Helderberg Heights (the Second)

Here's the second instalment of my trip to the Helderberg. Last email ended off at Guardian Peak, so I'll begin with my next stop at the new tasting room at Alto. It is a small tasting room at the moment, but it does have great big window sliding doors and a small patio where you can sit and enjoy a warm summers day. There is only three red wines on offer at the moment. The Cab Sauv is on the side of light and fruity, with black currant and fynbos/dried leaves being the smells that leap out of the glass, and a subtle plum and coffee on the taste. The Shiraz is perfect for dark roasted meats (like in a spitfire) especially a pepper-steak because it's filled with black pepper and a dash of cloves - very spicy. The final is their blend - the Rouge - which is a blend of Cab Sauv, Merlot, Cab Franc, and Shiraz. The Rouge was filled with mocha and dark berries (plums, black currant and blue berries). The wines were a little highly priced for their value (by about R10 a bottle or so), except for the Rouge, which I found to be pretty plain.

Next stop is a farm known for its wine and chocolate taste pairings... mmmm. I've generally enjoyed Bilton wines in the past, although they do tend to be high-priced - they can be worth it. Starting off with a white blend - and I'll give you 10 points if you can guess the absolutely original name for the blend. If you guessed "White" you got it! A mixture of Sauv, Chenin and Semillon which is excessively tropical, especially pineapples, but with loads of other citrus in there, it had a great apple finish (mostly granny smith, but a hint of golden delicious). The Merlot was really exceptional in my books, and at R85 a bottle, very well priced for such beauty (I'd expect to pay over R100). It is balanced perfectly between oak and fruit, with milk chocolate, red berries and lush plums. Leave it to open up for a while and all of a sudden, you have some spicy notes coming through with incredibly subtle hints of cloves and black pepper, and a helpful dose of cinnamon blending into a kind of mintiness. This is a Merlot that restores my faith in the varietal. The Cab Sauv was a textbook example - coffee, black berries, cedar, cigar box, with a delightful note of leather. The Shiraz was filled with fresh raw meat, mocha, light red berries and cinnamon for spices. The final wine here is called Sir Percy, which is a cab sauv driven blend mixed with a nice chunk of their lovely merlot and a splash of Petit Verdot. A mixture of woodland smells (dry soil and cedar) and berries (cherries, strawberries and raspberries) this wine had such a full-mouth and long lasting taste, that I can only call it jammy. A wine to spoil yourself with on a quiet anniversery while you are sitting on top of Table Mountain watching the sun set over the horizon hoping for another great year. The name was perfectly chosen for this wine - as this wine should be honored much as Sir Percy was.

From Bilton I went up the road to Rust En Vrede, which was undergoing a terrible noise in the tasting room (which happens to be the same room as all of their fermentation tanks). The farm itself is fairly beautiful, and sitting outside the tasting room in the courtyard under the trees is an appealing option, while tasting inside in the air conditioned room and looking through the great glass windows into the gardens, or looking at all the large shiny steel containers is also a good option (if it's a bit less noisy). The wines were all very pleasing and all very red :) The Merlot was typical in its range of smells and tastes, with the exception that it was quite full-bodied, heavy and masculine. Mushrooms, mocha, milk chocolate and a deep dark plum were all very noticeable in this wine. The Cab Sauv was surprisingly feminine and elegant after that, with ceder, aniseed, mint, dark chocolate and mocha all making an appearance, but leaving with a smooth finish on the palate. The shiraz was another rather odd red here and cherry chocolates immediately sprang to mind - maybe I'll go retaste this one sometime, preferably when I haven't tasted so many wines beforehand. The Estate blend is a Cab Sauv driven blend with a dollup of Shiraz and a smattering of Merlot and you can expect chocolate (dark and light), pencil shavings (even on the palate), black currant and white pepper. The thing that put me off of this farm though, to be honest, is that it's quite expensive wines. Good place to taste, although maybe you should save your money to buy wine somewhere else.

My final stop in the Helderberg region was at Annandale - well known for it's horse logo, cellar filled with cobwebs, and it's wine maker Hempies Du Toit, who I was lucky enough to meet the first time I visited this farm (while he was unloading a bakkie full of fresh produce). This is a farm and tasting room that truly makes you feel like you've entered into a different world. The back wall is filled with wines from various estates where Hempies has bought wine and drunk it, and you immediately get the sense like you've entered into an old, near-forgotten monastery of the dark ages and returned to a simpler life where the only goal and passion is to work with great wine every day. I firmly believe that the dedication and effort it takes to make good wine is near-religious. Although only three red wines (and a port) are on offer, they are three superb wines. The Cavalier is the Merlot driven blend with Cab Sauv and Cab Franc giving it a good strong backbone and a little Shiraz just for extra flavour - a very earthy and minty wine with dark fruits on the palate and 36 months in the barrel. The Cab Sauv was put in new French oak for an astounding 66 months (very heavily wooded reds usually spend 24 months in a barrel, so you can imagine how much longer this one has been in those barrels). With that much wood on it, I would love to keep a bottle for 10 years and see how it matures and it's almost a waste to open it so soon (even though it's a 2002 Cab Sauv). Still, it had pleasing notes of prune and fruit cake (with all it's associated dried fruit, cinnamon/cloves and even walnuts) and a taste that will not go away for hours if you leave it lingering in your mouth - in fact, I think I can still taste it :) The Shiraz was also kept for a long time in barrels (for 4 years in French) and I picked up dried prunes, with other dark berries, and mint (could be liquorice). Admittedly, my taste buds were starting to struggle by this point - heavily oaked reds make it very difficult to taste, so I can't really comment well on the Cape Vintage Port, other than to say that it was a fruity port (translating to fruit cake, dried prunes, raisons and baked cherries) made from Shiraz. The attendee convinced me to taste it with a drop of the shiraz (apparantly people who find port too over-powering manage to enjoy it with a bit of the wine to mellow it out). I found it completely disgusting actually and spat it out immediately - Ugh... I still shiver...

Val