The 2007 Plum Pudding Hill Syrah from Stellenzicht is well-named indeed for the wine tastes of… plum pudding. What delicious decadence in a bottle. At a declared alcohol of 15%, this is a wine to push the boat out. Hats off to Distell for holding back wine from the excellent 2007 vintage and releasing it after 7 years. If only Pinotage producers would be so foresightful.

The Plum Pudding Hill in question is located on the Helderberg, the St. Emilion of SA wine and this wine is a single vineyard wine, made from grapes grown on that hill. Although there is another Plum Pudding Hill on Table Mountain, above Rhodes Memorial. Site of a disaster in 1971 when three SAAF planes, practising for Republic Day, crashed into the Pudding. There were no survivors.

Which reminds of another Distell air crash wine – The Young Airhawk, dedicated to Arnold, son of Nederburg founder Johann Graue, who died in a light plane crash at the tender age of 29. The Helderberg Plum Pudding gets its name from an altogether more benign crash – a trailer full of harvested plums turned over on the hill, making the scene look like plum pudding mix.