Wine of the week: a cab with serious class and complexity

This South African cabernet sauvignon offers shocking value, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
By Matthew Jukes
published

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2011 Vergelegen, Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Stellenbosch, South Africa (£17.87, Amazon.co.uk; £15.95, HawksheadWines.co.uk).

I recently enjoyed a tasting with Don Tooth, managing director of Vergelegen, a wine estate in South Africa. He updated me on the progress made at his winery over the last few years. Vergelegen is a beacon of excellence in the Cape, with a broad portfolio of wines all made by the one-man cyclone, Andr van Rensberg.

Van Rensberg is one of the most outspoken and opinionated chaps in the wine world, but while people swoon and tut every time he opens his mouth, he is the supreme example of a highly talented winemaker who has seemingly taken a truth serum and simply cannot keep his incendiary opinions to himself. I think he is often spot on with his searingly honest assessments about the wine world, and what is magnificent about this man is that he channels his fomenting passions directly into his wines.

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I am of the opinion that these wines have never been better, and the value offered here is truly shocking. For example, 2014 Reserve Chardonnay (£15.95, WineDirect.co.uk; £15.79, RobertsAndSpeight.co.uk) is a spectacular white-Burgundy-bashing beauty and my featured cabernet is so good and so complete that I would rather drink it than any Super-Tuscan around. This is not a claret-shaped wine, but a warm-climate cab with serious class and complexity. It will convert you to Vergelegen in a trice.

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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