While we were on holiday in Lambert's Bay in
December we wanted to visit Namaqua winery in Vredendal. This is one of South
Africa's biggest wine producers. We keep
meeting the team at award ceremonies as over the last few years they have
picked up some very impressive awards, and lots of them. Recently they won the General Smuts Trophy
for the Top Wine and the Pietman Hugo trophy for quality. and consistency. Yes,
the winery concentrates on bulk wine, boxed wine and making wine for other
people but they do have a small range of excellent wines we wanted to
taste. We made an appointment with
winemaker Reinier van Greunen and had an
impressive tasting
The large and spacious tasting
facility also has a small restaurant
which has a simple, but reputedly good, menu
We arrived at 3 for our
appointment at Die Keldery
They also have a small range
of things for sale, as well as wine
The view over the valley and
you see lots of vineyards. Namaqua has
200 owner producers. This fruitful valley is fed by the Olifants river
A good outdoor seating area
and a children's playground. It was hot;
we preferred to sit in the air conditioned tasting room
Reinier van Greunen was very
welcoming and took us through the range of wines. It is now possible to buy
their wines on line.
https://www.namaquawines.com/wines/ We began with the 2018 Chenin Blanc
from their Cultivar Collection. R45 Typical golden dusty nose with fruit and
spice, jujube sweeties, dark apricots, citrus and guava
Reinier kindly organised one
of their cheese and meat platters for us to try during the tasting. It came with three glasses of their white Muscadel
Then the 2017 Doornkraal Chenin
Blanc. We paid R130, (R780 for a case of 6). Made as a social responsibility
project with a local community from low yield vines. The vineyard is tilled
with horse-drawn ploughs and everything is done by hand. An elegant dusty
chenin, with golden juicy fruit, with lime crispness, soft chalky tannin,
minerality and long flavours. Platter gives it 4½ stars
The back label
Then the 2014 Namaqua Limited Cellar Door Merlot R85 which was the National Champion at the Young Wine Show. Pretty and perfumed on the nose with roses and violets, it has intense dark fruit, biting fruit acid, minty, mocha and nuts, this wine needs time to gather its skirts but has great potential. Each bottle is numbered
From the Heritage Collection,
the 2017 Cape West Cabernet Sauvignon Pinotage blend has lots of gongs.
including a double gold at Veritas this year. Elegant on the nose with some
perfume, it has soft sweet fruit and some youthful tension, which is what
people are looking for today
The 2017 Spencer Bay Merlot
from the Flagship Range is perfumed with violets and cassis, has sweet red
berry fruit,cherries, red and black cassis berries and leaves, and black pepper
hints and is nicely round on the palate
Lynne scored this 18/20
2017 Spencer Bay Winemakers
Reserve The Blend. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot Very approachable on the nose, with chocolate
and black cherries. Soft chewy tannins, good fruit, cherries and cassis, this
wine has tension and length and is very impressive now and will surely be in the
future. R125. We think it will win awards. Lynne scored
this 18.5/20
The platter looks and was
delicious
Summer on a plate
The Namaqua White Muscadel is
sticky sweet and full of raisins and honey. Winning lots of awards. R60
Then a tour of the wine
cellar, it is bigger than anything we have seen before
We were impressed with the
quantity this tank holds .....
Until we saw this one and
then more ...
... and there is a veritable
forest of them. We counted about 24
holding up to about 1.2 million litres each, but apparently there are more on
another site
Winemaker, Reinier van
Greunen, took John up the stairs to the top. Lynne does not do heights
The green vineyard view from
the top
In every direction, grapes
"I will look at the
photos! Enjoy the view"
We had a marvellous tasting
and visit and are so impressed with what they are doing with their Heritage
range. Thank you Reinier. Their boxed
wines are very popular in South Africa and they sell a lot of them overseas
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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2019
