Kleine Zalze Barrel Fermented Cabernet Sauvignon 2011

The Headlines: //

Like an emotional weightlifter – solid legs, followed by thick tears that run for days.
Colour is a medium intensity deep ruby hue, with medium+ viscosity.
Lovely open nose of pencil shavings, eucalyptus, and a hint of sweet plum.
On the palate, cassis and black cherries, with moderate acidity and pleasantly grippy tannins. I’m sure this will soften further with time, but I wouldn’t wait past 2018.

 Price: R120 (as of Sept 2016) //
Quality: 16/20//
Value: 3/5 //
Ponce factor: Moderate //
Occasion: Friday Dinner //
Key words: Consistency//

Vivino rating //

To fill those awkward silences…

Kleine Zalze is on fire right now

So you are struggling to maintain dinner guest interest with your passionate monologues on US politics? Why not try something a little closer to home; like how the combination of winemaker Kobus Basson and Kleine Zalze are a powerhouse combination to watch. Just have a gander at the little pretties they have produced over the last few years:
– a Platter 5-Star rating for their 2012 Barrel-Fermented Cabernet Sauvignon (R120.00),
– Chardonnay-du-Monde Top10  spot for their Vineyard Selection Wooded Chardonnay (R80.00),
– a Concours Mondiale Bruxelles Gold Medal for their 2015 Unwooded Chardonnay (R47.00)
– TWO Top10 spots in the Standard Bank Chenin Blanc competition (their Vineyard Select Chenin retails for about R80.00)

The list actually goes on for a lot longer, but what I wanted to focus on was the prices. If you look at the wines listed, none of them go over R120 per bottle, which is worth noting (as many of our 5-Star Platter wines and Chardonnay-du-Monde winners retail for between R250 and R450.00).

While it is kinda boring to faun like a schoolgirl at a Bieber concert, I do want to laud Kleine Zalze for their ability, not only to produce consistently great wines across a wide range of red and white varieties, but to deliver value to the customer, despite opportunities to sell wines for triple the price in foreign markets.

To be fair, that though was only marginally more than US politics. I apologise for over promising and under-performing.

To try and make up for that, and hopefully this will salvage your reputation as a conversationalist, I will leave you with one last Cab Sauv Moderately Fun Fact.

While Cabernet Sauvignon feels like a Big Daddy of a wine that will knock the socks of an unsuspecting winedrinker, it is actually the fortuitous little baby lovechild of a passionate night in the vineyards between Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc.

Which I guess makes it all the more suprising to see how the wee lad turned out. When you have light, dry, minimalist mother, and a rather effeminate and perfumey dad, the apple could hardly have fallen further from the tree.

Cheers!

SA Pinot Noir Blind tasting – September 2016

TLDR: Scroll right to the bottom for final rankings and scores.

The featured wines in no particular order:

Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir 2014 (R370.00)
Bouchard Finlayson Galpin Peak Pinot Noir 2013 (R320.00)
David Nieuwhoudt’s Ghost Corner Pinot Noir 2015 (R200.00)
Balance Pinot Noir 2015 (R52.00)
Catherine Marshall Clay Soils Pinot Noir 2013 (R250.00)

1. Colour & Appearance:

Wines 1&3 were both pale ruby with garnet rims, which had the group leaning towards guessing that they were the older of the wines on the table.
Wine 2 was a touch duller than the other four wines, but was a straight cherry red/ medium ruby.
Wines 4&5 has notably increased intensity, and both featured slightly more of a blue base to their colour – more medium purple in nature.

2. Aromas and Bouquet:

Wines 1 & 3 immediately presented with a marvelous mix of savoury, smoky, oak and intriguing red cherry notes…
But didn’t compare to the explosive Wine 4, with its red licorice, smoky oak, and sweet black plum complication.
Wine 5 presented as artificial in nature. Almost like a cheap boiled blackcurrant sweet. This overly sweet element and the artificial nature of the nose had many members tipping this to the be the cheapie on the table.
Wine 2 was quite closed aromatically, but did feature some pleasant red cherry notes.

3. Palate:

Wines 1 & 3 presented pronounced but elegant red cherry acidity, though wine 3 was perhaps a little tart, with acidity outweighing the fruit on the palate a tad.
Wine 2 was very simple, but was impeccably balanced (mildly sweet ripe cherry fruit against clean lingering acidity).
Wine 4 left all the others behind with superb sweet plum notes leaning against ripe red cherry acidity, all rounded off by rich oak spice, followed by a ludicrously long fruity tail.
Wine 5 displayed more black fruit than the rest, and while it showed pleasant complication on the palate, it’s finish was a little rough. And to be honest, most of the group had already relegated it to last place (perhaps prematurely?)

4. Initial Conclusions:

Wines 1, 3 & 4 were superior products. So if there were four esteemed Pinot Noir producers on the table, but only three great wines, one of them had to be letting the side down. My money was on Hamilton Rusell. Had we just opened it too early? It was only a 2014 after all; not a superb vintage by any stretch of the imagination. And while coastal regions may have done better than those inland, it was by and large a tough year… So could HR be represented by the short, but clean and balanced red cherry affair represented by wine number 2?
One thing was certain, we all had wine 5 pegged as the artificial tasting , slightly too sweet pocket friendly Balance Pinot Noir.
Which left the marvelous 1, 3 & 4 to be divvied up between David Niewoudt, Bouchard Finalyson, and Catherine Marshall.

