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| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Drinking window: Drink between 2025 and 2037 (based on 4 user opinions) |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes | | | Tasted by Bedford Corners on 12/18/2022: Fantastically smooth. Reordered! (378 views) | | | Tasted by David Strange on 6/28/2022: My first impression is that this Rabelais 2019 smells gorgeous! It has got great fresh blackcurrant fruit in abundance, together with spicy oak, cigar box characters and crushed pencil complexity. All of these components have restraint and exist in excellent harmony with each other. It is the nose of a fine, refined wine.
But more important than that, it is delicious, exciting and fun-packed. It is positively titillating with its pleasure value and lubricious with its array of harmonious aromas. Quite the stunner. This is a really fine, really delightful nose.
The palate is also very elegant and refined. It has a great interplay between the rigorous, refined, slightly chalky structure and the fresh blackcurrant – perhaps with hints of blackberry – fruit. The whirl and intertwine as you taste, giving winning complexity, top bunny harmony and engaging complexity.
And… It is delicious! Its crushed pencil minerality together with cedar wood spicy give titillating complexity. The firm structure massages your palate with its bright energy and vivacious tannins. Its fruit… oh its fruit… Perfectly controlled and great restraint, but bubbling with ripe, thrilling freshness and palate flattering multivagancy. It is the perfect combination between precise correctness and nigh-limitless pantophilic charm.
Given the delicious nature of this wine you can start drinking this immediately, but with its wonderful structure, abundant fruit and precise balance it would be a shame if you did not keep this for a minimum of 10 years. It will age and improve for 20 years, if not longer. I cannot recommend this highly enough, to taste it is to love it.
Is it better than the 2017? If you bought some of that you can judge for yourself in 15 years, that is when I will decide… (562 views) |
| By Jancis Robinson, MW
JancisRobinson.com (2/11/2022)
(Thelema Mountain Vineyards, Rabelais Stellenbosch Red) Subscribe to see review text. | By Neal Martin
Vinous, South Africa: 2021 New Releases from the Cape (Nov 2021) (11/1/2021)
(Thelema Mountain Vineyards Rabelais Red) Subscribe to see review text. |
NOTE: Scores and reviews are the property of JancisRobinson.com and Vinous. (manage subscription channels) |
| Thelema Producer websiteRed Bordeaux BlendRed Bordeaux is generally made from a blend of grapes. Permitted grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and rarely Carménère.Today Carménère is rarely used, with Château Clerc Milon, a fifth growth Bordeaux, being one of the few to still retain Carménère vines. As of July 2019, Bordeaux wineries authorized the use of four new red grapes to combat temperature increases in Bordeaux. These newly approved grapes are Marselan, Touriga Nacional, Castets, and Arinarnoa.
Wineries all over the world aspire to making wines in a Bordeaux style. In 1988, a group of American vintners formed The Meritage Association to identify wines made in this way. Although most Meritage wines come from California, there are members of the Meritage Association in 18 states and five other countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Israel, and Mexico.South Africa Wines of South AfricaStellenbosch Stellenbosch Wine RoutesStellenboschThe historical town of Stellenbosch boasts a winemaking tradition which stretches back to the end of the 17th-century.
Stellenbosch is the educational and research centre of the winelands. Stellenbosch University is the only one in South Africa with a viticultural and oenological department, and many of the country's most successful winemakers studied there. The Nietvoorbij Institute of Viticulture and Oenology is also in Stellenbosch and this organisation has one of the most modern experimental wineries in the world and, at its experimental farms (situated in several wine growing districts), important research into new varietals, clones and rootstocks is undertaken.
The mountainous terrain, good rainfall, deep well-drained soils and diversity of terroirs make this a sought-after viticultural area. The rapidly increasing number of wine estates includes some of the most famous names in Cape wine. The district, with its mix of historic estates and contemporary wineries, produces excellent examples of almost all the noble grape varieties.
The intensively farmed Stellenbosch district has been divided up into several smaller viticultural pockets including Jonkershoek Valley, Papegaaiberg, Simonsberg-Stellenbosch, Bottelary, Devon Valley and Banghoek. |
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