Perfection in Paarl

This Wednesday I went out to Paarl to some of my favorite farms. I was suffering from hayfever, thanks to some strong winds, so I wasn't as sharp at times.

The first farm I visited was Fairview, who have opened up a new tasting room, and will soon have an outdoor patio for tasters as well. The Fairview Weisser Reisling was interesting with mineral, flint and floral smells and unripe (slightly green) peach and apricot tastes. The Oom Pagel Semillon (R90) was a fantastic white wine - meant for a special occasion with some more exotic fish, like salmon or kingklip, with notes like honey, vanilla, buttered toast and citrus on the palate. The Fairview Chardonnay was lightly toasted and very fruity, with a little bit of buttered toast, pineapple, processed granadilla and guava - a middle-of-the line white good for occasions when you want to share a glass or two with people of various tastes.

Of the reds, Fairview has a wide range of reds, from the lighter and fruiter, to the dark and intensive. The lighter styles include a Pinotage/Viognier, which is a delightful mixture of banana, vanilla and light red berries that make up a very smooth and creamy wine. There are many medium bodied reds, such as the Cab Franc, which was quite floral (like potpourri), cranberry, white pepper and vanilla, with some woodland tastes (cedar, cigar box). The Pegleg Carignan (a rare varietal in South Africa) had the slightest hint of vanilla, but was filled with dark berries and spices (like Nutmeg, Cloves, and Cinnamon). The Spice Route Mouvedre was exceptionally fruity - especially dark intense fruits like black currant, blue and black-berries, and deep plums. The Primo Pinotage (R110) is one of the best pinotages I've found for lying down and keeping for 10 years. The hostess made a case for it, and I needed very little convincing after looking at it's ruby colour and intensity despite it's age and it's remarkable subtlety and various layers of flavour, ranging from vanilla, light berries (esp. cranberries), butterscotch, milk chocolate and even a slight bit of white and black pepper. A hedonistic wine to buy and enjoy privately. I had three various Shiraz's here - all of which were complex and enjoyable. The Beacon Shiraz is perfect for dark meat/wild poultry, with even a spiced ostrich meat on the nose. The Spice Route Flagship Syrah is a mouth-smacking combination of pork meat, chocolate, vanilla, white pepper, and light fruity red berries (another great Shiraz from the Swartland!) and the Cyril Back Shiraz is great for a pepper steak, with intense black pepper and cloves leaping out the glass and lots of intense dark berries with a whiff of mocha.

The final red wine I had here deserves a paragraph of it's own. To date, still one of my favorite red wines has to be the Spice Route Malabar. It is red blend that varies in it's mixture from year to year and which my research tells me is mostly Shiraz from the Swartland. I've tasted the 2002 and the 2003. Although I'd need to be wealthy to afford buying a bottle at R300 each, it would be a mistake for any wine lover to skip this complex, layered and ultimately throughly engrossing wine. As my hayfever (and thus my sense of smell) was particularly bad at this stage, I took a long time with this wine, and even then, I was still unable to grasp the fullness that this wine has to offer. Admittedly the 2002 I tasted has some of my favorite flavours to find in a wine - that of mushrooms and chocolate, it also had a bit of gamminess/ fresh meat, caramel, cloves and black peppers. 100% YUM!

I'll end off Fairview's note with the Special Late Harvest Viognier, which is a great sweet to buy at R45 a bottle, even though, as a sweet wine, it's nothing extraordinary - filled mostly with a very clean, fresh peach and apricot smell and taste.

I was filled with glee at the prospect of visiting Seidelberg after Fairview, as their Reserve Cab Sauv has always been one of my favorite red wines. Leaving my car sitting out in the sun, I walked across their gardens towards the entrance, noticing that they've built a new outdoor area almost tripling their space for visitors (two new tasting areas in two farms). There were a lot of very loud german tourists around, giving the place a very jovial feel. Again, it was another opportunity to go through a large list of wines, including a Brut MCC made from Chardonnay - and with only a subtle yeastiness and all sorts of citrus holding a lively jazz concert on my tongue, I found the sparkling to be well made and enjoyable. The Sauv Blanc (green pepper, fig leaf and asparagus) and the Chenin Blanc (guava, pineapple, naartjie, lime), which was barely off-dry, were both pretty typical light, delightful summer wines - great for relaxing with in the garden or nature park. The wooded Viognier (R53) is one of the more enjoyable whites here (as I do so love my wooded whites in summer), and is a textbook example of a good Viognier - stone fruit, floral and slightly spicy, with a good-body and creamy feel in the mouth - a wine that will glide down your throat and leave you with hints of it's goodness coming to you hours later, leaving your mind begging for another glass. The Nuance (R29), an off-dry white blend of White Muscadel and Crouchen Blanc (aka Cape Reisling), was surprisingly better than I expected, with floral smells like rose petals, raisons (esp saltanas), golden delicious apples and pears all coming out on the nose and a smooth, easy-going taste - a quaffer for sure, but also good to toss a glassful in a stir-fry to add another dimension to your food, or as an evening drink for people who are looking to relax and talk the hours away. The dry Blanc De Noir (R45) made from Shiraz was smashing, with starking apple being the taste that tackled your taste-buds, but it had terrific floral undertones and a subtle spiceness.

