Community Tasting Note

forceberry wrote:

Saturday, December 4, 2021 - A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (89%) from both estate vineyards and four leased vineyards and Cabernet Franc (11%) from estate vineyards. The fruit was first cold-soaked, followed by a spontaneous fermentation in concrete tanks. Aged for 22 months in light-toasted French oak barriques (80% new). 14,3% alcohol, 1,8 g/l residual sugar, 5,6 g/l acidity and pH 3,71. Tasted blind.

Deep, concentrated and quite opaque blackish-red color with a youthful, slightly purplish hue. The nose feels rich, ripe and concentrated with sweetish aromas of cassis, some vanilla oak, light plummy tones, a little bit of woody oak spice, a toasty hint of dark chocolate and a red-toned hint of ripe raspberry. The wine is ripe, dense and chewy on the palate with a full body and concentrated and moderately oak-driven flavors of sweet mocha, sweet blackcurrant tones, some juicy black cherry, light toasty notes of caramel and campfire smoke, a little bit of elderberry, a hint of milk chocolate and a touch of fresh plummy fruit. The moderately high acidity and somewhat grippy medium tannins keep the wine more or less in balance and lend some welcome firmness to the palate. The high alcohol shows a bit through. The finish is dense, rich and slightly grippy with bold, slightly sweetish flavors of toasty mocha oak and vanilla-driven baking spices, some cassis tones, a little bit of dark plummy fruit, light herbal notes of earthy garrigue and hints of smoke and soot.

A big, modern and quite polished South African Cab. Although the wine shows pretty nice balance and great intensity of fruit, the overall feel is a bit too ripe, oaky and gloopy for my taste - at least for now. Although the winery states that they try "to avoid huge, monstrous wines", this feels like they're not trying that seriously - at least in my books this is pretty huge. Not like a hyuuuge monolithic blockbuster, but this is definitely nothing delicate or elegant. A bit clumsy, perhaps. Fortunately the wine is still very young and it shows great potential for future development so there's always the chance that this will drop its shiny baby fat with age and turn into something more gracious and complex - although I admit I'm not holding my breath. At 52€ the wine feels very overpriced for the quality.

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