Focus on Cabernet Sauvignon pays off for Ernie Els Wines
In a wine market bursting with all kinds of different, lesser-known or revived grape varieties, it’s refreshing to come across the singular focus of Ernie Els Wines on the classic, noble varietal Cabernet Sauvignon.
Just as the Stellenbosch winemaking region has hung its hat on Cabernet Sauvignon as its signature grape, so too has the winery founded by the celebrated SA golfer in 2000.
The Stellenbosch claim to fame, of producing the country’s premier Cabernet Sauvignons (renowned for flavourful complexity and intensity, powerful but elegant, supremely ageable), is centred on the “Golden Triangle” of the Helderberg wine-growing area between Somerset West and the edge of Stellenbosch.
Here is where you will find many of the most venerable names in SA Cabernet Sauvignon, many of them fanning out from Annandale Road where you will also find Ernie Els Wines, with a deserved place in that array.
Founding winemaker Louis Strydom, who’s just completed his 23rd vintage there, speaks of a “singleminded focus” on a site that is ideal for growing Cabernet Sauvignon, coupled with gentle extraction of juice and colour from the grapes in the winemaking process, to “create premium, full-bodied wines with the classic Cabernet Sauvignon cues”.
Multiple Platter’s 5* ratings and high scores from international critics in publications such as Decanter and Wine Spectator provide the proof in the pudding.
Els himself today retains a small stake, with the business sold a few years ago to the German Baron Hans von Staff-Reitzenstein, a businessman and wine collector (both descriptions probably a huge understatement) who also owns Stellenzicht and Alto, both in the Golden Triangle too.
But the Els name must certainly still open doors, with 50% of the output exported to 33 markets.
Another nod to the Els involvement is the unusual sight of a chipping green in front of the tasting room!
He also lends his golfing nickname “The Big Easy” to everyday the winery’s wines, opening a marketer range’of s gift because it perfectly describes wines that are big on flavour, well-made for texture, layers of flavour and lasting finish, and really easy to drink.
The Cabernet Sauvignon focus arrives in a recent switch to Cab for the Rosé (R115 retail, but spotted in Preston’s at about R80) — super-summery and fruity, but elegant and structured, bone dry.
Just four hours’ skin contact gives it a prettily pale colour and three months in old French oak lends palate weight and texture, way more interest than just a “patio wine”.
Chenin Blanc is brought in from Agter-Paarl for the Big Easy Chenin, important for the range to be rounded out with a white — deliciously fresh and delicately, exotically tropical in fragrance and flavour.
Big Easy Red Blend 2020, a very respectable Decanter 94 points, blends Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault and Grenache with the primary component of Syrah, for loads of dark fruit along with herbaceous, spicy, savoury and floral notes.
Deeply flavoured and juicy, a great go-to “house wine” and super with food, especially Mediterranean flavours from Portugal, Spain or Italy (tomato and olives — yes!).
There is, of course, a Big Easy Cabernet Sauvignon, 2021 tasted, that has all the characteristics you’d expect in a Cab — dark, brooding fruit, oak and cedar aromas, warm spice, graphite — but made to be ready for drinking now.
Moving up to the relatively new Major Series range, there’s a seriously good, serious Merlot 2018 (R220) and the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is, says sales and marketing manager Logan van Driel, “very much the style of Cab we want to produce”.
Smooth, elegant, powerfulbut-fine tannins (iron fist in velvet glove stuff), super-dark fruit, warm spices — it’s beautiful, smooth, with a chalkydry, long and flavourful finish. A seriously good buy at about R250.
Ernie Els Signature (current vintage 2015, 5* Platter, R875) is an incredibly intense and layered Bordeaux-style blend, aged for two years in barrel, another two years in bottle.
The 2013 vintage has just come up tops in the Winemag.co.za 10-Year-Old Wine Report — a clear indication that these wines can be bought with confidence and laid down for later enjoyment at their full potential.