Tamboerskloof: a vampiric red that's after your soul

Tamboerskloof is a wine which touches your soul with its integrity, power and brooding, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
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published
in Features

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2010 Tamboerskloof, Syrah, Stellenbosch, South Africa (about £19.50, The Salusbury Wine Store, 020-7372 6664; The Wine Tasting Shop, 020-8616 8658; Wine Utopia, 01962-706666).

Kleinood Farm is home to Tamboerskloof Wine and this is without doubt one of the most beautiful and discreet boutique wine properties in the Cape. Tucked away in the Blaauwklippen Valley, with Waterford, de Trafford and ex-MoneyWeek alumnus Keermont as near neighbours, this property is poised on the brink of stardom thanks to winemaker Gunter Schultz's complete understanding of the syrah grape.

Along with his patron Gerard de Villiers (owner of Kleinood and a cult, winery-design-architect), he takes a holistic approach to wine and life. I can highly recommend the 2010, 2011 and 2012 vintages of this wine so you can relax and drink this label for the next decade with impunity. The vintage reviewed here is dense, meaty, hedonistic and vampiric.

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It is a wine which touches your soul with its integrity, power and brooding. It is spicy and floral on the one hand and then malevolent and glowering on the other. With autumn in full swing and winter on the horizon, this is exactly the sort of red wine you should be decanting and enjoying with hearty seasonal fare. My visit to Kleinood, back in September, was a wine tasting I will never forget.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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