KWV Mentors Orchestra 2013

TLDR:  Distinguished but pricy. Cellar until at least 2018 //
Quality: 16/20 //
Price: R270 – R300 (as of Sept 2016) //
Value: 2/5 //
Ponce factor: Moderate to High //
Occasion: Dinner for two (You don’t want to have to share this with too many people) //
Key words: Bordeaux blend //
Vivino rating //

Tasting notes:

Like the original Total Recall; ludicrously lengthy & gratuitously brawny.
Colour is a superbly intense, with vanguard aromas of classic Cab Sauvy pencil shavings & ripe cassis.
Palate is denser than the Governator, with heavy plums, more blackcurrant notes, and some positively gargantuan tannins. My bet would be that this guy will shine a little brighter after a few years in the cellar. Like a long-awaited cinematic remake with better colour and more convincing CGI.

To fill those awkward silences…

Aside from the fact that this is a KWV Mentors range wine (read more about that here), there are a few other chat-worthy elements to this wine. Not least of all is the fact that winemaker Johann Fourie has gone the whole hog and included FIVE of six permitted bordeaux varieties.

Bordeaux’s family five

A red Bordeaux-style blend refers to any wine made up of two or more of the five* Bordeaux grape varieties. If you’ve ever wandered down a supermarket wine aisle, even semi-conscious, then you will have seen most of these: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot & Malbec.

Trying to remember all these can be a bit of buzzkill, so I’ve crafted you a verbal family portrait instead:
Dad: Cabernet Sauvignon – a sage fellow (herbal notes present), full of stature (big tannins) with many years behind him (tannins and acidity give CS great aging potential)
Mom: Merlot – gentle natured (less intense than CS), with soft, feminine curves (tannins far more moderate than CS), and rosy cheeks (usually carrying soft red fruit on the palate)
Gym bunny older brother: Petit Verdot – super dense, super brawny (muscular tannins). Usually recognized in pure form thanks to its inky black-ish purple colour. Like a testorestone-fuelled adolescent, it usually comes with a fair share of intensity (dense ripe sweet black fruits).
Precocious teenage daughter: Cabernet Franc – Blossoms early, smells great, leaves its pleasant bouquet wherever it goes.
Baby: Malbec. Often consumed very young when bottled as a varietal wine (especially New world regions…French Malbecs can age longer). Like Petit Verdot, it adds intense colour to the mix.
*(technically Carmenere is No.6, but I ran out of family members. And if you can find a local Bordeaux blend with Carmenere in it, I’ll eat my hat…and wash it down with said carmenere-loving Bordeaux blend)

Anura 2014 Malbec Limited Release

TLDR:  Moderately interesting, moderately pleasant, moderately overpriced //
Quality: 14/20 //
Price: R145.00 (as of Sept 2016) //
Value: 2/5 //
Ponce factor: Low //
Occasion: Book club //
Key words: New World, Single-variety//
Vivino rating //

Tasting notes:

A decent offering with moderate intrigue value, but at R145, it’s a touch over-priced.

Almost a year has passed since my last blind tasting of this wine, & the scores have remained unchanged.
Colour is probably still the loveliest thing about it; more opaque than the President’s finances.
Speaking of the President, the palate holds some seriously dense fruit that seems to hang around for ages.
Again those classic Malbec-ish sweet tobacco & aromatic pine-resin notes mingled with the lingering black fruit tail.
The wine is soft & fruity enough to enjoy solo, but is certainly in no danger of being a fruit bomb.

To fill those awkward silences…

Uppety wine snobs will tell you that South Africa makes poor malbecs, but that hasn’t stopped our winemakers from trying. On occasion, they produce something quite lovely. Anura’s Limited release 2014 vintage is one such wine.

For folk who like a little history (but just a little), the short version of the Malbec story is this:
In the Cahors region, South West France (where they were called “Cot”) plantings of the grape have been in decline, mostly because they are kind weakling in nature, and often get wiped out by frost or disease. Grapes like Cab franc are a little hardier, and so risk-averse farmers have steered clear of Cot/Malbec where they have had the choice.

