A fitting finale for this year’s columns

Matthew Jukes picks a perfect South African red with which to round off the year.

Matthew Jukes
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published
in Features

876-Wine-2-634

2013 Reyneke, Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Stellenbosch, South Africa (£57.99, reduced to £52.19 each for orders over six bottles, Handford Wines, 020-7589 6113, Handford.net).

I had a eureka moment back in September while I was working my way around the annual South African wine tasting and it has been at the forefront of my mind ever since. The stock for my tip has just made it to the UK, so you can, for the first time, taste the wine that will send this estate into orbit.

Johan Reyneke is a committed biodynamic farmer and there are few properties whose wines taste so securely rooted to their origins. Reyneke's winemaker is a peculiarly talented man. Rudiger Gretschel has cast a phenomenal spell on the Reyneke cellar; in fact, six years ago, on this very page, I alerted you to their Reserve White, noting they were on the brink of superstardom. This is their first great red.

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The maiden vintage of Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is a truly stellar achievement. Fermented in concrete tanks and aged in new French barriques for 22 months, this wine is bloody, sooty, dark, exceptionally beautiful and also mesmerisingly brooding. The flavour is vividly imprinted in my memory.

I remember hugging Rudiger and then grinning like a goon for minutes while shaking my head with complete disbelief. It is a 20/20 the first perfect score I have ever given to a South African red. It is a fitting finale for this year's wine columns.

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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