Meerlust

2025 in Wine: Hi’s and Lo’s

~ Emile Joubert ~ Leave a comment

Hi-Lites

Vintage 2025

One of the finest vintages in recent Cape history, 2025 was already being rated a corker when the first grapes hit the bins in January. A dark, cold and wet winter in 2024, followed by a mild spring with dollops of rain at just the right times, delivered a growing season as harmonious as a Beach Boys melody before the Wilson brothers’ coke-snorting kicked in.

Summer rolled around in November, with temperatures remaining mild, skies continuously sunny and grapes accumulating sugar while retaining acidity, alongside their respective varietal characters, fruit notes and terroir origins. The exceptional quality of the 2025 vintage is already evident in the Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and other white wines on the market. Those fortunate enough to taste the reds maturing in barrel can attest to the unrivalled quality proposition of this year’s vintage. And with quality being everything in wine, the gift of 2025 sits atop this year’s blessings.

Cape Wine 2025

Major kudos to the Cape producers who had to bail out Wines of South Africa (WoSA), thus allowing Cape Wine to take place this year, something that was in doubt 18 months ago on account of budget constraints. The event itself, held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, was professionally run, slick and accommodating.

An atmosphere of authenticity, hospitality and heartfelt commitment to their product allowed local producers to win hearts, convince minds and seduce palates. Personality and spirit, together with great wine, remain what we do best.

Team Diemersdal: Thys Louw, Tienie Louw and Juandré Bruwer with Platter’s editor Philip van Zyl.

Diemersdal and Platter’s Guide

The Platter’s Guide to South African Wine succeeded this year in highlighting the often-neglected fact that a winery can produce wines in formidable commercial quantities without reneging on quality. Durbanville estate Diemersdal took the Platter’s Producer of the Year award for the 2026 guide, an accolade that in recent years has tended to be reserved for crafters of boutique-volume, media-darling, vogueish wines.

Diemersdal bucked the trend, with its 3 000t cellar garnering six five-star Platter’s gongs, spanning Sauvignon Blanc, red Bordeaux blend and Pinotage. Obviously justly deserved, this achievement sends a reassuring message to buyers of South African wine: the country can offer quality wines at modest prices and in volumes that ensure availability. Rarity and scarcity do not automatically guarantee quality.

Meerlust 50

This year saw Meerlust, the grandest of the Cape’s grand old wine estates, celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first bottling, the Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 1975. With a history dating back to 1693, Meerlust is inextricably linked to the Myburgh family, with current proprietor Hannes Myburgh representing his clan’s eighth generation.

History, legacy and family are complemented by Meerlust’s continued demonstration of winemaking excellence, a combination that has earned the estate global recognition as one of the Cape’s top marques.

The anniversary celebrations included an elegantly ribald party at Meerlust during Cape Wine, as well as presentations and tastings in the USA and Europe, highlighting the estate’s extraordinary command of provenance, brilliant wines and commercial success. South Africa is, indeed, lucky to have Meerlust.

Lo-Lites

Pinotage 100

This year the industry celebrated — or attempted to celebrate — 100 years of Pinotage, the variety created by Prof Abraham Izak Perold in 1925. Certain low-key events were held, a few articles written and there was some social-media buzz. Generally speaking, Pinotage deserved better.

No other grape variety in the world has achieved a remotely similar degree of global recognition a mere 100 years after its creation, and just 66 years after the first commercial wine was made from it. Yet the Pinotage Association, WoSA and South Africa Wine combined to secrete a damp squib in what should have been a monumental year for the country’s wine industry.

The uniqueness of the Pinotage story, the quality of the wines, their world-wide recognition and the diversity of producers could — should — have been at the forefront of the global wine narrative in 2025, something much needed for the image of South African wine. Instead, a failure to think big once again demonstrated that while the country has the quality of wines to compete on the world stage, an insular, small-town mindset among official industry bodies continues to keep it out of the ring.

Great Wine Capitals

This international organisation, representing some of the world’s leading wine regions and providing members with a globally reputable platform for communication, networking and co-operation, has played a major role in the success story that is South African wine tourism. This sector is a major income driver for the industry, contributing more than R9bn to its coffers.

