This is a classic old-style Bordeaux blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc, cask matured for 20 months before bottling. Deeply coloured in the glass, with complex, deeply perfumed cassis, clove, cinnamon, background red berry fruit and a whiff of oak. Intense dark fruit flavours lead off with blackcurrant and background blackberry supported by firm, chewy tannins and still slightly aggressive acidity. This is a fine, age worthy wine that will show its best with 5+ additional years in the cellar.
Opens with distinctly smoky, tarry aromas over varietal ripe raspberry and peppery spice. Ripe raspberry and blackberry flavours come with unusual dry herbal notes, dark chocolate and lightly firm tannic grip.
Clear pale coppery-pink. Simple grapey-strawberry nose. A patio wine with crisp acidity boosting crushed red berry flavours. Ready to drink on arrival.
South Africa continues to offer great value for your wine dollar. Palest straw in colour with a hint of lime, it shows a nose of apple and lemon with oak spice and that Burgundian barnyard note. Medium-bodied with the flavour of ripe yellow apple and grilled nuts enhanced with toasty oak.
Made from old bush vines, which produce naturally low yields. This is a juicy Chenin which flaunts honey, melon, yellow apple, lemon and white flowers. Great length and a wine that calls out for shrimp or scallops.
You won’t find any better value in a white wine than this Chenin Blanc. You get a wine that’s bright straw in colour with a bouquet of apple and lemon along with a light forest floor note from the oak fermentation. Medium-bodied and dry, flavours of apple, pear and melon fill the palate ending on a lemony note with a suggestion of oak spice. A very complex wine for the price.
This carries all of Semillon's waxy heft and sheen, but with a stony, citrus-lined, edgy profile that talks of its place. This is from Henk Laing's Trekpoort farm on Skurfberg Mountain, within the Citrusdal Mountains (WO Citrusdalberg). These are now 50+ year-old bush vines, almost 1 m tall, planted on red sand and clay in between rooibos, fynbos and apricot trees. After whole bunch pressing, this fermented in stainless before 6 months in neutral, large format French oak. Vibrant stone fruit — nectarine, peach, apricot peel — is scented with tropical melon, pineapple, guava, all wrapped around a waxen, expansive core, and framed with gentle wood spicing. Structural and generous, but held to a 13.5 degree declaration, this young wine well suits protein pairings now, or a couple years' rest in the cellar.