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Nederburg is a South African wine behemoth. It exports wines to more than 75 countries, and sells the equivalent of about 4.5 million bottles of wine each year. It has also been particularly long-lived. Arguably Nederburg’s most widely known wine, the Baronne, just celebrated its 50th anniversary. And yet even that is a baby when compared to the 11 generations of winemakers who have come and gone since its inception in 1791.

In that time, a fairly lengthy series of wine-passionate madmen – both local and foreign – have served to advance the operations, quality, and ultimately success of the brand; a brand that has featured in the list of “World’s Top 50 Most Desirable Wine Brands” and has also received the title of Platter’s South African winery of the year twice.

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And yet, for most wine passionate South African consumers, Nederburg is a brand that you leave behind when “your wine palate matures”. The aforementioned Baronne is so ubiquitous that is has unfortunately become proxy for “the best Nederburg has to offer”, and so when a winemaker feels that they have left a wine like Baronne in their wake, the come to the conclusion that they need to leave Nederburg behind as well. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Today’s wine of the day is not even Nederburg’s most premium offering, and yet it is a superb argument for the claim that Nederburg is a brand that produces some of most reliable and polished premium red wines on the South African market.

Of course, 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 to come to your own conclusion… But until that time, here are my tasting notes and some technical specs to keep you going:

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👃🏼 – An open nose of red cherry and -currants, cassis, dried thyme, with slightly softer notes of blackcurrant pastille. These elements are then gilted by seams of cedar spice, pencil shavings, and dried tobacco leaf.

👄 – The palate carries ripe blackcurrant fruit, and juicier cherry fruit, patinated with touches of liquorice and pepper spice. Subtle red currant elements lift the riper fruit, and keep it check. Tannins are remarkably silky, allowing the finish to show lingering berry fruit, with just the lightest touch of cherry-skin texture, and a return of that slightly bitter liquorice root.