Handford Wines, London
Tasted Wednesday, September 24, 2014 by Papies with 690 views
Eighth generation Meerlust owner Hannes Myburgh presented a flight back to the early 80s of there flagship wine.
The Meerlust estate has been with the Myburgh family since 1756. Rubicon is the estate’s flagship wine. Rubicon’s inception came about after a holiday in Bordeaux where Hannes’ father Nico discovered that the terroir in this region of France was similar to that of the Eerste River Valley in Stellenbosch. At this time, the wines of the Western Cape were predominantly single varietal while Bordeaux’s reputation was based on a blend. Nico returned to Meerlust filled with inspiration and the desire to create a blend of his own that would rival those of the French. In 1980, after several years of experimentation with the help of winemaker Giorgio Dalla Cia, he revealed a style of wine never before seen in South Africa. As Hannes Myburgh said at that point they crossed the Rubicon and iacta alea est!
We found the wines very much classic Bordeaux and had we had them blind we would be pointing towards that. The 2000s had very little vintage variation on the nose but differences on the palate.
We left truly impressed and definitely did not expect this level of quality and elegance.
Our favorite decade of the tasting and do have to say that we were really impressed with the quality here.
Not as impressive decade as the 2000s
As with all old hot climate bottles its never a good wine but a good bottle so not sure if what we had in the 89 was characteristic. the 84 was superb though
2011 Meerlust Red 88 Points
South Africa, Coastal Region, Stellenbosch
Quite an interesting wine, launched only for the UK and effectively the 2nd wine to the Flagship Rubicon. In 2011 no Rubicon will be made so this definitely benefits from all the extra "attention". Bright and glossy in colour, the nose is quite evolved, open very classic Bordeaux in away. On the palate it is clearly young, firm, grippy tannin but starting to round off. Give it a year or two and this will drink very nicely. Good value. 88 for now maybe gets to 90 as it ages.
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