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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

kzn

Abingdon Estate Viognier 2020

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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

Johnson Estate Concord 2022 Gosh...this is such a

Johnson Estate Concord 2022

Gosh...this is such a latergram. I’ve been wanting to post about this wine for ages because it is such a rarity in SA. US wine + Lake Erie AVA + New York’s oldest estate winery + Concord grape i.e. non vinifera + a sweet red. It’s also something that not many of us in this wine community would choose? Long story short: loved it + new grape unlocked. And a thoughtful and truly interesting gift from @gossandfound 🙏🏾.

Pronounced black grapes, confected grape flavourant, almost marzipan almondy, blueberry, vanilla, musk sweets, and bubblegum - specifically for anyone from southern Africa: the Chappies grape flavour bubblegum!!! It smells too good to be adult?

Medium sweet (how often do we get to say that!), medium bodied, nice acidity that lingers at the end, and no need to mention tannins. This has a delicious bitter musky herbal note that pops in at the mid palate - which is beneficial as it adds a little complexity. There’s substantial length too. It tastes too good to be adult?

Ultimately, this is dangerous if you have a sweet tooth. I reckon it’d be a great base for a low alcohol cocktail...maybe add smoked rosemary and bump up the hint of bitterness with grapefruit zest? The label mentions it being too sweet for dinner...but I wonder if it could work with an ostrich steak served with a berry and clove jus.

Look, it’s hard to find space for this sort of wine in my life. But it’s delightful, honest and fun...much like sweet Muscat, it’s an occasional novel treat that’d be a winner at the old aunty table at the baby shower - sigh...I am that old aunty!

Tahbilk Marsanne 2000 TLDR: new grape unlocked.

Tahbilk Marsanne 2000

TLDR: new grape unlocked.

A glass of yellow sunshine plays incubator to intense and punchy aromas of lemon oil, green papayas, green pineapples, green straw, dill, thick grainy honey, and ripe oranges.

Dry, vibrant medium (+) acidity, the lighter side of medium bodied with lemon peel texture, and a lengthy finish. The palate mostly echoes the nose, but is dominated by zesty lemonade, ripe greengage plums, and underripe mango skin (things that, in hindsight, I associate with minerality). There’s some salinity, and lashings of hay, mushrooms and blue oranges on the finish.

Something about the acidity/texture/lean austerity was quite ferocious and it took me a minute (many sips/glasses) to feel comfortable with this wine. Don’t you worry, I got very comfortable 😋.

What’s extraordinary is how fresh and vibrant this 25/26 year old wine still is (when’s Aussie harvest 🤣?). What’s unbelievable is that this well aged Australian icon was my very first 100% Marsanne! Hence Alternative April. All thanks to the very generous @markswirl .

Triple whammy incredulity: barely 3 weeks after my first Marsanne, and after years of looking for one...I found a stash of supermarket private label wines that pale in comparison to Tahbilk, obviously! But, together, they’ve given me a better understanding of the grape’s characteristics and its role in blends (and why too). So much so, that I think I can now even spot it in big Rhône style blends because it’s oddly identifiable. Win! Also...I now pronounce this winery name correctly! Also also, Mark is officially the GOAT aka MTMM!

Dom Bliskowice Johanniter Ultra 2020 When you bre

Dom Bliskowice Johanniter Ultra 2020

When you break an empty bottle you had every intention of saving forever...because the perfectly painterly calligraphic J in the perfect shade of yellow is one my favourite wine label designs (possibly hand painted 😳❤️🙌🏾 coz it looks slightly different in pics I’ve found online?)!

Polish, small batch, low intervention orange wine made from the Johanniter grape: normal in Poland, novel to me = counts as alternative to me.

The brown bottle imbues beautiful hazy early sunset hues subsumed (yeah, I’m done) with acacia and honeysuckle blossoms, ripe oranges, apricots, peach tea, crushed limestone, honeyed mead and beeswax, hay and dried herbs. Fleshed out by yellow apples, quince, and zesty grapefruit. Lovely acidity, surprisingly structured with black tea tannins, a richness to the mouthfeel, and a generous finish.

Look, there was much excitement in the form of kisses, hugs, hugs, kisses, introductions to besties, exploding bubbly corks, fooood, introduction to kids, hugs, kisses, and just staring adoringly at G & K...I barely remember what they told me about the winemaker. Uncertified organic/biodynamic + minimal intervention + on Michelin restaurant wine lists + cool AF is what I’ve since discovered. Also...not sure if I can recycle this broken bottle because I think it’s bloody perfect!

