Winemaker Notes
A tight, minerally wine with classic Hamilton Russell Vineyards length and complexity. Unusually prominent pear and lime fruit aromas and flavours are brought beautifully into focus by a tight line of bright natural acid and a long, dry minerality. An elegant, yet textured and intense wine with a strong personality of both place and vintage.
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
Always one of my favorites: bright, nervy and crisp with beautiful citrus, peach and minerals; lovely structure and notes of toasty oak and vanilla; seamless and elegant.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The nose is more reticent than its peers, but shows great class/ subtle scents of pineapple, smoke and orange zest.The palate has a lovely citric edge that is reminiscent of a fine Chassagne-Montrachet. It is imbued with wonderful poise a agradual build in the mouth toward a poised, zesty marmalade-tinged finish that lingers long in the mouth. Excellent! Drink now-2019.
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Wine Spectator
Tightly wound, this exhibits a serious core of glazed pear, fig, apple, plantain and brioche notes, lined with mineral and honeysuckle hints and accented by nicely beaded acidity. This should be a beauty when it unwinds fully. Best from 2014 through 2020.
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Wine & Spirits
This grows in the shale-clay soils above Walker Bay on the coast east of Cape Point. Hannes Storm ferments most of it in barrel, with small lots in clay amphorae and stainless steel. The Francois Freres oak richness is there in the aroma, but its main role is to point up the mellow earthiness of the wine, the grassiness of its pale cream flaovrs. The wine's youth shows a hint of greenness in the finish, a note that touches on pear skin. This has the clarity and soastal freshness to sustain it in the cellar.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
With an important wine renaissance in full swing, impressive red and white bargains abound in South Africa. The country has a particularly long and rich history with winemaking, especially considering its status as part of the “New World.” In the mid-17th century, the lusciously sweet dessert wines of Constantia were highly prized by the European aristocracy. Since then, the South African wine industry has experienced some setbacks due to the phylloxera infestation of the late 1800s and political difficulties throughout the following century.
Today, however, South Africa is increasingly responsible for high-demand, high-quality wines—a blessing to put the country back on the international wine map. Wine production is mainly situated around Cape Town, where the climate is generally warm to hot. But the Benguela Current from Antarctica provides brisk ocean breezes necessary for steady ripening of grapes. Similarly, cooler, high-elevation vineyard sites throughout South Africa offer similar, favorable growing conditions.
South Africa’s wine zones are divided into region, then smaller districts and finally wards, but the country’s wine styles are differentiated more by grape variety than by region. Pinotage, a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault, is the country’s “signature” grape, responsible for red-fruit-driven, spicy, earthy reds. When Pinotage is blended with other red varieties, like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah or Pinot Noir (all commonly vinified alone as well), it is often labeled as a “Cape Blend.” Chenin Blanc (locally known as “Steen”) dominates white wine production, with Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc following close behind.