Today’s Cape Times offers Nederburg Baronne for R35 a bottle at branches of Picardi-Rebel. Yet in the Presidential Suite on the 16th floor of the Taj Hotel in Wale Street (Angela Merkel’s overnight bag still in the 270° glass bathroom) this evening two of the finest wines in SA were poured for a Cape Town media crew that included the new wine scribe for GQ magazine, Pieter Smedy and Thuli Gogela, the hot new indigenous food blogger.

Pieter Smedy and Razvan Macici

“It’s like licking the floor of Tutankhamen’s tomb” said Pieter of the 2007 vintage II Centuries Cabernet Sauvignon: “dusty.” I totally agree that this wine is something very special indeed – the kind of wine that in 30 years will be judged the equal of the Nederburg 1974 that dinged Robert Mondavi’s dong. That the Platter sighted guide judged it four stars speaks volumes about the topsy-turvy rating scale the paw-paw pips are attempting to impose on SA wine. Guys, you got it wrong, big time!

Made from grapes grown in the Canon Route vineyard on the Simonsberg above Paarl and some fruit from neighbour Niel Joubert’s farm, it spent 30 months in new Radoux barrels, the most expensive that Nederburg buys according to cellarmaster Razvan Macici. “This wine is a new benchmark for SA Cabernet” opined Christian Eedes, and he is not wrong.

Likewise the 2009 vintage barrel fermented II Centuries Sauvignon Blanc is totally awesome and a triumph of texture. It was Pieter’s pick of the whites. His mom is Afrikaans, his dad French and his step father Irish, which may sound like the start of a joke but confirms that this new voice on the scene has impeccable cultural terroir.

Razvan with the II Centuries Sauvignon Blanc 2009

The II Centuries wines are a good fit for the Taj which is simply the most cosmopolitan hotel in Cape Town. This is what wine tourism is all about: the best position (hotel and vineyard), the best grapes, savoury duck spring rolls and an international fashion magazine to breath fairy dust on both. Superb.