69% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Cabernet Franc, 15% Merlot. Deep tone, with suggestion of some maturity at rim. The instant impression is all deliciously ripe fruit, velvety texture and firm grip. Red fruits predominate - with a suggestion of strawberry jam - wrapped in woodsmoke. Great depth and richness. Lovely wine, with such potential too. Now-2017

Product Code: MEE605

Meerlust is one of the great and historic Cape wine estates: historic because the vines are on a farm granted in 1693, bought by Johannes Albertus Myburgh in January 1757, and still in the Myburgh family; great because the red blend from this farm, Rubicon, has long been admired as one of the Cape’s top reds.

The estate did seem to go through a weaker phase in the 1990s and into this century, but that trend has been reversed by the appointment of local boy Chris Williams (see below for his biography), whose first vintage was 2004. He explains the success of the wines here, on the slightly unprepossessing plain south west of Stellenbosch, first in terms of a tapestry of mixed soils, with plenty of granitic, gravelly soil wash from the Helderberg, ideal for Cabernet, plus more clayey patches and laterite outcrops on which Merlot thrives. Secondly, he points to the maritime influence of False Bay only 5 kilometres away. 

The Chardonnay was a revelation: of moderate alcohol, this feels more at home in the Côte de Beaune than the Cape: and the merest touch of botrytis lends considerable complexity. Rubicon is Meerlust’s flagship, a Cabernet based blend, with the proportions varying by vintage (see below), given two years ageing in largely new French oak barrels, and always aged in bottle for at least two years before release. The 2005 is already a charmingly mellow wine delivering great pleasure, but also a wine to keep and enjoy over many years too. We could not resist shipping a few Magnums of the 2004 vintage too.