Yet in 2025 South Africa exited the Great Wine Capitals. In the typically underhanded fashion for which industry body SA Wine has become known when it comes to communication, the departure was not communicated to local wine-tourism bodies, the media or members.

When questioned, obscure missives citing budget constraints were offered, alongside boyish enthusiasm about funds rather being redistributed within the local wine-industry chain. Anyone who doubts the importance of South African wine’s involvement with top-tier international collaborators such as Great Wine Capitals needs to obtain a Schengen or US visa and see global markets first-hand, and understand how much work South Africa still has to do to earn the recognition it deserves.

Talk-Talk

Talk of the wine world worldwide is the tanking of wine consumption and sales. People are drinking less wine: fact. In South Africa alone, consumption is down some 13% year-on-year, while exports have declined by roughly 9% compared with 2024.

Look at the global scoreboard, however, and it becomes clear that South Africa is far from alone.

The reality is that a paucity of big brands capable of deploying the marketing muscle and strategic acumen needed to create and sustain interest in wine has allowed other elixirs to command an increasing share of consumers’ throats. South Africa’s continued misaligned focus on bulk wine, a hangover from the pre-New Dawn era of the 1990s, has left the country lagging in the creation of large-volume premium wine brands, to the detriment of the sector as a whole.

Had this issue received the attention it deserved two decades ago, rather than the industry kneeling to the pressure of bulk-wine players, South Africa would today be in a far stronger position to counter the decline its wine sector is currently experiencing — and appears set to continue experiencing.

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Meerlust’s Monumental Cabernet Sauvignon 2021

~ Emile Joubert ~ 3 Comments

Expectations are there for the exceeding, an occurrence that is – for me – one of the greatest rewards for being embedded in the world concerned with the vineyard’s fermented offering. The daily partaking of a bottle of wine is one of life’s reliable joys: never mundane, consistent in the primal enjoyment thereof, yet startling in the diverse scope of sensorial experiences offered due to the endless array of varieties, styles and origins finding their way into your glass.

But when this experience is elevated from a passing daily pleasure to finding the magnificent and stupendous, joy and wonder being elevated to the realms of the surreal, this then when one feels this all-encompassing obsession with wine to be vindicated. A great wine makes it all make sense.  

It has taken me three days and two bottles of Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 to reach the above conclusion, complemented by brief notes to fellow wine-loving mates that, among the steady flow of fine wines from the Cape’s current releases, this is one to take note of. For it is, as they say in the classics, a keeper.

The release of this specific wine, and the fact that it is a great wine, is suitably apt here in the year of 2025. For it was 50 years back that the first Meerlust wine – a Cabernet Sauvignon – was made for bottling under the estate’s label. Before then, from the farm’s establishing in 1693, right through the reign of the Myburgh family from 1756 until seventh generation Nico Myburgh took charge, Meerlust had sold its grapes and bulk wines to willing takers.

Nico Myburgh – father of current Meerlust proprietor Hannes – changed the family farm’s trajectory. He began planting the red varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot – Chenin Blanc, Cinsault and Sémillon had for decades been the major cultivars farmed – which led to the first Meerlust estate wine being bottled from the 1975 vintage. The next step was the release of this maiden Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon in 1978, instantaneously forging the brand’s perennial status as an integral part of South Africa’s premium wine offering.

Plainly put, the estate’s Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 is one hell of a wine with which to celebrate half a century of winemaking under the Meerlust label. And its sublime quality and sheer beauty will be of special satisfaction to the proponents underscoring Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the Stellenbosch appellation as the region’s foremost and most distinctive wine grape variety.

But further than this: when scrutinising a wine such as Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 2021, and scraping the memory bank for recollections of Cabernet Sauvignons from other Stellenbosch producers such as Kanonkop, Rustenberg, Alto, Le Riche, Ernie Els – to name but only a smattering – it has to be said that no other red grape cultivar grown in South Africa is capable of presenting an array of wines showing the degree of class and regal nobility that Cabernet Sauvignon does.

