Me, Myself and Mwa

Wine Lover Extraordinaire and avid Wineland Traveller. I'm a student and spelunker of wine farms.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Wine in Wellington

Hey,

Well, here's a run-down of my wine tasting yesterday, when I decided to go to Wellington. It was one of the hottest days I've ever gone wine-tasting, I'm sure it reached 33/34 degrees. My car certainly didn't enjoy sitting outside in the sun.

After accidentily driving past Veenwouden which was supposed to be my first stop, I went to Wamakersvallei. While they had a tasting room here, the wine was poured for me and I was left to my own devices. Because I had gotten there so early on a Monday morning, all the bottles were freshly opened for me, and the whites were still a bit warm (which they apologized for). I started with a very fruity Brut Sparkling, which was interesting and easy-drinking. After the Sauv and Chenin, I tried their Viognier (unwooded) which had a fresh bacon strips kind of nose to it (interesting in a white), and I picked up light berries on the palate, a good wine for picnics, finger foods, or a light meal. I tasted their 33 degrees South Rose, a cheap Four Cousins type wine, very easy drinking and great for people who aren't into wine. Their La Cave Merlot was probably the most serious of their wines, it was full-bodied, earthy, had a bit of a mintiness and other green smells, but coffee/mocha on the palate. Finally, the Port and Jeripigo they have were both very cheap and easily accessible for most people. Both you could easily drink every day as a night-cap.

The next stop was Diemerfontein, where their marketing genius has made their pinotage a household name for all wine drinkers. They also had an extensive list like the last farm (over 10 wines), so I'll remark only on a handful of them. I enjoyed the wooded Chenin they have there, even though at tasting, it was one of the least impressive wooded Chenins I've tasted. The wood and varietal characteristics weren't integrated at all, and it definitely needs some bottle age to become a yummy, tasty wine. They have a second range here, called the Carpe Diem, which is their more everyday wines - usually the second/third fill barrels etc. Their Carpe Diem Shiraz was very nice, with dark berry overtones and a kind of smoked ham (maybe venison) smell - I couldn't quite place it. Their Carpe Diem Pinotage is the one everyone loves, but the coffee smells and tastes were so overpowering that I found it to be a novelty wine, but not much else. Then again, with all the hype about it, I was expecting it to be the wine that Jesus made from water. I actually prefered their normal Diemersfontein Pinotage, which came across as a more serious complex wine. Finally the last one I'll comment on is the Summer's Lease, which is a Shiraz-driven blend, and I enjoyed it because it was such a balanced wine, with a really excellent integrated nose that made me struggle to place the smells. I was very grateful for the tasting notes, which helped me pick up the caramel and cinnamon smells that I was struggling to place, but were prominently there.

After Diemersfontein, I got quite hopelessly lost a few times in Wellington, and when I finally found the farm I was looking for, they were closed, and only opened up for appointments.

Another half-an-hour of getting lost, I finally found my way to the next farm along a long dirt-road - Nabygelegen, which I thought should be named Nabyniks because it really was in the middle of nowhere (although not as bad as the next farm.) Their Sauv Blanc had a very green Granny-smith peels nose and taste to it, without having the usual-accompanying grassy tones, which actually made it enjoyable. They had a lightly-wooded Chenin (which was already sold out and the next one will be out in 2 weeks) and a white blend, which was nothing special. They had two red blends. The Scaramanga, which initially had a bit of a rustiness to it, but it is a complex wine that needs to be laid down for a while, and the price was very reasonable. The 1712 is their flagship wine, and was very complex and layered - could lie down for a good few years, and become a very regal, powerful, smooth, and integrated wine - one to keep for the cellars. The final wine I had here was their natural sweet, which was still unlabelled. Made from 100% Harslevelu it certainly made an interesting sweet wine that had characteristics that go beyond your normal sweet (although the fresh apricot tone was still strongly present). It had a fruitiness to it that I struggled to pin down. I really should not have had that bit of chocolate mousse cake the day before, as it really hurt my taste and nose-buds.

The final farm of the day was Doolhof - A farm that was off-my-list and recommended to me. My car was really becoming unhappy with all the dirt roads (especially since the oil dried up - a problem I sorted out at the first petrol station). I went to the tasting room and buzzed the main house, where I was greeted by a very sleepy and bored voice. I took the few moments to take a few pictures of the area outside. Their wines were all very fruity, and where they were treated with some wood, they all had very little wood. They had a wooded and unwooded Chardonnay - which would've been great to show someone, who knew little about wines, the big difference that the barrel makes on a wine. I enjoyed their wooded Chardonnay - again, a good example of a textbook Chardonnay with butterscotchy, toasty goodness that doesn't overpower the citrus fruity characters of the wine. Their merlot was also fantastically fruity and was filled with all kinds of berries, light and dark, ranging from raspberries and cherries to a dark, juicy plum and black-currant nose. Not my style of merlot, but excellent if you enjoy a fruitier red wine. The last single varietal wine I'll comment on here is the Cab Sauv which I also found to be a great, chewy, full-mouth wine that glided down so easily. The one thing that really impressed me with the red wines at this farm was their colour and intensity. Almost all of them were pitch-black at their core, and with lovely auras of purples, magentas, rusty bronze or a rich ruby colour. I loved the colour of every single one of these wines. They had 3 blends, the Cape Roan, the Cape Boar, and the Renaissance, which were all great value-for-money red blends, that I would buy and enjoy if I was a bit strapped for cash and wanted a red wine blend that I could enjoy now.

Well, that was my trip.

Val.

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