In Argentina, however, the warmer climate seems to have treated the grapes quite well, and the results have been some delightfully large black-fruit-driven velvety reds, lacking the sometimes austere tannic nature of their French counterparts.
Argentina’s success with the grape has grown to the point where any Malbec anyone ever raved about was nigh on guaranteed to come from the Mendoza region of Argentina. Argentina has even declared Malbec to be their “national grape”. Needless to say, in Argentina, Malbec is kind of a big deal.
Now whether the frenzied devotion to the grape was warranted or not, the global success of the Mendoza Malbecs spread confidence to other New World winemakers in regions with warmer climates. Our Stellenbosch is one such region (though there are other regions producing great Malbecs too).

If you enjoy this guy, look out for the following South African Malbecs:
1. Doolhof Signatures Malbec (Stellenbosch)
2. Paul Wallace Black Dog Malbec
3. Annexkloof Reserve Malbec
4. La Couronne Malbec
5. Mt Vernon Malbec

KWV Mentors Cabernet Sauvignon 2013

The Headlines: //

Colour is superbly dense. Sweet blueberry and maraschino cherries abound on the vanguard, complicated by some gloriously open oak aromas.
Palate is heavy with ripe fruit; mostly continued black maraschino cherries, with soft pepper finish and some truly grippy tannins. Acidity is moderate.
This could go beyond Thunderdome in two years’ time. But, hell, at R300 per bottle, I guess I’ll never know.

Quality: 15/20 //
Price: R270 – R300 (as of Sept 2016) //
Value: 1/5 //
Ponce factor: Moderate to High //
Occasion: Wine ponce festival //
Key words: Fruit selection, ripening //
Vivino rating //

To fill those awkward silences:

A little on the South African vintage of 2013

Humidity was an issue in 2013. Too high a moisture content in the air can facilitate the danger of rot in the vines. But harvesting too early can lead to stalky and green notes popping up in your wines. So what to do? Wait for drier conditions in which to harvest; giving your fruit time to ripen, but also increasing the chance of losing your crop to rot.
As it turns out, those winemakers who took the risk of waiting it out for drier conditions were rewarded with a superb harvest (especially among the red wines). With KWV having supreme access to awesome  fruit, they could pretty much do what they wanted. Which helps when trying to make wise fruit selection.

A few tidbits on the KWV Mentors range

For those not familiar with the Mentors Range, it is worth noting that the KWV group needs to be understood as a conglomerate of hugely disparate brands, some of which should be given global respect…as opposed to being diluted by Coca Cola. Mentors is one such label. It is a range of wines that has garnered more international awards than almost any other range of wines that our young democracy has tolerated. So, even though this wine is decent, it’s backstory is almost better than what’s in the bottle. Enough to elevate it to the point of being awesome.

But why? Well, for starters, as is the case with all Mentors wines, winemaker Johan Fourie has his pick of some of the finest grapes from pretty much any grape growing region in the country (thanks to KWV’s vast empire and unrivalled access to the country’s prime grape growing outfits). But secondly, Johan Fourie is not a rubbish winemaker. He spent years as a viticulturist, understanding the raw product, which gave him an advantage over those who skipped the agricultural grounding and went straight into the cellar. And then, more recently, he was awarded the Jan Smuts award at the 2015 Young Wine awards for both his Cabernet sauvignon, and his Shiraz.

And if that isn’t enough to keep you entertained, Jan Fourie makes some of the finest Chardonnays that this country has ever seen.
So…plenty to talk about, so long as your dinner guests are vaguely interested in wine. However, if they aren’t, and you still have nothing interesting to add on the topic of democracy, government spending, or indie rock, a sure winner is to play the “artisanal versus big corporate” card (which everyone loves, regardless of the industry), and expand on how KWV manage to be both a big corporate, and an artisanal winemaking outfit that garners international awards.