SOUTH AFRICA

Cartology is a cuvee that is composed of rare and extraordinary parcels of mature dryland bush vines. The wine is alive and vibrant. Obviously it's just a baby, but so far has a nose of lime, fennel and quince. The palate is taught, very fine and balanced, with excellent structure and a persistent finish.

From Jancis Robinson's website: Nuttiness and warm cobnuts and roasted cumin on the nose overlaying the sweetness of fruit on the palate. Sage and peaches, mid-summer apricots just picked. Wonderful grip and texture, taut. Plays like a Paganini violin solo. Hauntingly!

A perfect example of elegance and finesse in Pinotage. Red berries, plums and cherries on the nose, followed by a palate of excellent balance, structure and a lovely dry finish. Matches very well with bobotie, game and curries, spare ribs and pepper steak, or try snoek and grape jam.

Lovely fresh tropical fruit aromas flow onto a crisp fresh palate with a perfect balance between the acidity and sweetness, giving this wine great length and intensity.

Winemaker's Notes: "It has an intense ruby red color, with plum cake, red fruit, and dark chocolate aromas, offering savory finish on the palate. The first sorting was done in the vineyards. The perfect bunches were transported in bins to the winery, destemned, sorted and fermented in 5 ton open fermentors. The cap was punched every 2 hours for 60 hours until the right extraction was achieved. After pressing, malolactic fermentation was done in 15 French oak, and 300 liter American oak barrels. The wine matured for 19 months in the barrels."

A blend of 73% Syrah, 12% Grenache, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Cinsault and 1% Viognier, this is a superbly fruity, chocolatey, generally yummy South African red wine. Pour yourself a glass on a mid-summer evening and enjoy.

Classical Boekenhoutskloof complexity with exceptional purity. At first there is overwhelming blackcurrant and cassis on the nose with underlying cedar and spices. The palate shows intense black fruit, prunes and sour cherries with perfect balance. This wine will improve over the next decade.

The inspiration for the name of the wine and design of the labels was a trip to the Yale Center for British Art. An exhibit of Mary Delany’s work, a remarkable series of botanical collages that are beautifully crafted with hundreds of tiny pieces of cut paper was breathtaking. I am fortunate to have licensed a few of her collages and created these beautiful labels with her art as the primary focal point. Mary was 72 when she created these pieces in the late 1700’s.

Long referred to as "Bayten" by locals, Buitenverwachting (meaning beyond expectations) is located on the east-facing slopes of the Constantiaberg on the Cape of Good Hope. Ocean breezes make this area one of South Africa's coolest winegrowing areas, allowing for slow ripening, resulting in grapes that achieve full ripeness while retaining fresh acidity. This wine was aged on the lees for three months prior to bottling. Bayten offers a melange of citrus and stone fruits with honeysuckle, jasmine and green notes on the nose. The palate reveals peaches, apricots, lemon rind and lemongrass with a nice balance of richness and refreshing crispness on the finish.

This is sourced from old vine Chenin planted on its original rootstock or makstok from a ?rescue block? at 520 metres on a cooler south-facing vineyard on the Skurfberg. Even though Chris has been able to add a second parcel from the same site this year (a third segment still gets delivered to the local co-operative), it still represents a total of just nine barrels in the cellar.

A lovely, lifted earthy perfume combines with sweet cherry, grapefruit and strawberry notes delivering a complex and alluring nose. The palate is textured and layered with a succulent core and crisp acidity owing to a cool, fresh vintage. This wine will improve over the next 5-8 years.

"The iconic Left Bank-based blend from De Toren, Fusion V is meticulously crafted from Bordeaux’s ‘Noble Five’ varieties and, with its complex flavours of liquorice, black cherry, cedar and dark berries, it offers a stylish departure for sophisticated oenophilic tastes.Soft as spun silk, with a lingering hint of sweet fruit on the back palate, this is a wine that will only improve with age." -Winemaker’s Notes

WINE SPECTATOR 93 POINTS - "Very enticing, with creamy green and yellow apple, pear and melon flavors laced with verbena and honeysuckle notes, kissed elegantly by a sweetened butter hint through the finish. This is why people love Chardonnay. Drink now through 2021."

Winemaker's Notes - " Rich aromas of cassis and spice with intense liquorice andblackberry flavors on the palate and fine, lingering tannins.Optimal aging potential of 5 – 8 years.
Blend: 63% Cabernet Sauvignon, 21% Merlot, 10% Malbec, 6% Cabernet Franc"

WINE SPECTATOR 94 POINTS - "This sports a core of dark plum and blackberry paste flavors, staying polished and refined in feel, relying more on acidity than tannins, with the structure fully enmeshed in the fruit. Black tea, tobacco and alder hints chime through the finish. Syrah, Mourvèdre, Grenache, Tinta Barroca, Cinsault and Carignan. Best from 2019 through 2023. 790 cases made."

WINE SPECTATOR 94 POINTS - "Opulent, lush and creamy in feel, this lets lemon curd, glazed peach and creamed pear and yellow apple flavors drape over the palate, while light verbena, shortbread and honeysuckle notes give this just the requisite lift and energy for balance. A long heather echo completes the seduction. A hedonistic delight. Drink now through 2023. 130 cases imported."

