Wednesday Wines – Episode 315 – Restless River Vineyards – a rare vertical tasting
Restless River Vineyards, Hemel-En-Aarde Valley, South Africa with the brilliant Craig & Anne Wessels
Est. 1998
Craig Wessels (Restless River) & Damon Quinlan (Liberty Wines)
Here are my rough notes, taken at speed, ahead of the tasting!
The Harvest Window and Vintage Conditions notes below are Craig’s own.
Craig and Anne bought the farm in 2004; the previous owner planted Chardonnay & Cabernet Sauvignon. At Main Road Vineyard, the clay layer, a metre or so beneath the surface, adds another dimension of power and depth, so this is a layer-cake-style wine that manages to exist without irrigation, and this is part of its unique position. The two vineyards are blended. Main Road is lighter and cooler, with rockier soils on the northern side and sand on the south, and Dignity faces north, and it is a warmer site with koffieklip, or coffee stone (‘the Holy Grail of soils for Cabernet’), and the top portion of the vineyard is very exposed to the brutal ocean breezes, making it hardy and very structured. Interestingly, this vineyard protects the Pinot Noir vineyard behind it. It was first vinified in 2005. There are quite a number of whole berries in the mix (40-60%), and they use a small-batch mentality, with minimal manipulation and gentle handling throughout. They still use a basket press by hand to help the vineyards express themselves. Long, slow pressing cycles are followed by barrel ageing in 25% new (and up to 10-year-old) fine-grained oak for two years. Hemel-en-Aarde Cabernet has high acidity, and this lends itself to slow maturation. It is also aged on its lees for the first year. Then, three months in steel, after barrel selection, and then after the winter, when no one else is bottling, they bottle their wine. The Main Road Vineyard was removed in 2023 due to leafroll virus, and since 2024, new mountain vineyards have been established. From 2017, Craig began planting new Cabernet vineyards, and in Block 7, next to Dignity, began contributing small quantities to this wine. Also, a very small proportion of the Mountain Vineyard (on Cederberg Shales) was included, too. The alcohol levels range from 13.7% to 14.2%, and the pH is around 3.5. Craig’s parting shot was a classic, and one everyone should embrace: “Natural pyroxenes in ripe fruit are your friends”!
2022 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 29/03 – 04/05 | 36 days
Vintage Conditions: Late vintage. Wettest and coldest winter in recent memory continued into early summer, triggering vigorous growth and larger berries. Warm February conditions pushed ripening ahead of a cool, moderate autumn.
Extraordinary perfume, with a level of plummy exoticism you rarely find on pure Cabernet Sauvignon wines. Then, beneath the florals and fruit notes, there is a depth of flavour that is astounding. Oak and herbal notes are present, and yet they are haunting, and they add allure, magic and freshness to the core fruit. The texture is silky, uplifting, and super-clean, with a small amount of the new mountain vineyards included in this blend. Aside from fruit quality, freshness is the overriding character here, making it a sublime, GPS-located wine. You can drink it now, but judging by the way the rest of this vertical selection is ageing, it has a long way to go. A long hang time has meant this wine is very fruit-forward and engaging, and the tannins are amazingly discreet. 18.5/20
2021 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 31/03 – 15/4 | 14 days
Vintage Conditions: Late and short harvest. Moderate, slower ripening and longer hang times, concentrated flavour and colour. Cool conditions gave age-worthy structure.
The nose is all-encompassing, and the palate is darker, more powerful, and more intense than that of the 2022. While it was a cooler vintage, the depth of flavour and overall silkiness of the palate are amazing. Small berries led to greater concentration, and this fired up my passions, as this was a wine that stopped me in my tracks earlier this year. This is a stunning wine, and here is an extract from my MoneyWeek column, published earlier this year, on this wine.
‘I nearly dropped my glass when Craig poured me a sample of this glorious wine at a recent event, not least because it eclipses every red wine he has made to date! The perfume alone conjures flashbacks of all the great Cabs of my life, and yet the texture is silky, open, and welcoming, and while the tannins are formal and regimented, they are not drying. This is a remarkable Cabernet Sauvignon because it has found true equilibrium extremely early in its life, so it tastes unusually grand and swaggering with only five years on the clock. It also tastes of its location, with faint floral hints and maritime freshness forming unshakable foundations in its armoury. And then you consider the price. By all means, Google away to find comparative Cabs from all hotspots on the planet, and I will tell you that while a handful of Aussies could sit alongside Main Road & Dignity, I cannot think of a European or American (North or South) wine that comes close to harnessing the luxury and detail on display here. I am still grinning ear to ear as I type this article. Well done, Mr Wessels!’ 19/20
2020 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 24/3 – 03/04 | 10 days
Vintage Conditions: Easy and short, albeit with a later start. Moderate to warm growing conditions continued into late autumn.
There is a touch of wildness on the nose here, and the palate is less obviously fruity and a little drier and more muscular. There is a sense of heat here, along with density and blockiness on the mid-palate, indicating this is an actively youthful wine. It will take at least three years to start softening, and I can already sense that this is a less floral and sensual wine, more of a battler! 18+/20
2019 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 10/3 – 07/05 | 59 days
Vintage Conditions: Post-drought. Early start but latest finish ever. Cool season and the longest harvest.