Still, it was the red wines that have always impressed me most in Seidelberg. It was a pity that the lady sitting behind me decided to start chain-smoking at this point, and it took me very little time to decide to move my seat. The Merlot was very fruity, with deep intense berries, and a bit of spiciness, great to go with pasta, but with some bottle age and patience, this Merlot will make excellent company with roast lamb or maybe some stuffed poultry (if I was American - I'd say save this wine for the Thanksgiving turkey). The Reserve Pinotage was a full-bodied red, with three c's on the nose - cloves, cinnamon and cocoa. On the palate the blackberries and rich ripe plum left a long lingering taste that could be enjoyed for a good long while. The Shiraz (R59) would make an excellent braai-wine with dark berries, crushed cloves and black pepper. As for the Reserve Syrah - I found it overpriced at R130 when compared with the other reserve wines here. Before I get onto the Cab Sauv, I'll talk about the Un Deux Trois (so named from the three bourdeux grapes used in its making - Cab Sauv/ Merlot/ Cab Franc) - a serious heavy wine with scents like dried fynbos, cigar box and cocoa giving it depth, but black currant and dark plums giving it a youthful fruitiness. It's not often you find such a serious wine for well-under a hundred, and at R74 a bottle, I wish I had the space to keep this wine - definitely one I'll jot down to buy later. Like a bottle of Vin de Constance, the reserve Cab Sauv (R94) is likely to be a bottle of wine I'd purchase every year. Begging to be laid down to rest for a few years, this intense, deep and brilliant red wine is the wine you pull out when you want the best wine you have to go with a perfectly roasted side of steak. If kept well, I can imagine this wine lasting 10 years in the cellar before reaching it's peak potential, and it is everything you'd expect from a Cab Sauv - black currant, cedar, cigar box, black currant, mocha, and even a hint of raisons/prunes on the after-taste, giving it a superior finish. At this point I fully admit to being biased towards this wine as it fits what I look for in a Cab Sauv to a tee, and as they say - the best wine in the world is the one you like, and I do like... Finishing off my tasting experience here, I had a glass of the Fortified Muscadel (from their second label - De Leuwen Jagt), which had a very fruity port-like nose of raisons, saltanas and fresh prunes.

Just around the corner from Seidelberg was my next stop - Landskroon. A farm that makes very affordable and accessible wine, this is good brand to look out for if you want wine that'll fit into your stringent student budget. The three dry unwooded whites were all very typical of their varietal - from the green smells of the Sauv Blanc, to the tropical, summer fruits in the Chenin and the Chardonnay's peach, pineapple and gooseberry, all of them make delightful summer wines at R25 and under a bottle. These are wines for everyday drinking. It was here that I had a very self-affirming moment. As I had only about an hour to spend before I needed to go off to the next far-away farm of Welgemeend, I was tasting these wines at break-neck speed - afterall, I wanted to taste nearly 20 wines here. When I tasted the Chenin Blanc, I detected a very slight trace of dried cardboard - which signaled an off-wine in my brain. I first asked when the bottle was opened - which was the previous day, so I doubted it was oxidised - my next statement was immediately - well, I think this wine is corked. The attendee tasted it, saw nothing wrong with me, but later admited to 'seeing where I got cardboard from', and went to the office to let one of the more experienced admin people taste the wine, and the verdict returned - Not Guilty of being corked. Somewhat deflated, I continued my tasting. About a half-hour later, the wine maker himself entered the tasting room, declared unequivocally that the wine was corked, with a wry smile on his face, poured the glass out and left in an equal rush (understandably since it they were harvesting their Pinotage that day). Needless to say, I was beaming from ear to ear that I managed to pick up such a slight amount of taint in a very quick moment of tasting, especially on a day where I was already suffering from hayfever and had 30+ wines beforehand - seems like tasting around half a thousand different wines in the span of a month has paid off.

