has been at the centre of my own adventure in chronicling the Cape wine revolution, which has had, surely, its most dynamic and epitomising centre here.
From the turn-off from the speedy R45 outside Malmesbury onto this ten kilometres or so of rough road it all looks much the same as it did – until you approach the low slopes of the kloof itself. In fact there are few parts of the Cape winelands that have seen such concentrated, significant change in these two decades as the Paardeberg. Perhaps, on a larger scale, Hemel-en Aarde and Egin; but neither of those two (though nowhere can compare with Hemel-en-Aarde for average quality and average bottle price, I reckon) quite so eloquently expresses through visible changes the transformation of the Cape fine wine industry.
I have looked back, to remind myself, on stuff that I wrote … so long ago. I can’t recall what I did locally, but in 2006 The World of Fine Wine, to the imaginative credit of its editor, Neil Beckett, published what was surely the first international report on the revolutionary rise of Swartland wines – embedded a touch insecurely (if understandably) in an article called Adventures in Cape terroir, which included some description of the Wine of Origin system, as I suspected that would be news (and worth explaining) to most foreign readers, as well as a wider claim about the growing importance of terroir in South African wine.
The following year, the same journal published my story about the crucial emergence of fine white blends in the Cape. It looked at Vergelegen’s pioneering (2001) wines modelled on the great Bordeaux semillon-sauvignon blends, and at the wholly original response to local terroir embodied in the chenin-based blends that Sadie’s Palladius had (2002) – effortlessly, and to modern eyes and tastes so obviously – created. Interestingly (I’d forgotten this), the early Palladius vintages were entirely from Paardeberg grapes, unlike Columella, which was already designed as a Swartland-wide blend expressing the whole area (the Old Vineyard Series was yet to be conceived, let alone introduced).
You look at those dates and examples and extrapolate to wonder at how much has been achieved – and how much we have come to take for granted – in the not many years since then. And of course that remarkable tale could be extended to just about the whole of the Cape
To return to the Paardeberg: back then, in 2006–07 there were remarkably few Swartland producers to cite in an article about the start of the Swartland revolution, in addition to a few outsiders that were already buying grapes from there. There was, of course, Charles Back’s pioneering Spice Route; Sadie, which had its base in a shed on Lammershoek to produce Columella and Palladius; Lammershoek itself; and the now defunct Observatory, Tom Lubbe’s radical label based on the Paardeberg’s Boschgarsfontein farm. I also discussed Scali, on the other side of the Paardeberg, actually just outside the Swartland.
Amongst names now famous, Adi Badenhorst was still making very ripe cab for Rustenberg; the Mullineux were poised to leave Tulbagh Mountain Vineyards where they had been getting increasingly interested in Swartalnd grapes and set up a counter-weight to the Paardeberg, in Riebeek-Kasteel; David Sadie was soon to get involved from his place at Lemberg; Donovan Rall was just about there, with Jurgen Gouws of Intellego not far behind, with Bryan MacRobert’s Tobias – another shortlived label, like Observatory, from a winemaker shortly to leave for love and winemaking in southern Europe.
And now on the Paardeberg, well, there are even a few small empires, testament to the international success of top-end, new-wave Swartland. Lammershoek is hopefully resurgent (and also hosting André Bruyns’s City on a Hill); David & Nadia are firmly established on the Paardebosch farm (I’m not sure about the complexities of their interest in the farm itself); Adi Badenhorst has greatly extended his property as well as control over other Paardeberg vineyards; on a much smaller scale there’s JC Wickens Wines – with Jasper and Franziska Wickens making their small and excellent range off the latter’s family farm; Andrew Wightman has the small, emphatically new-wave, Wightman & Sons brand – but is arguably most important for the grapes his Môrelig farm provides to a number of smart producers. And on a high ridge looking down over the Sadie spread, Chris and Suzaan Alheit have a small farm with some fine vineyards.
So then there’s Sadie Family Wines, of course, that I’m leaving to the end and its own paragraph, given the crucial significance Eben Sadie has played in the making of Paardeberg into one of the internationally best known wine-growing areas of the modern Cape. (I suspect if you asked many serious non-Cape lovers of South Africa wine to name the mountain most famous for wine here, the answer would be Paardeberg even before Helderberg.) The development of Sadie’s Rotsvas farm – centred on the little whitewashed shed where the whole grand venture started, and which still nurtures the maturing barrels of Columella – has been breathtaking in its speed and extent. From virtually nothing two decades ago, to this.
I had a tour of the latest addition, the three-quarter-finished, multi-level building that will host offices, tasting space, and much of the vinification and maturation of the wines. Etc. Complementing the two other substantial new edifices, it will physically complete the “werf” that has grown here on the Paardeberg (roads and gardens are part of the project). It is altogether a most remarkable and sizeable building, intensively and extensively thought-through and managed by Eben, whose vigilance over all aspects (is that pipe a little off-angle? Redo it! We want natural light on the central staircase…) has consumed much of his life for a great many months. I suspect that when it is finished, it will be amongst the most amazing and brilliant wine buildings not just in South Africa, but probably in the southern hemisphere. I can’t begin to describe it all, but one aspect has lodged in my mind – two really, as there’s also the vastly spacious height of the room that will hold the cement fermentation tanks. But there’s a cellar devoted to housing the Sadie Family Wines wine-library. A few metres wide, lined with bins for the wines, and 40 metres long – the light rising and falling as, tripping sensors, one moves down it. I can’t wait to see the whole thing finished, earlyish next year perhaps.
