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The Cape of Good Hope Range is a dramatically underrated wines that was born out of Johan Rupert’s connection to the old vine project back in 2016, when he essentially funded the process that Rosa Kruger and Andre Morgenthal had envisioned. Part of the mission of the Old Vine Project involved going on a treasure hunt for South Africa’s ancient lost vineyards, and seeking to restore them.

Along the way, the Rupert Wines team realised that, aside from simply cataloguing these old vines, there were some incredible vineyards that weren’t being showcased adequately…and so the Cape of Good Hope label was born as a way to share these old, secret tucked away gem vineyards, communicated through the medium of wine.

If you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you’ll have to hunt this wine down in your own time. But until then, here are my tasting notes and some technical specs.

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👃🏼 The vanguard carries freshly cut ripe oranges, vanilla spice and oatmeal.

👄 The palate is generously laden with generous ripe oranges and mandarin, laced with hints of sweet vanilla spice. Despite the impression of ripeness, there is also some lively lemony acidity and meyer lemon rind preserve on the finish that keeps the sense of freshness. A lingering touch of oak spice adds a lovely complication.
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🔬 Wine of Origin Elandskloof. The vines are grown at between 600m and 800m ASL in quartz and Sandstone soils. The average annual temperature is a cool 16.8 degrees.

The fruit was picked from four separate vineyards, before being whole-bunch pressed and then allowed to settle overnight. 20% of the wine was fermented in Stainless Steel, while the remaining 80% was fermented in French oak. 25% of that 80% was fermented in new oak (yeah…get your calculator out), which means that 20% of the final wine saw new oak. The wine was then matured for 11 months on lees, and only 15% of it was allowed to go through malolactic conversion.

Alcohol: 13.5 % | pH: 3.20 | Total Acidity: 7.2 g/ℓ | Residual Sugar: 3.5 g/ℓ