5. Final Guesses:

Was Wine 1 Bouchard Finalyson Galpin Peak? A lovely mix of savoury oak, soaring cranberry acidity and ripe cherry fruit.
Wine 2 felt like it could have been Hamilton Russell, an okay wine, crippled by a poor vintage.
Wine 3 was possibly Catherine Marshall, with clean red fruit, and laser-like acidity that decisively cut through the middle of it all. Though confidence was low here.
Wine 4 was David Nieuwhoudt…I felt certain. On account of him being one of South Africa’s most celebrated winemakers, producing international award-winning wines for both Cederberg (his Shiraz and Cabernet sauvignons in particular) and for Ghost Corner (the Sauvignon Blanc in particular).
Wine 5 was Balance PN; slightly contrived, and just not on a par with the legends that it was forced to share the stage with.

6. The Big Reveal:

So…which wine was where?
Wine 1.  Catherine Marshall Clay Soils Pinot Noir 2013 (R250.00). Quality rating: 17/20.
Wine 2. (surprisingly) Balance Pinot Noir 2015 (R52.00). Quality rating: 13/20. Value rating…off the charts.
Wine 3. Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir 2014 (R370.00). Quality rating: 16/20. Value rating…fairly poor.
Wine 4. Bouchard Finlayson Galpin Peak Pinot Noir 2013 (R320.00). Quality rating: 18/20. An out and out winner. Value is adequate.
Wine 5. David Nieuwhoudt’s Ghost Corner Pinot Noir 2015 (R200.00). Quality rating: 12/20. I need a rematch. I was shocked to have scored this so badly, when, historically he has been one of my favourites…then again, such are the joys of blind tastings.

Bouchard Finlayson Galpin Peak Pinot Noir 2013

TLDR: Very few bottles can cost of R300 and still be worth it. This one of them//
Quality: 18/20//
Price: R320 (as of Sept 2016) //
Value: 3/5 //
Ponce factor: High //
Occasion: Solo time. Just you, the universe, and this bottle of wine.//
Key words:  Mouthfeel, Platters ratings//
Vivino rating //

Tasting notes:

Top of the table in a blind tasting against some of SA’s finest Pinot Noirs. Beating out both Hamilton Russell and Catherine Marshall, this PN boasts gorgeous vanguard aromas of red licorice, ripe plums and cherry fruit, all elevated to the level of sublime by complications of smoky oak spice on both the front and back end.

There aren’t very many wines that can charge R300 for a bottle and still deliver good value. But this is surely one of them.

Something to fill those awkward silences…

What is the Platters Wine Guide?

Journalists John Platter and his wife Erica published their first little wine guide in 1980. Since then, they have sold over a million copies, and won “Best Worldwide Annual Wine Guide” on two occasions. Almost 40 years after inception, the Platters have handed over all the legwork to a distinguished team 16 sommeliers, wine entrepreneurs, journalists, architects, wine authors, and WSET judges. The larger team not only allows a more thorough covering of the vast South African wine industry, but also pools the combined expertise from a wide range of wine-related industries.

Biased or belligerent?
When a movie critic slates a film for being an embarrassment to the academy, or a soul-sapping, time-sucking torturous two hours of cruel and unusual punishment, the public, by and large, do not cry foul and issue withering accusations of impartiality. Instead, they choose to either agree or disagree with a given verdict.

On occasions, Platter’s too, has been accused of lacking objectivity, but usually these criticisms are levelled by people who misunderstand why the guide exists in the first place. It is not a purely qualitative assessment of the liquid within the bottle, disembodied from the people and institutions that actually make said liquid. And it is also not an impartial blind assessment of the wines listed.

So what is it then?

For the people by the people about the people.
Platters is, instead, an in-depth look at the individuals, vineyards, wine philosophies, production techniques, and the wineries themselves, that all act together to deliver a wine experience. This includes elements both inside and outside the bottle

Because the guide is written by humans, who all have their own biases and stylistic preferences, it is no wonder that certain wineries and winemakers (who may appeal to these biases) seem to garner more coverage than others.

But it should be remembered that Platters is written by a large panel of judges of different ages, genders, cultures and professions, and so any apparent biases that do emerge in the final product have only done so because they have managed to impress enough of the panel to successfully motivate for said prominence. In other words, if the guide says that something is awesome, it might (just maybe, perhaps, possibly) be exactly that.

One big fat 5-star exception.
Having said that the wines are not rated in blind tastings, there is an exception to this process.

All wines that receive ratings of 4.5 stars during the first few phases of judging then go into a final round of judging, which is performed entirely blind. It is only during this blind tasting that any wine is awarded 5-star status. In Platter’s own words, a 5-star wine is “Superlative. A South African Classic”, and one can rest assured that the ever-elusive final half-a-star is awarded purely on the quality of the contents of the bottle. A comforting thought when forking out R320 for a bottle of wine!