Geneva-based investment gnome Adrian Vanderspuy is a cautious trader. Before he bought his 50ha viticultural eden consisting of an isolated koppie in the Banghoek Valley outside Stellenbosch (Adrian has bravely reverted to the original scaredy-pants spelling from the more anodyne Banhoek of Stellenbosch bureaucrats) he did some careful research into the farm and its viticultural potential. Well this investment is right on the money and his Oldenburg Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 is probably the finest New World Cabernet this side of Stephen Henschke’s Eden Valley efforts in South Australia. A magnificent, sweetly fruited masterpiece made by Simon Thompson in the pioneering perfumed mould of Etienne le Riche, the master of this style in the Jonkershoek, a forgotten valley full of Afrikaans billionaires. Sans mint, sans tomato paste; in a word, wonderful (the wine, not the billionaires).

Oldenburg (left) and Henschke (right), terroir twins