Two decades is, of course, a blink of an eye in the story of a mountain. How many, many decades even since the slaughter of the last of the zebra-like animals that prompted the settlers to give this sprawling mountain its name? But there are surely no 25 years in its history that can compare to these last.
If 2017 and 2021 are generally highly collectible vintages for South African fine wine, then 2020 simply isn’t in the same league. Boekenhoutskloof, of course, makes two versions of single-variety of Cab, one from Franschhoek and the other from Stellenbosch. The cellar relates that Franschhoek experienced fairly good rainfall but a high diurnal temperature range making for a “viticulturally extreme year” while Stellenbosch was windy and dry leading to a wine with “a focus on tannins rather than acidity”. Tasting notes and ratings as follows:
Boekenhoutskloof Franschhoek Cabernet Sauvignon 2020
Price: R495
86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14 % Cabernet Franc. Matured for 22 months in 225-litre barrels, 80% new. Pretty aromatics of red and black berries, floral perfume, vanilla and cocoa powder. The palate is plush and spread out – the mid-palate solid, the texture creamy but the wine arguably lacking some freshness. Alc: 14.5%.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Boekenhoutskloof Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2020
Price: R495
96% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Cabernet Franc. Matured for 22 months in 225-litre barrels, 65% new. Exotic aromatics with top notes of flowers and fynbos before red and black berries, vanilla and spice while the palate shows sweet fruit and fine-grained tannins but again feels a bit short of drive. Alc: 14.5%.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
The good reputation of the 2021 vintage grows and grows. Thelema in Stellenbosch describes it as “A warm, dry vintage with a late start, resulted in smaller tonnage but yielding balanced, well-structured wines with lovely intensity” and the top-end Rabelais has turned out exceptionally well.
A blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Petit Verdot, it was matured for 18 months in 225-litre barrels, 76% new. The nose is enticingly perfumed – red and black berries plus hints of flowers, herbs, vanilla and spice while the palate is medium-bodied but certainly not insubstantial – pure fruit, fresh acidity and fine-grained tannins, dry on the finish (alc: 14.5%). A wine of clarity, poise and elegance. Price: R800 a bottle.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Paarl property Joostenberg and Dalewood Fromage, both family owned, recently hosted a cheese and wine lunch party at The Kraal restaurant.
Chef Garth Bedford and The Kraal team prepared a meal focused on Dalewood’s signature cheeses which were paired with appropriate wines.
Besides the fact that the Myburghs of Joostenberg and the Vissers of Dalewood have farmed in the area for many years, both families also share an interest in organic and regenerative farming, and the lunch showed off the finest produce from both farms – I was reminded that while the Joostenberg wines are perhaps not the most dramatic around, they are well suited to good food and good company. Tasting notes and ratings for the new releases as follows:
Family Blend 2021
Price: R155
83% Syrah, 13% Mourvèdre and 4% Touriga Nacional. Partial whole-bunch fermentation. Matured in a combination of stainless steel tanks and older oak barrels for nine months. Appealing aromatics of red and black berries, fynbos, lavender, earth and spice while the palate shows succulent fruit, fresh acidity and crunchy tannins – so damn likeable. Alc: 13.5%.
CE’s rating: 92/100.
Klippe Koue Syrah 2021
Price: R205
30% whole-bunch fermentation. Maturation lasted 10 months, 63% in older oak barrels and 37% in concrete eggs. Red berries, musk, fynbos and white pepper on the nose while the palate is relatively rich (alcohol is 13.9%) with moderated acidity and powdery tannins, the finish nicely savoury.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Philip Albert Cabernet Sauvignon 2019
Price: R205
92% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot. Matured for 22 months in in 300-litre barrels, 17% new. Cranberry, raspberry, fresh herbs and a hint of earth on the nose. Medium bodied with fresh acidity and lightly grippy tannins. Modest – readily approachable but not facile.
CE’s rating: 90/100.
Bakermat 2019
Price: R290
41% Syrah, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Mourvédre and 13% Touriga Nacional – Cab de-stemmed, the other varieties undergoing partial whole-bunch fermentation. Maturation lasted 12 months in 500-litre barrels before a further 10 months in concrete (66%) and barrel (34%). Subtle aromatics of cranberry, raspberry cassis, some floral perfume, fynbos, white pepper and other spice on the nose. The palate is medium-bodied with fresh acidity and a gently savoury finish. Understated and nicely composed.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Subscribers receive daily reviews and in-depth reports before release to the public. Cancel any time.
