Ernie Els Wines among top scorers

Stellenbosch hangs its winemaking hat on cabernet sauvignon, with SA’s premium examples emanating from the “Golden Triangle” of the Helderberg.

In the heart of that area, alongside some of the country’s most venerable names in cabernet sauvignon, you will find Ernie Els Wines, where the focus is not much on golf but very much on making premium, agreeable cab.

The winery was founded by the SA golfing legend in 2000, collaborating with founding winemaker Louis Strydom to create the Bordeaux-style Ernie Els Signature, then SA’s most expensive wine.

Things have changed some — the winery is now owned by a German investor with Els retaining a stake — but Strydom is still there, now as cellarmaster.

There is still a chipping green in front of the restaurant and the Els trophy room inside the stylish building; and Signature, though no longer the country’s most expensive wine, is well entrenched as a leading example of SA Bordeaux-style reds.

The Signature formula remains exactly as Strydom and Els first created it, unwavering percentages of the five key Bordeaux varietals of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cab franc, Malbec and petit verdot.

And in vintage after vintage, most times earning a Platter’s 4.5 or 5* on the current vintage, it shows its supreme agreeability.

The benchmark of that is the annual winemag.co.za 10-year-old Wine Report, the only local rating focused solely on older wines — Ernie Els Signature, a regular in the top 10, with the 2013 making the cut in 2023 and the 2014 in 2024.

The wine is released only some years after vintage, having 18 months in the barrel and a further five years in the bottle to mature, and at that age, the current vintage 2017, it is certainly highly drinkable

— a classic Bordeaux-style that’s richly aromatic, bold but refined, velvety and harmonious — but as Platter’s critic Meryl Weaver puts it, “infanticide even after five years in the bottle, deserves a decade or more in the cellar”.

Priced at R900 on the estate, Signature is on promotion at Preston’s for R699 until Monday, March 11, with the rest of the Ernie Els wines also at promo prices until then.

The Ernie Els Major Series wines break down the Signature into its key components of cabernet sauvignon and merlot — usually R300 at cellar door, one could consider them a bargain on the current promo at R180.

The Major Series Cab 2021, a winemag Cab Report top 10, is distinctively Helderberg, the region that Strydom knows so intimately after more than 25 years of making wine there.

A small component matured in terracotta lends some cool mineral acidity to dark, inky fruit and warm spices, juicy and fresh balancing layers of deep complexity.

At the opening end of the range, find great quality-to-value in the Big Easy wines (mostly about R90) — a delicate, vibrant Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé with a touch of oak structure, and the estate’s only white wine, the Big Easy Chenin Blanc from Paardeberg grapes.

The latter is a super-quaffable chenin, aromatic and flavourful with pineapple, layered with a touch of nuttiness.

There is of course a Big Easy Cab, lifted with a cinsaut component for juicy fruitiness and to set it apart from the 100% cab of the Major Series.

Not as big and bold as the Major, bursting with fresh red fruit, hints of spice, aromatic and savoury herbs

— delicious and definitely ready to drink now.

The Big Easy Red Blend 2021 (R149) is a bit of a departure from the cab-focus, a more Mediterranean-style blend led by Shiraz, with cab and Rhone grapes — a consumer favourite and it’s easy to see why in the layers of florals and spice, intense dark fruit woven through with savoury, black olive notes, all in sync with fine, silky texture.

Never mind the golf puns, just try the wines!