The awesome 2018 quartet from Boekenhoutskloof – arriving 8th March 2021
2018 Boekenhoutskloof Release – arriving on UK merchants shelves on 8th March 2021
2018 Boekenhoutskloof, Semillon, Franschhoek RRP £32
Year after year these remarkable old vines keep on giving us spectacular wines. It is extraordinary how transcendent this wine tastes and also how refreshing and bright it is on its finish. The ever-increasing lightness of touch and oak gradually giving way to concrete has meant that this pioneering wine has managed to retain a kind of eternal youth which other wineries crave in their wines but rarely manage to achieve. Hints of lime curd and toast hover over a sleek, cool, tender chassis and verdant flecks are all about the palate. While there is crisp acidity here, and this wine will age well, I cannot resist its youthful sheen and already pliant flavours. 18/20
2018 Boekenhoutskloof, Cabernet Sauvignon, Stellenbosch RRP £46
Plush and packed with cassis, this is a tremendously flashy wine with deep wells of liqueur-like fruit coupled with strident oak and a lovely bright, dry finish. Yearning to be set free, BCSS is like a prize-fighter itching for the bell so it can launch itself at its opponent. This is an amazing Cabernet and while it has the stuffing to go deep into the later rounds, I love its toned flanks and glistening musculature right now. 18.5+/20
2018 Boekenhoutskloof, Cabernet Sauvignon, Franschhoek RRP £46
Meaty, wild and savoury with more fynbos and anti-fruit minerality than obvious punnets of PYO, this is a great wine with both Frankland River and Bandol details and it is this elemental, granite-soaked, sonorous thrum of power which is utterly mesmerising in this beauty. This is in no way a traditionally delicious wine right now given that it needs time to organise its troops, but it is absolutely fascinating in spite of the tension found in every sip. There is a mountainside of Franschhoek terroir in every bottle and that is what makes this wine so daunting and yet so magnificent. 19+/20
2018 Boekenhoutskloof, Syrah, Swartland RRP £46
I have never forgotten the 2000 vintage of this wine, which I wrote up in one of my books many moons ago. In the blink of an eye, the perfume on this 2018 vintage took me back to that great wine and while this label has been known to wander off into the forest in certain vintages, it is back with a brooding bang and loaded with Hermitage-like malevolence in 2018. With a melange of both red and black fruit tones and considerable aromatic lift on the nose, this is a Syrah with its feet firmly planted in the earth while its head is in the clouds such is the scale and majesty of its posture. Like the other reds in this vintage, the oak integration is near perfect and this allows the fruit to sing. If there is one wine to drink before the other reds, then this is it, and while it might be a criminal offence to drink this wine so young, I am sure you will break the law for a flavour as enthralling and all-encompassing as this one. 19+/20
Scores – I have attached my scores out of 20 for these wines. If a score has no ‘+’, this indicates a wine which is in balance and can be drunk relatively young thanks to its precocity and charm. One ‘+’ indicates a wine that will benefit from medium-term ageing (in accordance to the style of the wine), while two ‘++’ indicates a wine that should manage to make the long haul, softening and evolving as it goes.
