A Few Good Wines.

Spice Route Malabar 2006. I could go on about the Swartland terroir and superb fruit character and low-yield bush vines and how winemaker Charl is such a nice guy and yak yak yak yak, but I’d rather just say that Spice Route effectively put Eben Sadie in the Swartland (he was the original winemaker) so pay some homage and get a bottle of this stuff. You won’t regret it. It’s not cheap at R380, but neither is a Range Rover. You get my point? Hint: it isn’t that they’re both slightly rugged yet refined, although they are this too.

Mountain Oaks Le Jardin Rouge 2004. An organic wine made on Eikenbosch farm in the Slanghoek Valley. It’s not that this wine is exceptionally well-crafted or balanced but that it delivers a lot of the earthy, concentrated mineral character you’d expect on a wine of much higher price. And if you like that type of thing, then you’re going to love that it’s only R49,99.

Vergelegen Mill Race Red 2006. Tasted this in a blind tasting last week with several winemakers and we all picked it as a blend over R100, maybe even R150. It’s got great classic structure with good acidity but that deliciously ripe Stellenbosch character. I get the feeling some of the higher-end Vergelegen red wines were selling slowly and thus a few barrels made it into this blend. But you’d be hard-pressed to have them admit that. It’s just too good to be made deliberately as the R70 wine that it is though.

Avondale Brut NV. Yes, Avondale has advertisements with naked people standing around the cellar and the vineyard and they have ducks that that take care of the vineyard pests and are pretty organic-like in their farming techniques and all that jazz, but aside from all this, they also make some good wines. Like this one, a crisp, lean but slightly biscuity bubbles. The kind you should enjoy with a pretty girl somewhere with a view. R115 per bottle.

Warwick ‘Professor Black’ Sauvignon Blanc 2010.  Remember the ad where the tagline was “It’s good and clean and fresh, tra la la!” Well, that’s what came into my head when I tasted this. Made very reductively, it’s so fresh you could drink it when you get up in the morning. Not actually my favourite style of Sauv Blanc (I prefer barrel-fermented) but you can’t fault what Warwick have done here. And they’ve also done a bloody good job of marketing it too. Expect this vintage to sell out as fast as the previous ones. R110 per bottle.