Of the Reds, I started off with the rarely found single varietal Cinsaut - at R22.50 a bottle, it is a very worth-while purchase. A medium-bodied red, this is a red wine that can be drunk in summer without being over-bearing. Light red berries, liquorice and candy floss is what you can expect from this delightful red wine. The cinsaut can also be found in a blend with Shiraz here, and it suddenly becomes more meaty, with mushrooms and plum smells coming out, as well as an superb aftertaste of prunes and fruitcake - a bottle to buy and drink. The Pinotage (R32.50) was a lighter-style of red wine - with the varietal-typical smell of fresh banana, as well as a combination of vanilla, instant milky coffee and plum. The Merlot (R36.50) had exactly the characteristics I enjoy - light red berries (like cranberries) and chocolate - while this was not as full-bodied as I like a red wine to be, it certainly is an every-day drinking red wine for me, and I'll be sure to buy a case of this when winter-time comes. The Paul de Villiers Shiraz (R46) smelt like roasted/braai-meat, maybe a venison, with vanilla, white pepper and cinnamon (sweeter spices) - great to bring to a social braai with your friends and family. The Paul de Villiers Cab Sauv (R48.50) had a rich blackcurrant and prune smell with damp red sand, or clay as the peculiar nose. Not at all my taste in a Cab Sauv, but good value nonetheless. The Paul De Villiers Reserve (R48.50) is half-shiraz, with a good dose of Merlot and bits of Touriga Nacionale (used in ports mostly) and a drop of Cab Sauv. Again, great value for money, drink soon (although a year or two won't hurt) and expect vanilla, dark plum and blueberries. Finally, the Port was a fruity style of port with loads of prunes and raisons just leaping out the glass and dancing around. As a final note - if I was at a bottle store looking for a wine to buy, open, and drink that night, Landskroon would certainly be one of the labels I'd keep an eye out for. They generally make good wines to cook with as well.

Now, after driving around for nearly an hour, and getting no luck at three different farms (Joostenberg, Welgelee and Welgemeend) I got to Simonsvlei - the only farm I hadn't visited before on today's route. I arrived to find out why the other farms were closed - and it's not because it was Ash Wednesday, signalling the start of Lent, but because the power had gone off moments after I had left Landskroon. Fortunately Simonsvlei did have a generator going, so they had minimal power in the tasting room (enough for some lights), but it was also nice walking around and seeing the candles lit everywhere (it made my bathroom experience more interesting). I imagine it would've been quite romantic to have wine tasting by candle light, at least until you try to find the spittoon and accidentily spray wine on the candle (which will either set the place alight, or put the light out - both which would not be good options). This was another farm with a wide range of wines - even if I didn't visit a whole lot of farms today, at least I got a whole lot of tasting done. They have a few ranges of wines here, although I only really tasted two of the ranges - the Hercules Paragon range and the Classic Range. I enjoyed and bought a bottle of the HP Sauv Blanc (R59) with mixed herbs, pepper, fig and even a nuttiness to it - different than I would've expected, but I imagine it would make a great food wine - especially with fish, lightly-fried/grilled, or even a snoek/tuna over a braai. The CR Chardonnay (R27,50) was very lightly wooded and filled with more bitter citrus, like lemon, grapefruit and even lime. They suggest drinking it with oysters (which I think is spot on), smoked meats or fish. The CR Cab Sauv/ Merlot blend (R31) was also an interesting wine, and another I'd use in a good stir-fry, but also good to have with chicken. It had aromas of herbs, plum, blackberry and mushroom - very aromatic. The CR Cab Sauv (R35) was another interesting wine - and I'd say it'd make a good braai-wine as well, especially if you bring a good greek-salad along. It had a variety of smells including mint, cedar and coriander (good for boerewors). The HP version of the Cab Sauv (R79) was all that and more, although it was more elegant and smooth, with a strong dose of vanilla and cinnamon - this wine I'd reserve more for a spit-roast or a steak with a light mint white-sauce. The HP Shiraz is also a meat-wine, with fresh fatty meat on the nose (maybe bacon) and leather - a bit of white pepper and black berries give this wine some extra depth - said to be good with roasted leg of lamb, although I'd personally like to see it combined with roasted pork.

And, I'm afraid, that's it for today. It's good to finally catch up again with my tasting notes. I only have another two months or so available to keep up this life-style of wine-tasting (at least, until someone pays me to do it), so I'm hoping to get a lot more done. I write my Intro to Wine exam next week, so it's going to be a slow wine-tasting week for me as I sit down and study (I'm sure I could already pass the exam, but I'd like to use the time to bulk up on my wine knowledge anyway). Wish me luck anyway (it never hurts to have luck).

Til' next time, raise a glass of good wine for me!
Val