Winemaker of the Week: Giorgio Dalla Cia

Nickname: Camerlengo of Cabernet

Style: Plush Bordeaux-style blends of richness and power. Try the 2007 Giorgio 70:20:10 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. In Papal purple, this is a wine to make a Pope kick a hole in a stained glass window, as Raymond Chandler might have said. Seductively sweet on the palate with a burly 14.5% alcohol, this is how Robert Parker would like to see all Bordeaux blends.

Hobbies: Mushrooms and grappa (he makes his own). Giorgio knows all the best porcini pozzies in the Jonkershoek forest, but if he tells you, he’d have to kill you (he is, after all, a member of the CIA). Giorgio waits patiently for the day he can legally add marijuana to his grappa and export it to Colorado and Amsterdam in the same way his countrymen add ruta (Herb of Grace). He’s even got the name: Maria Giovanna.

History: Giorgio put Meerlust Rubicon on the map and his 2001 is a benchmark of Stellenbosch style. His fingerprints are all over Webersburg and Bilton reds, which is really no surprise as he thinks the Helderberg is the St. Émilion of SA wine and he’s not wrong.

Artist: Francis Bacon. If Bacon was appropriately the master of meat, then Giorgio makes reds bloody enough to enjoy with steak tartare.