The International Wine Review, the highly regarded bi-monthly wine report in the USA, has given Simonsig a high five with a score of 90 points and higher for no less than five wines in the February 2012 edition on South African wines.

Simonsig top scorers on 91 points, the Red Hill Pinotage 2008 and the Cape blend, Frans Malan 2006, are lauded as “outstanding” by publisher Mike Potashnik and editor Don Winkler, who single out Simonsig Estate as one of the producers of “impressive” Pinotage blends.

“One of the most exciting trends associated with Pinotage to emerge from South Africa is the Cape Blend,” say the reviewers who describe it as “the product of a search for a unique South African red blend to match the great blends of Bordeaux”.

The other Simonsig wines to score 90 points or more are the Chenin Blanc Avec Chêne 2009 (90+), labelled by the reviewers as “a lush, fruit forward wine’; Simonsig’s “tète de cuvée”, the Cuvée Royale Blanc de Blancs (90+); and the Simonsig Bordeaux-style flagship, Tiara 2008 (90).

The reviewers, who tasted 750 South African wines selling for $15 or more, praised the high quality of South African wines as a whole and ascribed this to intelligent vineyard management practices, the careful selection of vineyard sites and grape varieties, and a strong commitment to terroir-based wines.