Who is the king of the luxury wine game? Last week Wine Cellar hosted a fascinating social wine experiment to determine SA’s most luxurious ultra-premium red. Twelve wines that retail for between R500 and R2,150 were served randomly and blind to 41 tasters in Johannesburg and 21 tasters in Cape Town, forming part of our regular tasting line-up. We asked each taster to rank the wines according to their own preferences.

The result? The number one wine and winner by a considerable margin was De Toren Book 17 2012. Having ranked first in Johannesburg and second in Cape Town, it impressed the tasters with deep velvety fruit, integrated, rich new oak and a luxuriously long and silky finish. Vilafonte Series C 2011 followed second, De Toren’s Black Lion 2012 third, Mvemve Raats De Compostella 2012 fourth, and Rust en Vrede ‘1694’ 2010 fifth.

Neal Martin of Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate on De Toren Book 17:
‘It has a super-ripe crème de-cassis, fruitcake and fig scented bouquet with a palate that is ostentatious to the point of vulgarity. However, this full-bodied turbo-charged wine is so damn silky smooth and seductive in a super-Tuscan kind of way, that its charms will be near impossible to resist. I found this to be a big, powerful, quite alcoholic wine that is more reminiscent of some cult Napa Valley wines and they would certainly appeal to those who appreciate that style.’

Apart from the MR de Compostella 2012, all wines in the top five were matured in at least 100% new oak (some 200%) and state 15%+ alcohol on their label. All five are, however, extremely polished wines with ripe fruit and soft yet powerful tannins. The Black Lion is a 100% Shiraz (from Stellenbosch and the Swartland) and the Rust en Vrede has a major Shiraz component, but the rest are Bordeaux blends. In fact, of the five strict Bordeaux blends in the entire line-up, four were placed in the top six! Wines made with single varieties, except for the Black Lion, all featured outside the top five.

The Black Lion has a production of just 600 bottles, the Book 17 – 1,000 bottles, and the Rust en Vrede – 1,500. Vilafonte Series C and Mvemve Raats De Compostella are produced in larger volumes of 6,000 bottles or more.

Although the winning wine was the most expensive in the line-up, the second wine, Vilafonte, was the least expensive. The average price of the top six wines was R1,446 per bottle while the bottom six averaged just R819.

Interestingly, the preferred wine of tasters who are members of the wine trade was the Mullineux Schist Syrah 2011 (R700), which was also the best-performing wine in Cape Town. Unsurprisingly it also scored the highest standard deviation (3.85) of scores and was therefore the most controversial wine in this experiment. The Mullineux (from the Swartland) has the lowest alcohol of all the wines (13.7%) and is, rather uniquely, made with 100% whole-bunch fermentation. Less experienced tasters seemed less wooed by its savouriness, higher natural acidity and dry tannins. Similarly, more elegant wines that are presently rather backward in stature, such as Sadie Columella, Delaire Graff and Waterford Jem, fared better in Cape Town.

Selection
The 12 wines were personally selected by Roland Peens for this tasting; this is by no means the definitive list of all SA wines in the ultra-premium segment. The wines sell for R500 plus and are currently available for sale in South Africa. Each wine was included for a specific reason – either having a long history in the segment, such as Vergelegen and Vilafonte, or having recently entered the segment with a unique style, such as the Teano and Mullineux. Price was also a major consideration and many of SA’s most expensive wines were included. One notable self-proclaimed and extremely expensive luxury wine, ‘4G’, declined from participating in the tasting. All wines were purchased for the tasting.

Methodology
Tasters were asked to evaluate 12 wines blind in a random order, which was later revealed as oldest to youngest. Tasters were given as much time as required for evaluation and ranking. The determination of ‘highest quality’, ‘best’ or ‘most favoured’ wine is open to interpretation. The criteria for ranking each wine were left up to the taster, with the ultimate aim of finding the most preferred wine in the line-up.

The results can be analysed and interpreted in a number of ways through median, mean and mode, as well as by analysing their standard deviation of scores. After evaluating the results, however, the mean (average) was used for ranking. Fittingly, the De Toren Book 17 was the winner using the median, mean and mode!

There was no external auditor and only Roland Peens and Debi van Flymen knew the order of the wines. Their scores were not included in the analysis.

For a spreadsheet showing all the (anonymous) results, please email [email protected].