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Cape of Good Wine

cape of good wine | Sipping my way through the Cape Winelands | A South African Wine Blog

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Cape of Good Wine

cape of good wine | Sipping my way through the Cape Winelands | A South African Wine Blog

About
- Contact Me
- Sample Policy
Musings & Ramblings
Learn with me
Interviews
Musings & Ramblings
Wine Reviews
Learn with me
- What's the Grape?
- Wine Regions
  - Constantia Wine Route
Wine Wise

darling

Samesyn Verdelho 2023

Samesyn Verdelho 2023

BlankBottle Pseudonym 2019

BlankBottle Pseudonym 2019

Illimis Cinsault 2020

Withington Wine Roan Ranger 2018

Cape Collective Rad Red 2018

Illimis Riesling 2016

Illimis Riesling 2016

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capeofgoodwine

🇿🇦 Cape Town based winelover
🍷 Always looking to try something new
📸 Obsessed with the old dinner table
👇🏾 Sometimes I have wine thoughts

DeMorgenzon Reserve Chenin Blanc 2022 One of my f

DeMorgenzon Reserve Chenin Blanc 2022

One of my favourite ‘reviews’ of this DeMorgenzon Chenin Blanc reads: ‘worth the fuss and bother’. This review could also apply to my friend @shirazzmatazz whom I often rave about ❤️. He claims that I recommended this wine...when, why, where? I don’t remember the when or the where...but his latest post may explain the why. So do hop on over to his account for his thoughts on the 2019. (Yes, we planned this dual post...coz he is worth the fuss and bother of opening a delicious wine! #toughlife )

Golden straw hues swollen with sophisticated layers of ripe yellow fruits, savoury spices, mineral flint, and a subtle sense of oak: yellow apples, ripe peaches, dried apricots/peaches, dried pineapple, lemon preserve, flint, campfire, coriander, dried bay leaves, subtle nutmeg, distant toasted hazelnuts, marzipan...and, as I’m slowly recovering from the flu you might want to ignore this one...but tangy cottage cheese layered with stewed apples and drizzled with honey on a sliver of sour rye toast.

Dry and fuller bodied, with an opulent slinky texture that rests confidently on a fulcrum of fabulous clean acidity. It’s the rich but bright mouthfeel that’ll get you...while the density of flavour is sustained on the lengthy finish.

Yup, this is the winery that plays classical music (particularly Baroque) in the vineyard, winery and cellar. Plants being influenced by music is something that my non-science brain has always accepted...a choreographed facsimile of birdsong and windsong...the relatable stimulation of sound waves...and also slightly uhm pretentious. One might even whisper ‘fuss’? In DeMorgenzon’s case, I think we can agree that playing music to the vines and wines is worth the fuss and bother.

Alternative April. Not gonna lie: my initial thoug

Alternative April. Not gonna lie: my initial thought was ‘what even is an alternative wine?’. Is it a rare grape variety? A variety grown in an unexpected country? A grape produced in an unusual way?

Oxford suggested that it’s a wine ‘that departs from or challenges traditional norms’. So yup, all of the above.

It’s been fun thinking about which SA wines depart from the norm (that I hadn’t already posted). It was educational checking global production and tech sheets to feel confident about my choices (bar the Mourvèdre fail). It was an uhm adventure sourcing what I could (honestly don’t think I’d have otherwise made the effort to source the delicious and repurchased Therona). It’s also been an incentive to share what I’ve learned in what I hope were informative and entertaining reels.

More than anything, it was WONDERFUL collaborating with @winelifeforme and @shirazzmatazz ! The effort they put into researching grapes and sharing their homework with us ...tasting the wines through their notes ...waking up to the funniest chains of DM’s (coz those two are funny and witty AF, and 8ish hours ahead of me!) - it was wonderful!

If you haven’t already, please do check out their #AlternativeApril posts and give them a double tap. Many of us are here for the community...and they are two beautiful, interesting and passionate members of this IG wine community who you should totally follow!

Intellego Hey Mila Méthode Ancestrale 2024 This

Intellego Hey Mila Méthode Ancestrale 2024

This is in no way, shape or form an ‘alternative’ wine. You’ll easily find sparkling Mourvèdre...and Monastrell...and Mataro. Maaaybe I made an incorrect assumption a few weeks ago...maybe I just wanted to feature this wine...and so maybe I’ll spin this as: my last sparkling post was in December 2023 🙄...and this Intellego is most likely one of two sparklings I’ll post in 2025. Sparkling IS alternative...to me 🤣.

A hazy pretty sunset salmon colour exploding (my fault...room temp...needed a photo without condensation) with aromas of orange blossoms, lavender, red apples, yellow cling peaches, musky apricot stone, subtle cloves and cardamom, dried orange peel (not candies), raspberries, diluted Ribena and ripe plums.

Dry (6g/L), shiver inducing yumminess, bright acidity, non existent tannins but a subtle pithy texture, fine frothy mousse that dissipates really quickly in the mouth, and a decent finish that’s a combination of grapefruit pith, cloves and spiced pears/peaches. Verdict: fokken lekker!