This 2021 vintage from Meerlust was made from grapes grown on both sides of the Eerste River cutting through the property. The one section of Cabernet Sauvignon vines is set on a slope on the river’s left bank, the plants rooted in decomposed granite soils and almost full-on north-facing, squinting into the midday and afternoon sun. On the opposite bank there’s more Cabernet Sauvignon, growing here on the sandy alluvial soils, a flatland that has for centuries been home to Meerlust vines, the roots finding generous, kind purchase in the loose soils that are for a large part of the year moist due their close proximity of the Eerste River.

As is noticeable as more wines come to market, 2021 was a great year for Stellenbosch reds. A late winter brought lashing cold fronts, with a cool growing season resulting in extended ripening periods delivering concentrated grapes of visceral territorial and varietal expression.

Back at Meerlust, the two different parcels of Cabernet Sauvignon got themselves vinified separately, the young wines underwent malolactic fermentation and were kept apart in barrel for six months before being assessed and blended to agreeable portions, then sent back to mature in oak barrels for another 12 months. Half the barrels were new.

Obviously, the prospect of opening and experiencing a new Cabernet Sauvignon vintage from a renowned a marque as Meerlust comes with a set of predetermined expectations of the positive side. But even the loftiest expectations were overridden here, buried, by the sheer splendour and magnificence of this wine which, in April, is already my wine of 2025 thus far.

It is about completeness, and about structure; balance and harmony; about a mannered, agreeable charm that holds one with both the gentle finger-clasp of flirtation and the needy grip of seduction.

The wine has an evocative maritime, oyster-shell aroma, notes often found in well-schooled Cabernet Sauvignon, but mostly on wines of greater maturity. The saline scent, however, quickly gives way to broody, shadowy notes of autumnal fruit and brittle sun-dried cedar.

Upon the first taste the immediate presence and the wine’s commanding structure leads to a comparison of this Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 with some forms of non-consumable beauty. Evocative statuesque images that came to mind are a Michelangelo statue sculpted from Carrara marble; a leopard on its haunches, the golden spotted hide glowing in the late-afternoon sun as its coiled muscles await signals from the mind to unleash the body onto hapless prey; tennis goddess Aryna Sabalenka pummelling a cross-court forehand past a frozen opponent.

In this wine, the muscled tannins have been sculpted into forms of grace and beauty that bear the whole body from the beginning of the sip to the final sappy throes of its finish. The experience is all encompassing, riveting dense beams of classic wine-flavoured elegance covered with plush, broad layers of dark-fruited tapestries where plum, mulberry and blackcurrant are – at this stage of its development – discernible.

But the lasting impression of Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 is the way the wine appears polished to a state of clarity and purity, placing it a long way down on the road to the unachievable destination of perfection. No wine will ever get there, but the distance Meerlust has reached is one only attainable by a remarkable few.

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Stellenbosch and the Cabernet DNA

~ Emile Joubert ~ 1 Comment

As the increasing number of property developments and the influx of new residents descending upon the town and region show, Stellenbosch has largely become a place of newcomers. The natural beauty, architectural heritage, and the alluring atmosphere created around an old town that associates itself with the culinary arts, hospitality, and the youthful spirit of a university have made Stellenbosch a sought-after brand, both locally and internationally.

However, it must always be remembered that, no matter how diverse and multi-dimensional Stellenbosch’s character and offerings may be today, the most important newcomer and contributor to the town and region’s aura and its status of desirability is the grapevine. Simon van der Stel’s horses had barely cooled off after he crossed the Eerste River in 1679 when plans were already being made about where and how vineyards could be planted in the area.

Today, Stellenbosch is undeniably proven as South Africa’s premier wine region. Some of the country’s top wine estates and brands are found here. The university itself and the Elsenburg Institute are globally recognised institutions for the training of winemakers and viticulturists. And the geographical features of the region offer a treasure trove of soil types, slopes, mountains, and climate zones that make it seem as if the wine god Bacchus himself intervened to create this part of the earth.

