Johan Delport, Cellar Manager at Waverly Hills, chooses Vrede en Lust Boet Erasmus 2009 as our Wine of The Month

The Vrede en Lust Estate, outside Paarl, is the perfect place to visit over a weekend. The impressive and well-maintained historical buildings, the layout of the gardens and the attractive interior finishes all make it worth the visit – and then there are all the delightful wines... This Bordeaux blend is named after the grandfather of the current owners, the Buys family. My first experience of the same Boet Erasmus was as a young boy watching the Springboks play the British Lions from a seat on the Boet Erasmus Stadium in Port Elizabeth in 1980 with
my father, and getting lost in the rain. It is so good to find oom Boet again!

This wine, under screwcap, has everything you would expect of a top class Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec. It has layers of ripe black and red fruits with balanced oak complementing it all the way through. The palate confirms the complexity and stays long enough for you to appreciate its careful crafting.

It sells at R150.00 per bottle and is certainly worth the purchase of at least a few.

Johan Delport, Cellar Manager at Waverly Hills, chooses Thelema Sutherland Cabernet Sauvignon Petit Verdot 2008 as our Wine of The Month | The Month April 2012

Thelema Mountain Vineyards has always been a benchmark cellar in South Africa and one of the pioneers in the Helshoogte region during the early 1990s. Their attention to detail, especially in the vineyards, and also in the wine making and wine maturation processes, set many a standard for the wine industry as we know it today. The pureness of the fruit flavours of Thelema wines has impressed me since those early days, when this style of wine making was not yet the norm. Recently they have also invested in an Elgin property, named Sutherland.

The Sutherland Cabernet Sauvignon Petit Verdot blend shows the typical clean fruit and balanced oak flavours of all Thelema wines, with an extra cool-climate elegance. Beautiful spice and minty flavours are complemented by red fruit and oak aromas. The palate is refreshing and structured with long lasting black berry and plum flavours.

This wine is worth cellaring. At only R100 per bottle, I fear, your cellar may not see much of it for long.