Ps. I recently watched Konstantin Baum declare that he’s not a fan of the Veuve yellow: I disagree 😈 because, much like this wine, I think it’s the perfect shade of pumpkin yellow. So I put it to him that it’s not the yellow, but the meh common dark green bottle colour that is actually the problem...and put forward this classy brown Hock bottle. Unless he also hates yellow daffodils, sunrises, bowls filled with lemons, and the Angostura Bitters’ cap ...happy to proven wrong. 💛

López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Rosado 2009 Unexpe

López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Rosado 2009

Unexpected treats from a friend that I speak to twice a year...on our birthdays. To be fair, we spent years working metres from each other and taking walks during our lunch breaks. You’d think we’d have discussed it all by now...but this year, we proved that we’ll never be done trying to solve the world’s problems while marveling at photos of her grandkids (the woman looks younger than me!). And this year held a bittersweet surprise. ‘It’s just an old rosé’, she said.

Just an old rosé that went straight into the freezer thinking I’d snap more pics later but got distracted by cute kids. Just an old rosé glinting it’s sunset hues at sunset. Just an old rosé enveloping us in pomegranates, blood oranges, naartjie peel, nectarines...chamomile and garrigue (vermouthy vibes)...dried ginger, star anise, sandalwood, dried rose petals, cinnamon and roasted almonds....mineral wet stones and sea breeze salinity...elegant but linear, taut but voluptuous in its generosity.

Just an old rosé that came from her partner’s cellar...her charming partner who passed away recently. We never got around to sipping wine on the steps of his beachside home as we watch the sun set over the ocean. Scrolling through pics of their adventures together while sipping this wine at sunset with her felt like the perfect final cheers to a man I only ever met once but had yelled ‘love ya’ so many times while they were mid phone call.

Moral of the story: drink your wine, friends...even if it’s just an old rosé. Also, make friends with people who have Tondonia Rosado and drink their grandkid’s wine inheritances 🤣?

Elemental Bob Wild Child Chenin Blanc 2022 No rea

Elemental Bob Wild Child Chenin Blanc 2022

No real notes on this: yellow apples, bruised apple flesh, orange zest, quince, hay, bread dough, some creamy toasted nuttiness, and saline minerality - Chenin acid and some delicious texture too. Same same, but different because it’s from Hemel-en-Aarde, has stem inclusion and is fermented in French barrels.

You know my feelings about Craig’s wines. They make me think...and reminisce about the past. Even more so with Craig’s illustration of a play park on this label. Since moving back home, I live 100 jump-steps (measured as a 5 year old) from MY park. It’s an almost daily source of delight hearing children’s screeches and laughter ...and there’s an instinctive pull to jump-step to join them. But it’s also a symbol of how things have changed as a municipal sign tells me that I’m now too old to PLAY in the park (lots of space around the vlei/lake to fish and birdwatcher...but no swings or roundabouts for me unless I have kids). Same same, but different.

Next week’s birthday is more same same (the date, cake, fielding messages, too many questions about life), but so different with each passing year (like, how does every one of my character quirks align with ADHD).

And then there’s IG. Sigh. The familiarity of the square (coz I refuse to change 😈) and engaging with all of you incredible wineloving people ❤️. While resorting to double tapping my own posts and leaving myself a comment to appeal to the algo #cringe . Same same...so fucking annoyingly different.

The state of the world...how am I still witnessing almost the same war as when I was a kid?

There may not be extensive, lyrical tasting notes to this wine. But it’s because it’s the feeling that Elemental Bob wines give me; they give me space to think old and new thoughts...while sipping deliciousness. Same same, but deliciously different.

Radford Dale Organic Estate 2024 It was a treat t

Radford Dale Organic Estate 2024

It was a treat to be invited to the launch of the 2024 Radford Dale Organic Estate wines hosted by Petroné Thomas, the winemaker, and Alex Dale (and Tom, of course). A lovely flight of Semillon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc all from their organically certified, high altitude vineyards in Elgin. We often talk about whether aspect is even a factor in SA...I learned that it plays a big role in this region...as does viti in this tricky high rainfall area.

The Cab Franc was my fave...but when I spotted the 2023 Chard instore, it was the obvious choice to bring along to a friendly blind tasting. And one of my darling friends absolutely nailed the grape and region based on its minerality...the reason I have come to adore Elgin Chards.

No notes on this ‘23 as I didn’t blind my own wine 😈. But I can tell you all about the 2024s which, overall, struck me as balanced and already very easy to sip:

Touchstone Chardonnay 2024 - an appealing nose of lemon oil, greengage plums, hay, toast, just ripe oranges and apple apple apple (Yup, wrote it in triplicate). Vibrant fresh acidity, some pithy texture, friendly linearity, mineral, mouthwatering salinity, with green mango & pineapple on the lengthy finish.

Higher Purpose Cabernet Franc 2024 - magenta purple hues with forthcoming notes of steamed green bell peppers, wattle, perfumed lilacs, and earthy berries. Decent acidity, finely milled lighter but structure tannins, a long finish. And a rather delightful spicy jalapeño fresh salsa vibe.

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