These various patches of suitable and ideally located land have, over the past century or so, led to Stellenbosch’s exceptional ability to produce wine from almost every grape variety planted here. Brilliant Chardonnay. The best Pinotage in South Africa. Stately Shiraz wines and pure, bright Sauvignon Blanc. Merlot is magnificent, the Chenin Blanc is the best in the world, and for those who still crave Riesling, Stellenbosch is your place.

Yet, in this abundance of grape varieties in one region, there must be one that stands out, one that repeatedly produces fabulous wines with its own identity and captures the world’s imagination. And that is Cabernet Sauvignon—Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon.

Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon country.

It was Professor Abraham Izak Perold, the father of Cape viticulture who created the Pinotage grape in 1924, who mentioned as early as the 1920s that Cabernet Sauvignon belongs in Stellenbosch. Well-travelled through every vineyard land and with an intuitive sense for grape varieties and their suitable terrains, Perold informed the Stellenbosch farmers that Cabernet Sauvignon could thrive in the region’s soils and climate and that the variety could, therefore, produce world-class red wines.

Now, just over a century later, anyone with a nostalgic inclination would gladly show Professor Perold what has become of his advice. (In fact, his involvement was more than just advice—the professor personally helped establish Cabernet Sauvignon on farms like Alto and Uitkyk.)

Today, Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon wines are regarded by international writers and wine critics as some of the best in the world—wines that show elegance and refinement, along with the muscular robustness for which the cultivar is known. The status of Stellenbosch’s Cabernet Sauvignon is bolstered by the fact that the cultivar appears on the labels of world-famous wine estates such as Kanonkop, Meerlust, Spier, Le Riche, Neil Ellis, Delaire-Graff, Simonsig, Delheim, and Rust en Vrede, to name a few.

“I think Stellenbosch can rightly be considered one of the leading Cabernet Sauvignon regions outside the grape’s traditional home of Bordeaux in France,” says Deidre Taylor, head of marketing and wine sales at the Meerlust estate and newly appointed chairperson of Stellenbosch Cabernet, the organisation of producers that, under one banner, promotes the virtues and magic of the region’s Cabernet Sauvignon wines.

“And I feel it is extremely important that there is a body like Stellenbosch Cabernet that can deliver a unified message to promote Stellenbosch’s unique characteristics as a wine region suitable for phenomenal Cabernet Sauvignon wines,” says Taylor.

“In the wine world, it is a trend for various countries and regions to align themselves with grape varieties that have a proven track record of success, as well as those that can capture the taste and imagination of the world’s wine drinkers: Bordeaux with red blends, largely driven by Cabernet Sauvignon; the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay of Burgundy; and German Riesling, to name a few.

“In the so-called New World, outside Europe, the Napa Valley in California has made ‘Napa Cabernet’ a whole brand, and similarly, Australia with the Margaret River and Coonawarra regions’ Cabernet Sauvignons—although they have not yet reached the stratospheric prices of their Californian counterparts.”

The goal of a body like Stellenbosch Cabernet, which consists of 36 of the region’s producers, is not just that of an ordinary generic marketing body that wants to create awareness of the product and an “I’m also here” presence.

Taylor, an experienced salesperson who deals with buyers and wine enthusiasts around the world, believes the organisation’s goal is “to persuade wine lovers that Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon should simply be a part of their wine selection.”

Deidre Taylor

The international acclaim that the region’s Cabernet Sauvignon wines receive offers Taylor and the organisation plenty to work with. “Stellenbosch stands back for no one when it comes to determining quality,” she says. “For example, last year, Kanonkop Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 was Decanter magazine’s international red wine of 2023. And in the same year, Le Riche’s 2020 vintage wine won Decanter’s Cabernet Sauvignon trophy. And that’s just a few of the international accolades Stellenbosch’s Cabernet Sauvignon wines have achieved.”

As a proven wine expert with a higher WSET 4 diploma, Taylor is aware of the exceptional quality of Stellenbosch’s Cabernet Sauvignon. “The absolute purity with which the fruit flavours shine through the wine is something that few other countries can achieve with Cabernet Sauvignon,” she says. “And then our wines have a hint of fynbos to lift the classic fruit and tannin structure for which Cabernet Sauvignon is known… making the wines distinctive, unique.”