To make up for my faux pas and to make it up to my #alternativeapril Aussie friends, @winelifeforme and @shirazzmatazz : Did you know that Australia has the oldest continuous Mataro vineyard in the world - planted in 1853 in The Old Garden Vineyard in the Barossa Valley! Pre-phylloxera own roots and all.

Okay fine, you knew that. But does anyone know why Aus calls the grape by its Catalan name, Mataro (seems to be changing)? This question has bugged me for years.

One more thing...tell the truth now: when’s the last time you had a sparkling Mourvèdre? It is sort of alternative? 😈

Klein Amoskuil The Amos Block Perpetual Reserve Un $Klein Amoskuil The Amos Block Perpetual Reserve Under Flor Happy Malbec Day! In the spirit of Malbec...okay fine, it’s not Malbec 🤪. This week’s #AlternativeApril is Sauvignon Blanc from dryland farmed bush vines planted in 1965 - the Klein Amoskuil farm’s Amos Block are the oldest Sauvignon Blanc vineyards in South Africa. Old vine SB not alternative enough for you? Okay...it’s been barrel fermented in old French barrels. No? How about we fortify this. Still not convinced this is unusual? It’s then doused with a flor yeast culture! And yup, there’s a solera started in 2014 so we get to use our favourite phrase ‘fractional blending’...in the Swartland. A deeper golden ochre with orange luminosity blooms audacious notes of citrusy lemon zest and orange peel, bruised green apples, savoury kelp funk and seafog salinity, nutty almond skin and walnuts, bitter herbal chamomile and fennel, salty toffee, honey, and bread dough that reminds me of dried florals. Dry, almost temerarious/brazen acidity that feels unbalanced at first but resolves itself over the next few hours into uber fresh, lip smacking goodness. Medium-ish bodied and textured, with a long finish that warrants a paragraph all of its own. Copy/paste the nose and add salted preserved lemons, bitter radicchio, earthy raw white mushrooms and dried onions, quince...I could keep going aka it’s got everything. If you love Sherry and love Madeira’s acid, then this is a rustic charmer (particularly from day 2 onwards). Alternative? I thiiiink I nailed it? So weird but handy that I’ve never posted about this before coz I drink it all the time. What do you think...do you know of another flor-aged, fortified wine made from only SB?$

Stellenbosch Vineyards Therona 2022 Friends, fami

Stellenbosch Vineyards Therona 2022

Friends, family, countrymen (coz this is a truly alternative variety that is noteworthy and worth the effort of sourcing), lend me your ears/eyes/tastebuds:

A wisp of reductive flint before pronounced honeysuckle and orange blossoms, lemon oil, oranges, mandarins, oats and peanut shells, honey, winter melon!, cashew nuts, burned sugar, nail polish remover (in an attractive musty apple core way) brandy fumes, vanilla, lemon curd on nom nom nom toasted brioche (huuuungry!). The nose is heavenly.

Dry but lingering toffee notes make you think it’s sweeter than it is. Medium plus-ish body and acidity, and a loooong finish that leaves you with comforting soft toffee and vanilla. The palate is a smudged mirror to the nose: watery naartjies, watery pears, bitter herbals...all together now, say it with me: fynbos! But it’s the winter melon and digestive oat biscuits that are most dominant for me. Empty glass sniff - check.

Therona is a crossing between Crouchen Blanc and Chenin Blanc developed by Professor Orffer in the 1950s (yup, dude was busy).

Made from a single row of Therona (only 100 vines). Basket pressed, wild yeast ferment in barrels, matured for 5 months in 2nd fill French oak...only 900 bottles were uhm bottled.

I’m not always on board with these human intervention crossings. My first thoughts when looking and smelling this golden wine was oaked Sem or melon-y Chard...perhaps a Spanish white wine. It’s clear that, with 100 vines, there’s no intention of competing with Chard or Sem. But crossing works - it’s surprisingly distinctive and hella delicious...and I look forward to repurchasing this for as long as Stellenbosch Vineyards continue to produce it.

Rebel Rebel Old Vine Colombar 2023 I’m so late

Rebel Rebel Old Vine Colombar 2023

I’m so late to the Rebel Rebel party...but yo, I’m here now....and it’s a banging party!

Yellower yellow than I expected...but these boogie lights deliver on their promise of a good time: green apple and melon, quince, honey, green hay, dry grass, earthy fresh button mushrooms, chamomile, mild sweet brandy fumes, and salinity.

Slinky RS (only 4g) is elegantly countered by savoury salinity, while electric acidity pulses through the medium body with its creamy texture...all the way through the fairly lengthy (med +) grapefruit-zing finish. White peaches, lemongrass, and pineapple have you John Travolta’ing a finger in the air.

Conclusion? It’s fucking delicious! Though, be warned, it loses some of that addictive vibrating energy by day 2...so invite a friend, pop the cork and finish it in one sitting.

South Africans aren’t strangers to Colombar(d). Like Cognac, we’ve traditionally grown the grape for brandy distillation. It often makes its way into blends. But there’s been a beautiful old vine Colombar revolution that celebrates the grape as varietal wines...led by exciting winemakers that include Rebel Rebel’s Kayleigh Hattingh. And you know SA is great at revolution when we feel like it! Vive la révolution.

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