Time Travel and the Leeu Passant Basson Cinsault

Thoughts on old vines, heritage and the joys of drinking history

There is a sense of gravity and mystery when one drinks a wine that was bottled 30 or 40 years earlier.

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It’s not time travel. But its close.

As though an invisible temporal voyager just brushed right past me. Like, if I stand still and silent, I can sense the history still flowing.

And I mean, who knows, right? Perhaps I entered the dining room mere seconds after a wine-laden time machine tore through the space time continuum into my dimension, dropped off a liquid artefact, and vanished as suddenly as it appeared. When I stroll in, the room is empty, but the atmosphere is still charged, and the hairs on my arms stand up from residual static of time travel.

Now, the Leeu Passant Old Vine Basson Cinsaut from Wellington was NOT bottled eons ago. But the fact that it comes from vines that are 120 years old triggers a similar sense of awe. It is truly remarkable to ponder how much those vines have *seen* (literally, or figuratively, depending on your beliefs over the sentience of plants). As far as I can tell, this is the oldest block of red vines in  South Africa (planted only 14 years after Phylloxera began devastating the South African vineyard in 1886).
Thank you to Mullineux / Leeu Family Wines – and the Basson Family – for sharing this little piece of history with us, and for brightening our future by safeguarding our past.