Spicy, densely structured and wild, this is a much more pagan wine and hedonistic wine than the previous vintages and there is serious concentration and dryness (tannin and acid) here and there is four-square, ‘clarety’ structure here that is part shocking and part classical, but it is an outlier in this pack, and it will require a lot of patience to allow it to evolve. 18++/20
2018 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 24/3 – 18/4 | 25 days
Vintage Conditions: Drought conditions with yields lower than 2017. Warm January/February concentrated flavours. Healthy vines and ideal harvest conditions.
There is a thrilling nose here, transcendent compared to the solid, dark 2019 and 2020. This is the first wine to appear to be approaching a drinking window, and while the nose is open and rose-petal-soaked, with mulberry highlights and more plums, the palate is reassuringly firm and scouring. This is clear evidence that while decanting this wine and drinking it this evening is perfectly acceptable, there is a further decade ahead of it because the battery pack is topped up and plugged in! This is the vintage that first turned me on to Main Road & Dignity, and yet, when it was young, it was very closed and uncommunicative; today, it shows that patience is rewarded by those who keep the faith! 18.5/20
2017 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 24/3 – 06/4 | 13 days
Vintage Conditions: Later start, but shortest harvest. Dry conditions and very low disease pressure. The third year of drought resulted in a smaller-than-usual crop and greater concentration.
This is a looser, less focused wine, and there is a salty backdrop here that I cannot budge from my palate. The fruit is open, and yet the finish is dry and commanding, and it backs into the palate. I think that this is a wine one ought to drink up, as I fear there is not enough fruit in the mid-palate to keep this wine afloat, hence my slightly lower score. I would love to be wrong! 17/20
2016 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 09/3 – 07/4 | 29 days
Vintage Conditions: Small, dry, warm and early. The smallest crop in 50 years led to higher berry concentration. Classic flavours and aromatics with elegance and good ripeness.
There is a lot of fruit here, and it tumbles out of the glass with darker notes, density and little control or balance. That said, this is a happy-go-lucky wine with a cavalcade of berries and even a little chocolate, which makes it pretty interesting. The finish is benchmark, with decent density, and, surprisingly, the tannins are balanced and refined! I think this is a hidden gem, and the refinement here is extremely attractive. 18.5/20
2015 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 6/3 – 17/4 | 41 days
Vintage Conditions: Driest and earliest start. First year of drought. Good quality fruit, cooling later in March/April. Smaller berries gave a concentration of flavour, tannin and acid.
This is a feted wine, and yet it seems a little too dry, serious and hard, and at this age, I would prefer to see more generosity of fruit. There is a classic level of tannin here, compared with global Cabernet wines, but I feel they are a little too dominant, yet the perfume is enticing. Something is happening here, and certainly others will fall for its charms, but this is a pretty solid wine, and I wonder if, while it ages, it will open and dry up at the same rate, so it will never find its true balance! 18+/20
2014 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 24/3 – 19/4 | 26 days
Vintage Conditions: A challenging vintage beset by early rain. Patience was required with mild but drier March/April conditions. Later vintage with larger berries and a medium-bodied, elegant wine.
There is a Nebbiolo-like perfume here, with a darker berry theme, and a slender, velvety palate, but it is not overly complex and rather ‘foresty’ on the nose. It has a slightly too-green stance on the nose and palate, with mushroomy tones, too. Not surprisingly, this was a cool and wet vintage, and the canopies were quite closed, too. That said, this is a fascinating wine because the structure and fruit are in harmony, and while this is a curio, it certainly shows the potential of these sites back then! 17.5/20
2013 Restless River Vineyards, Main Road & Dignity Cabernet Sauvignon
Harvest Window: 28/3 – 26/4 | 29 days
Vintage Conditions: A wet winter and warm early summer followed by mild and drier February–April conditions. Increased yields and larger berries, though later harvest concentrated berries, giving more structure and flavour than initially thought.
The nose shows age, coupled with a hint of oxidation, yet this is still an interesting wine with bold, juicy Cabernet fruit on the palate and a clean, refreshing finish. While this is far from my favourite, it again shows that the fruit quality is nicely balanced and refreshing. Not bad at all! The mintiness is a little too dominant, yet it once again brings a sense of cool-climate pizzazz to this wine. 17.5/20
2008 Restless River Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon
Bright, meaty, minty and alive, this is an old wine, and it has parked up on the verge, but it still looks handsome! What a treat. 17.5/20
2006 Restless River Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon
Like the 2008, this is fresh and alive, but it is also parked up and engine off. That is not to say tannins are absent, but the momentum across the palate is measured! But one thing is certain, while these two wines were very early on in Craig and Anne’s journey (this was the second vintage, and it was made in a wooden shed with a boy who helped out and today has done his masters in biochemistry and is assistant winemaker at Restless River having completed 20 vintages), the prove the calibre of the site and also the dream of making superb cool climate Cabernet Sauvignon. Despite the green tones, the fruit is more than capable of weaving them into the wine, and, as with the rest of the vertical above, this adds to the character of Restless River Cabernet Sauvignon.