Wine of the Week 30 – a great Cabernet Franc from South Africa

Stellenbosch vineyard with Table Mountain in the distance.

Cabernet Franc is a grape whose charms have seduced me more and more over the years. When I was younger I usually found it green, hard and dusty, but growers seem to really know how to manage this tricky grape nowadays to produce wines that are smooth, rich and ripe. Of course Cabernet Franc originates in France’s Loire Valley region where it makes the lovely red wines of Saumur, Saumur-Champigny, Chinon, Anjou Rouge, Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, but it is increasingly grown all around the world and superb examples are starting to emerge from many new world countries, notably this lovely wine from Valdivieso in Chile, or this one from Lagarde in Argentina. It is also one of the parents of the more widely seen Cabernet Sauvignon grape, the other parent being Sauvignon Blanc.

Well the other day I presented a tasting of wines to Verulam Wine Tasting Club, which is a wine society in St Albans that I love visiting. The theme was wines that I had found on my travels that would be great for Christmas.  I showed them all sorts of delights, most of which I will write about soon, but 2 of the red wines seem to have gone down especially well – as did the sparkling, the 3 amazing white wines and the sumptuous sweet wine too. One of the reds was the Domaine Lupier El Terroir, which was my second Wine of the Week all those months ago. The other wine was KWV The Mentors Cabernet Franc.

This is a wine that means quite a lot to me. I first tasted it – the 2010 vintage anyway – in South Africa while judging in the Michelangelo International Wine Awards. Obviously we tasted it blind, but it totally thrilled the whole panel and we gave it a Grand Gold Medal and because I loved it so much I took note of the sample number so that I could find out what the wine was once the results had been released. And blow me down if it didn’t turn out to be a Cabernet Franc from KWV.

The KWV is very famous in the context of South African wine. It was a cooperative created by the government in 1918 to regulate the production of South African wine and many UK wine drinkers remembers their Roodeberg and Pinotages from the late 1970s with affection. In addition to table wines they have always produced excellent brandy and delicious fortified wines – this superb KWV Tawny from Marks & Spencer is well worth trying. In truth after democracy came to South Africa, KWV lost its way somewhat and the wines were a shadow of their former selves for quite a while. So, this tasting was my first inkling that things had begun to turn around. The second chance I had to see how KWV had changed was when I enjoyed a memorable tasting and dinner there hosted by Richard Rowe, their head wine maker, at the Laborie Wine Farm in Paarl.

It was a great experience with superb food – including my first taste of Bunny Chow – and a wonderful setting, but it was the wines that thrilled me the most. We tasted a wide range of their new Mentors range which was created from 2006 onwards with its own purpose built cellar and winery to create small production wines from parcels of outstanding fruit. As a consequence the Mentors range comes from different appellations and locations and the range varies from year to year, for instance there was no Cabernet Franc in 2011, all of which helps to make it really interesting.

The KWV Mentors range includes one of my favourite Pinotages, excellent Shiraz, superb Grenache Blanc and a first rate Petit Verdot, as well as a couple of fascinating blends; The Orchestra is a classic Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec blend, while the Canvas is a more unusual blend of Shiraz, Tempranillo, Mourvèdre and Grenache Noir.

It was the KWV Mentors Cabernet Franc that first wowed me though and it was what I showed at the tasting and so I have made it my new Wine of the Week.

KWV’s Laborie Wine Farm in Paarl.

 

2012 KWV Mentors Cabernet Franc
W.O. Stellenbosch
South Africa
The 2012 comes from Stellenbosch, whereas the 2010 was from W.O. Coastal Region and certainly the difference shows, as there is much more fruit intensity here. The wine is all about fruit selection, choosing the best parcels and blocks in their best vineyards, fruit that shows optimum ripeness and expression. After the initial selection, there is a further hand selection in the winery to ensure only perfect grapes get in. The wine was fermented in stainless steel tanks with regular pump overs to extract colour, flavour and tannins from the skins. Malolactic took place in barrel before 18 months ageing in French oak barrels, of which 70% were new.
The colour is intense, opaque, vivid and youthful – it looks like a blackcurrant coulis.
The nose is aromatic, earthy and vibrantly fruity with raspberry, cherry, truffles, cedar and cinnamon.
The palate is lusciously textured with creamy ripe fruit, coffee and cocoa. There are firm, fine grippy tannins balanced by the wonderfully rich fruit and a nice refreshing cut of acidity.
This is deeply impressive, rich, intensely concentrated and quite delicious. If you prefer less tannin or less obvious fruit then age it  for a few years, as the oak is certainly dominating to some degree at the moment, but it works really well and the fruit is big enough to just about hold its own. Age it for 4-5 years, or open it early and serve with something hearty like a casserole or rib of beef – 93/100 points.