Taylor also points out that Cabernet Sauvignon’s contribution to Stellenbosch’s reputation goes beyond producing sublime single-varietal wines. “It’s important to remember that Cabernet Sauvignon was and is the main component in some of South Africa’s most famous wines, including Kanonkop Paul Sauer, Meerlust’s Rubicon, and Rust en Vrede Estate,” she says. “These iconic red wines largely paved the way for Stellenbosch’s recognition as the country’s leading wine region, and therefore, the role that Cabernet Sauvignon has played—and continues to play—in the reputation of the area and the country should not be forgotten.

Could the region’s Bordeaux-style blends, therefore, in the future, fall under the Stellenbosch Cabernet banner?

“I’ve only been in this position for a few weeks, so give me some time,” she says. “But I am a proponent of an open-minded approach in determining what will be best to further strengthen the words ‘Stellenbosch’ and ‘Cabernet’ in the South African and international wine world.”

Here to stay.

  • This article appeared in Die Burger newspaper in Afrikaans, and has been translated by Gert Bartho Thibault.

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What a Whopper! Meerlust Pinot Noir

~ Emile Joubert ~ 3 Comments

South Africa’s venture into the making of Pinot Noir did not get a good rap from the judges at this year’s Trophy Wine Show, arguably the strictest in the ever-growing South African wine competition circuit. No, results for Michael Fridjhon’s annual show are not out yet, but last week at the feedback session, agreement that Cape Pinot Noir appears to be a work in progress seemed unanimous.

Not that failing to claim a gold gong at this competition is a calamity – of the 645 entries, only some 5% secured a gold medal, which is about the annual average for the Trophy Show. And when it came to judges’ commenting on the wines entered, the Pinot Noir category was given a brief diss. Narina Cloete, Blaauwklippen winemaker who judged this sector said the wines lacked the reflection of a suitable site. Michael himself alluded to the fact that many regaled Cape Pinot Noir marques were not entering competitions – punters paying R500 and north for a bottle of Pinot Noir were apt to be less supportive of said wine should it fail to meet expectations by not roping any bling in shows entered.

Despite not having a cooking clue as to what a gold medal Pinot Noir – or any other wine, for that matter – looks like, it is a cultivar I enjoy, believing that like rugby matches and pizza, even sub-standard Pinot Noirs are better than not having any in all. My promiscuous drinking of the royal Burgundian red recently had me charmed by the 2022 Pinot Noir from Meerlust Estate in Stellenbosch, one of the few Stellenbosch farms to venture into Pinot Noir and one underscoring the fact that the appellation is actually able of making wines with a distinctive edge from this cultivar.

Look, cool climate Elgin and Hemel-en-Aarde it ain’t, despite the Meerlust patch in what is known as Stellenbosch South is markedly cooler than Simonsberg, Helderberg and Polkadraai. This Pinot Noir does not have any red floral perfume or flirtatiously leaping berry-fruit, but what it lacks in these departments it makes-up for in structure, a reverberating crunch of black fruit and sheer polished presence on the palate.

Aromas are meaty, bloody and feral with a slight grasp of forest-floor, just enough to make the cultivar sign its initials. The wine is plush in the mouth, hitting the senses secure and true with sour cherry, dried fig and mulberry, tannins being sinewy, long and rippling. Burgundy-acolytes will be referencing northern parts of that region, the Meerlust showing a density and power perfected by Gevrey-Chambertin as opposed to the more expansively decorative offerings from lower down Musigny way. I just think it is great show by one of Stellenbosch’s leading producers, more known for its Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Rubicon Bordeaux-style red blend, to comfortably also offer a class Pinot Noir in its arsenal.

Of course, there is also the only Meerlust white wine, namely Chardonnay, and the wine from vintage 2022 shows a lovable fragility that makes you want to stroke the bottle’s head before pouring the next glass. There is a crispness to the wine that is alert and tantalising, as well as accurate expression of varietal character in the specks of sage-butter, Seville orange rind and lemon curd. Pronounced as they are, these flavours are stitched together in a fine, detailed tapestry displaying grace and light rather than resounding and stern depth. Good, and prettily so.  