WINE SPECTATOR 93 POINTS - "A bright, fresh style, with unadorned raspberry and boysenberry fruit flavors streaming through, flecked with dried anise, black tea and shiso leaf notes. A well-embedded iron hint through the finish adds spine and cut. Very refined. Grenache. Drink now through 2022. 572 cases made."

Named for the striking aloe plants near the old vineyard it comes from. The vineyard was planted in the 1930s, with a mix of standard Sémillon and a red-berried form of Sémillon once common in the Cape and probably unique to South Africa, but now almost extinct. Eben Sadie is considered one of the great preservationists and visionaries in the new generation of South African winemakers. To Eben, the vineyard and fruit are part of the story--the truest expression of his art and philosophy. Neal Martin recently called Sadie an "outspoken, peripatetic, terroir-obsessed winemaker who has been instrumental in putting Swartland on the map. He produces a small portfolio of comparatively expensive, but highly coveted wines based on Rhone varieties sourced from his seemingly never-ending search for pockets of old bush vines and unique terroirs. These are cerebral wines built to age."

In the late 19th century, and much of the 20th, Cinsaut was the workhorse red variety that played an undeclared role in some great red blends. It was an obvious candidate for inclusion in the Old Vine Series, although it poses many quality problems in the vineyard as well as the cellar, including the difficulty of keeping yields down and attaining perfect ripeness, plus its very oxidative character. There were five vineyards considered—but it became clear that the block on the Riebeek Mountain in the Swartland was far above the rest in quality (the snakelike form of the mountain gave the wine its name). After picking, careful sorting is vital to get rid of both under-ripe and over-ripe berries. The whole clusters are then placed in an old wooden open-top fermenter, with one or two punch-downs by foot each day to slowly release juice for fermentation. After a month on the skins the grapes are transferred by hand into a tiny basket press and pressed directly to an old wooden cask. The wine is bottled after a year or so, to retain the fruit and elegance of the wine and avoid any premature oxidation character.

This wine blends Chenin Blanc from old bushvine parcels on three farms on the slopes of the Skurfberg ("rugged mountains") between Clanwilliam and Lamberts Bay in the Olifants River Region. They are immaculately farmed properties, which have not been subjected to herbicide or chemical fertilizers by the current farmers. Most of the soils in the area are of decomposed sandstone, and very sandy. Rainfall is low - these vines have had to be tough to survive without irrigation. Together these three low yielding parcels represent the possibilities of the area, each offering something unique to the complexity of the whole. The one site has huge and aromatic fruit concentration; the second offers an earthy character and minerality, and the third (the highest, and closest to the Atlantic) retains amazing acidity and freshness. The three parcels of fruit were vinified separately. They were basket-pressed and then transferred directly to old casks where natural fermentation took place. We blended them after 12 months, and then left them to age another six months before bottling.

WINE ADVOCATE 96 POINTS - "The 2015 Old Vine Series Treinspoor, Eben's Tinta Barocca cuvée, which he said has "the biggest passport in South Africa" since the grape has been grown there for a long time for fortified wine production, has a lucid ruby color. Eben told me that it is actually one of his most difficult sells but I am of the opinion that it is one of his best wines. Darker in colur than then other OVS labels, it has a captivating bouquet with raspberry, cranberry leaf, tobacco and damp wet clayey aromas. The palate has firm tannin that Eben compared to Piedmont, which I can understand. The acidity is beautifully judged with killer salinity and mineralité on the finish that both linger in the mouth. This is an outstanding South African wine."

Edgebaston’s GS Cabernet Sauvignon is dedicated to the late George Spies, former winemaker at Monis of Paarl and Stellenbosch Farmers Winery. Spies’ 1966 and 1968 GS Cabernets have been heralded as two of the most extraordinary Cabernets ever made in South Africa and they have been compared to the legendary California Cabernets of André Tchelistcheff from that same era.

WINE ADVOCATE 91 POINTS - "The 2014 Proprietor's Blend equates to 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Syrah, 5% each of Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Merlot. It has a composed bouquet with red cherries and crushed strawberry, quite an attractive floral scent emerging with time. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannin: plenty of cedar-infused black fruit laced with black pepper and cloves, leading to an engaging and assured finish. This is a well-crafted red blend that shows more composure and refinement than previous vintages."

WINE SPECTATOR 93 POINTS - "A dark, alluring style, with gunpowder tea and warm ganache notes underscoring the core of steeped red and black currant fruit. Features a singed cedar and alder frame, accented by a tobacco hint. Should open up nicely in the cellar. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. Best from 2017 through 2022."

WINE ADVOCATE 92 POINTS - "The 2012 Signature is a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot and 5% each of Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot; it has a very pure bouquet with cedar-infused blackberry and strawberry fruit. With further investigation, there are touches of incense and cassis, the latter from the Petit Verdot. The palate is smooth and sensual on the entry, just a hint of chocolate (though there is no American oak), with very good depth and it fans out nicely on the finish. It has a hedonistic bent for sure, but Louis Strydom is a skilled winemaker and he pulls it off here, as he has done in previous vintages."