Available in the UK for around £15.49 a bottle from SAWines online, Foods 4U, and Edgmond Wines.

This wine is tremendously good and deserves a wider audience, so do try it if you get the chance. It would certainly impress your guests over the festive season and grace any dinner party perfectly. It really would be superb with a casserole or a pie, shepherd’s pie – anything meaty really and it goes superbly with hard cheeses too.

 

Wine of the Week 2 – Domaine Lupier El Terroir

2009 Domaine Lupier El Terroir Garnacha
Bodegas Domaine Lupier, San Martín de Unx
Navarra, Spain
At first glance this wine might appear to be French – Domine Lupier might imply that – but actually it’s Spanish, from the under appreciated region of Navarra. What’s more, although it doesn’t say so on the label it is from the cool and mountainous Baja Montaña sub-zone.

The highpoint of Domaine Lupier, vines at 700 metres.

This producer only makes two wines, but they are both great. Both are red and both are Garnachas, but Garnachas with a difference. These are mountain Garnacha / Grenache, cool climate, Atlantic influenced Garnacha / Grenache and the difference shows. I have written about their top wine before, their Domaine Lupier La Dama – read about it towards the end of this long piece about Navarra – and it is a magnificent wine. Their ‘second wine’ El Terroir is also superb though and is more affordable too.

Map of Navarra – click for a larger view. High-res non-watermarked versions of my maps are available by agreement.

Since I first wrote about their wines I have met the owners – Enrique Basarte and Elisa Úcar – and they are as delightful as their wines. You can see their passion for their vineyards and their wines when they speak and that passion clearly ends up in the bottle. It is an amazing story too,  Enrique and Elisa wanted to create a winery project of their own. Both have a deep appreciation of Garnacha and dreamed of finding a plot of old vine Garancha that they could nurture back to productive life. Spain has more old vine Garnacha / Grenache than anywhere else, but they are sadly declining. Eventually the search brought them to San Martín de Unx where the altitude and conditions really excited them and they managed to buy 27 tiny parcels of all but abandoned vines, some of which were planted in 1903 – the average age of the domaine is 76 years old. These were free standing bush vines growing at different altitudes between 400 and 750 metres above sea level, on different soils and with different orientations.

Elisa and Enrique in their vineyards.

Enrique and Elisa really wanted to ensure the vines were returned to perfect health and a balance with nature, so decided to farm using the  biodynamic approach. This is sustainable and ensures that the vines get the attention and care that they need and personally I think that is the secret with biodynamics. I really do not know whether farming by the biodynamic calendar, or using various biodynamic preparations really works, but am willing to bet that the fact that it is so labour intensive that Enrique, for he is the viticulturist,  is working in their vineyards everyday, inspecting and nurturing every vine, makes a massive difference to the finished wine. I have certainly never tasted Grenache like these and 2009 is only their second vintage released.

El Terroir comes from the lower slopes, between 400 and 600 metres above sea level, everything is hand picked and the wine was aged for 14 months in mixture of 500 litre, 300 litre and more normal 225 litre French oak barrels.

The wine
The colour is deep purple, but bright and vivid, not dense and not totally opaque.
The nose is fragrantly rich with sugar plums, fresh plums, sweet spice, earth and chocolate, while the palate is a joyful mix of rich plums and cherries, cherry stones, clove, anis and spicy oak. The fruit is succulent and juicy, but not even slightly jammy, in fact it is like succulent fresh fruit, red and black cherries with some raspberries thrown in that mingles perfectly with the earthy mineral characters. Also there is a lovely freshness and balance about the whole thing that makes it feel bright and elegant.
I have a sneaking suspicion I drank this a few years too early, as for a Garnacha it is very tight and firm in the tannin department, but hey it’s already delicious. If you want it softer give it 2 to 3 years more.

We are always told that old vines produce more intense flavours. Well this kind of proves the point, but it also proves another point, which is that old vines also have better inbuilt balance as they ripen with less sugar than younger vines – don’t ask me how, I’m not a scientist, but it is the balance that makes this wine so exciting and so delicious. A triumph – 91/100 points.

Available in the UK for around £15 per bottle – stockist information is here or from Fields, Morris & Verdin, their UK distributor.