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Nico Myburgh: Meneer of Meerlust

~ Emile Joubert ~ 6 Comments

The first wines under the Meerlust label, Cabernet Sauvignon 1975, resulted from the vision of the late Nico Myburgh, 7th generation Myburgh on this Stellenbosch estate. Fritz Joubert, a retired journalist, remembers a remarkable pioneer who helped lay the foundations for the modern success of the Cape wine industry.

For wine-lovers of my generation the name Nico Myburgh will immediately herald an association with Meerlust Estate and its legendary Rubicon wine. Those who were fortunate to know him will, however, remember the nature of the man who, as its seventh generation Myburgh-owner, created the Meerlust brand that has become a global icon. The pride of South African wine.

One could describe Nico as a true man in full, an enigmatic personality and a farmer with a broad range of interests, as well as someone who could come to the fore with the irreverent and unexpected. Myself and my family got to know him intimately when in 1979 we found ourselves living on Meerlust for a few months. On the move from Cape Town to Paarl, our new Boland home was not yet ready and here Nico graciously stepped-in and offered to “put us up” for the required period.

Actually, this was probably due to my wife Maureen, who was at that time editor of the Wynboer magazine, today known as Wineland. Nico attracted women like honey does bees, and Maureen was one of his favourites.

Nico Myburgh

In any event, we had the privilege of staying in the Jonkershuis on Meerlust. And upon arriving on the farm after a day’s work in my Cape Town office the inevitable was to enjoy a few glasses of wine with Nico and his wife Eileen. This was always red wine – Nico did not have much time for white.

The bottles Nico opened usually came from the Meerlust cellar itself, unlabelled. One of these unlabelled wines that stood out for me was a Carignan, a deep-red, robust wine that Nico truly enjoyed in social circumstances. It never saw the market, however – Nico probably handed it out too generously and loved too much of it himself.

Only later would I discover the origins of Carignan on Meerlust. Eileen had smuggled some vine-cuttings from Argentina, inspired by Nico who was not the kind to subscribe to the conservative wine industry conventions of the time. Cinsault was at the time one of the most planted varieties at the Cape, but a cultivar for which Nico showed no interest.

For he was a man for Cabernet Sauvignon and had a vision to create blended wine of the type he had gotten to know in Bordeaux. Merlot, however, was non-existent at the Cape, so Nico had some Merlot shoots clipped in Bordeaux with the help of the legendary Danish viticulturist Vinding Diers and the contraband was ferreted to Meerlust with the help of a pilot friend.

Thus, more smuggled vines passing the KWV control board – Chardonnay was not the only illicit variety commuting through dark channels between France and South Africa.

On Meerlust the French Merlot vines were, under instruction of the legendary viticulturist Desiderius Pongrácz, placed in frozen storage until the nodes were ready for propagating.

Pongrácz, who at the time was involved at the Bergkelder, was the true inspiration behind a Meerlust Bordeaux blend. The making of the wine by Meerlust’s winemaker Giorgio Dalla Cia was one thing – finding a suitable name for it was another. Here Nico turned to the great Afrikaans poet and academic Dirk Opperman. In a sort of “Eureka” moment, Opperman said “Rubicon”, and so the mythical river had been crossed, so to speak.

One thing I remember about Nico was his directness and ability to sum-up a person immediately. Either he liked you, or he did not. As illustration he liked to tell a story of the self-deprecating kind.

On a tour with Wynboer to Argentina Nico found himself on the pampas where the gaucho cowboys were working the cattle with horses. There was also an opportunity for the many tourists to themselves get onto horseback. While Nico and another Wynboer guest were standing around a man came trotting by on his horse. Nico nudged his companion, pointing to the rider.

“Het jy al ‘n drol op ‘n perd gesien (Have you ever seen a shit on a horse before?)” Nico asked his pal in Afrikaans. The rider stopped and looked down at Nico, replying in perfect Afrikaans: “Het jy al ’n kont op die grond gesien? (And you, have you ever seen a cunt on the ground?).”

