Back on the 5th October 2016, I reviewed a prestigious tasting held in London, presented by Jackson Family Estates’ owner Barbara Banke, benchmarking the premium first vintage release of Capensis Chardonnay against some of the finest Chardonnays from around the world. See link below..

https://gregsherwoodmw.com/2016/10/05/the-uk-capensis-chardonnay-relaunch-version-3-1/

This Sunday I opened another bottle of the maiden 2013 and was very pleasantly surprised by what I found. Having tasted this wine 4 or 5 times on previous occasions, I thought I had a clear image of what to expect today. But that would have been way too easy.

Some of the previous bottles I’ve tried have tasted quite mature, developed and honied, only tightened up by the wines fresh acidity. Against the grain, today’s bottle was taught, fresh, intense, and youthful, laden with crunchy green quinces, lemon and lime cordial richness, crisp crunchy acids and beautifully pure, restrained honey dew melon and vanilla oak spice sweetness on the long luxurious finish. A real pleasure to drink and for probably the first time since I tasted this wine on arrival in the UK at a launch lunch with winemaker Graham Weerts and co-owner Anthony Beck, this Chardonnay showed the real pedigree and promise it’s price tag suggests. 

This all beckons the question whether there has been bottle variation perhaps from transport or the closure (Diam cork in this case), or whether the wine is genuinely evolving like a chameleon climbing over a rainbow palette of colours?

Well, all I can be sure of is that this was a fantastic bottle of premium white wine which on today’s performance in the glass, I’d be happy to score 94/100… a good 2 points higher than my previous rating of 92/100 at the benchmarking tasting exercise. 

I’m certainly looking forward to tasting and reviewing the 2014 Capensis Chardonnay that is due for release in the UK imminently.