£50.40 per bottle
Mix any 6 - 10% off
This World class Cabernet is consistently rated as one of South Africa's benchmarks for quality and with a host of accolades to prove it. Most recently 'Best in Show' at Decanter World Wine Awards for the 2020 vintage.
Reserve status is only endowed if the grapes and resulting wine measures up to exceptional standard. Hand selected grapes from older, lower yielding vines are used, 65% from the Helderberg Coastal area, 22% from the Simonsberg and 13% from Helderberg Mountain. Fermentation is made with a selected yeast strain under controlled temperatures. Manual plunging during this period ensures optimal colour extraction. After five days the tanks are closed and allowed to macerate for a further period, normally 10-14 days. Pressing follows and the wine is transferred to French oak barriques (76% new) for malolactic fermentation. After a year in barrel the individual batches are blended to form the final wine and returned to barrel for another year. Bottled unfined and unfiltered. Matured in bottle for one year before release.
Ripe and opulent on the nose with classic Cabernet aromas of blackcurrants, black cherry and plum with cedar spice. The palate is rich and velvety yet remarkably fresh and linear, showcasing black fruit, a creamy mouthfeel and dark chocolate flavours balanced by round, structured tannins. A wine with a wonderfully long, complex finish and great potential for further maturation.
This highly anticipated 2021 release comes hard on the heals of the highly rated 2020 and 2019 from Christo Le Riche, and the impressive 2021 completes the trilogy of block buster vintages from this Cabernet specialist. Unwinding in the glass, the aromatics show delicately musky, perfumed notes of white flowers, crème de cassis, blueberries, black berries and freshly tilled earth hints that mingle with notions of dried herbs, thyme and fresh mint leaf, dried peach skins over graphite, granite dust and delicate dark chocolate cocoa spice nuances. The palate is beautifully silky and creamy, full and broad yet velvety soft and plush, voluminous but delicately elegant, finely detailed and weightlessly concentrated. Tight and compact, seductively seamless in the truest sense with an incredibly integrated acid fruit balance, a lively purity, and supple sweet tannins on the long, piercing finish. If 2019 had the muscle and power and 2020 the seductive elegance, balance, and accessibility, the 2021 is a stand apart expression, as unique as the vintage itself. Simply sublime, awesome even, and most definitely a vintage that will come to define premium quality Cabernet for years to come. A true classic that will richly reward bottle ageing. Drink on release and over the next 20 to 30+ years.
98+/100 Greg Sherwood MW