Unbeknown to the Wynboer-group, another South African party was also touring the farm……

I remember Nico’s fascination with baboons. And they unleashed all levels of havoc on the seaside farm he had at Potberg on the south Cape coast – Nico was an extraordinary, committed and accomplished angler. But the chaos caused by the baboons disrupted his joy of angling and being at the sea, and he unsuccessfully deployed scarecrows, rubber-snakes and any sort of primate-repelling gadget to keep the apes out of his house.

One day Nico opened the door to the Potberg house and saw that the baboons had, once again, been inside and made their usual mess. But there was something different about this troop’s particular visit: the apes had, genuinely, gotten hold of a pack of playing cards and had set-up a game before being disturbed by the master of the house. “There, on the dining-room table four hands of poker had been dealt by the baboons,” Nico told me. “But you know, one of the bastards must have been cheating because there was a hand that held five bloody aces.”

I am not going to doubt Nico’s eye for detail in the telling of the above story as he was meticulous and a true perfectionist, which could border on the cantankerous. One day myself, Nico and my youngest son Fritz were having lunch on Meerlust before heading off for a week-end’s fishing at Potberg. Fritz was seated next to Nico as the mutton and vegetables were being enjoyed, and Nico saw the kid was struggling to get his peas onto his fork.

“No son,” Nico reprimanded Fritz, “not like that. Here on Meerlust we eat our peas this way,” he said, illustrating how the peas were to be eaten from the back of the fork and not scooped with the bottom-end.

The experts will have one believe good wine is made in the vineyard. But looking at where Meerlust is today, a brand glowing with provenance and legacy in tandem with the quality of its fine wines, I believe the souls of the people behind such wines play as vital a role as any in their success. Of this, Nico Myburgh is a fine example.

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The Majestic Eternal Classics

~ Emile Joubert ~ Leave a comment

Last time I looked, the offering of South African wines was running to over 8 000 different units varying in prices, styles and types of packaging. That is a hell of a lot of wine diversity in a country only making 4% of the world’s wine, but this also gives one an idea of the plethora of wine brands available to the local consumer.

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Cross the Rubicon, and Never Turn Back

~ Emile Joubert ~ Leave a comment

Because it is greater than that, true art is immune to the voice of the critic. Here South Africa has one red wine that transcends ratings, stars and the court of self-important opinion: Meerlust Rubicon.

Together with Vin de Constance, Rubicon is South Africa’s most valuable wine brand and if any sort of respect for national heritage still existed, both would deserve protected status. Their brows exceed the height of any new wave, they command a presence and gravitas sterner, more decisive than the noisiest hip alternative gaggle and its sycophantic hordes.

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Meerlust: There can only be One

~ Emile Joubert ~ Leave a comment

Patat barked. And as Dachshunds do, his three fellow canines joined in to create a merry cacophony of yaps, these being of the “welcome to Meerlust” kind. The six other dogs who make up the bevy of hounds, larger and some less purer of breed than the Dachsies, were taking it easy, lounging on the sofas, armchairs and blankets spread through the various atmospheric rooms – moodily lit – that make up the splendid Meerlust manor house.

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Road to the Old Frontier

~ Emile Joubert ~ Leave a comment

meerlust_big

Despite the centuries of blue-blooded Cape wineland culture resonating from its splendid buildings and vineyards, there is something wild and sparse about Meerlust that intrigues me. As if the entrance gate next to the dam is a frontier post, beckoning those who have crossed wild, unwelcoming terrain from Cape Town and is now about to take the first steps into the amicable palm of Stellenbosch’s wine region.

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The Cult of Grim Pasta Eating in Stellenbosch

~ Emile Joubert ~ 5 Comments

It is appropriate for one of Stellenbosch’s finest eateries to be situated in the down-town area, Lower Dorp Street way: for up in the town’s more gentrified quarters the inhabitants are far too busy dealing with their Banting diet-induced constipation and protein-fuelled halitosis to appreciate the wonders of a restaurant called Asta. For Asta is about pasta, pasta and more pasta with a bit of pizza thrown in for those who like their carbs crispy, flaky and cheesy.

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