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William's Best Picks
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Pick #1: Sadie Family, Columella, 2007, 92.39 Euros
While Apartheid reigned, I, like all my friends, boycotted South African wines as a minor political statement. We joked that in effect we were not missing much, since these wines were hardly known for their greatness. Times have changed for the better in South Africa not only politically, but also in the realm of winemaking. Top notch bottles are coming out of the country in significant numbers, none better than the two made by the Sadie Family. This operation, with only 7 hectares, is truly family run: there are three employees, Eben Sadie, his brother, and his sister. Eben, still in his thirties and the prime mover of the estate, started making Columella only in 2000, a mixture of Syrah and Mourvèdre, producing a grand total of 400 cases. Rave reviews followed, including a Wine Spectator score of 95 (Classic), the first South African wine to gain such high an accolade for his 2005. The 2007 is no different: rich, with a surplus of black and red fruit aromas, and a hint of spice, like a super charged Formula 1. This is very much a top class wine that has few equals. Buy it now, since it is a very rare item, barely available in the European or American market, or when it is, the bottles are restricted to one or two per customer.
The famous Klein Constantia estate has its roots in vineyards and wine making in South Africa since 1685. It produces a very large and impressive range of wines, with plantings in its separate plots of almost every kind of grape. Of the dessert wines, the late harvest Riesling is one of the real gems. I drink dessert wine only rarely so when I do, I want something very special and I get it here. The wine is sourced from over ripe, sun-dried grapes, some cut off the vines at their ripest and left to dry and accumulate more intense juice, others left literally to rot on the vines so that the little juice that is left becomes remarkably concentrated, more like syrup than juice. Although you might think this would result in a heavy, burning wine, the exact opposite is the case. The color is light, gorgeously golden, while the aromas are very strongly reminiscent of a cocktail of peaces, pineapple, and mango. The wine is also very surprisingly delicate, having only 8.7% alcohol, which means that sipping it with a light fruit dessert, or vanilla ice cream, is nothing less than pure pleasure and very, very self-indulgent. Oddly, the ultra sweet flavor is never jammy or cloying; it just rolls in your mouth like liquid gold.
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