The smallest wine column in Christendom comes over all funny and chooses a Big Bottle today in The Times. Must be the shock of seeing Toxic Tim stalking around like an old accountant at the Shiraz Showcase last night. Dear Angela must have been washing her saggy bottoms as no sign of her. Thank heavens! Or perhaps she was waiting in the parking for the boxes of Platter samples.
Bottle of the week: Make your day with a magnum of the very finest
Alto Cabernet Sauvignon (in magnum) 2009
How much and where? R432; www.vinoteque.co.za
Why?
The Helderberg is the St Emilion of SA wine. Which means, it’s as good as it gets. And 2009 was a comet vintage. Which means, it’s as good as it gets and certainly the best vintage of the millennium to date. Magnums are to wine what Tom Selleck is to TV detective series: as good as it gets.
At double the volume (1.5 litres) reds age more gracefully in large-format bottles. A fact confirmed by a recent horizontal tasting of this 2009 vintage cabernet sauvignon from Alto on the Helderberg at Carne restaurant in Constantia against a normal (750ml) bottle. The savoury tomato flavours of the wine were a perfect match for the hand-chopped lamb ravioli made by Giorgio Nava of 95 Keerom Street fame. As good etc. and a demonstration of umami in both food and wine.
The Vinoteque in Stellenbosch is an Aladdin’s Cave of vinous gems and they deliver, too. This one is a serious red with decent age and just the kind of special bottle to lay in for the boss coming to dinner. Or when you’d like to show off to a visiting wine nut. Or spoil yourself.
The tasting note on the Vinoteque website says “capsicum and mint, with black olive and hints of freshly ground coffee. The wine has serious structure, with firm tannins and a dry finish. Additional cellaring required over the next four to five years.” A good example of all that is wrong with pompous winespeak.
In SA we eat red and green peppers, not capsicums, and for “serious structure” replace with “grippy mouthfeel”. This wine is a national treasure, to be enjoyed by anybody with R432 in their pocket.
Rating: *****
***** in vino veritas
**** amor vincit omnia
*** utile dulci
** carpe diem
* caveat emptor
