A really super tasting tonight with proprietor Mike Ratcliffe, looking at the pre-release Vilafonte Series C 2015 as well as other back vintages. A classical Bordeaux blend of 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 9% Malbec, and 15% Cabernet Franc, this wine was aged 22 months in 67% new French Oak barrels, with the balance being older 2nd fill barrels. 

Vilafonte has risen through the fine wine ranks with Phil Freese and Zelma Long keeping a steadying hand on the rudder. Mike Radcliffe has always been a driving force of quality and market direction and seems intent on elevating this fine wine winery to yet loftier levels of success. With the quality seen today, there seems little doubt that this will be a mere formality.

Vilafonte Series C Blend 2015, Paarl, 14.5 Abv.

Dark mulberry plum colour, this wine has a most seductive nose of blueberry, cassis, and mulberry fruits interwoven with violets, graphite, mocha and cedary oak spice. A very measured, classical style of wine that fawns its Cabernet Sauvignon dominated credentials. Rich, seductive and opulent in its youth as you’d expect, but the extra broody layers of white pepper, dusty minerality and black cherry pith suggest a more serious, complex side to the wine. The palate is dense and creamy, but also so beautifully proportioned like a chiselled, well honed athlete. Great depth, Cab power and harmonious balance, finely polished tannins and sleek integrated fresh acids, this is a very impressive blend from a fantastic vintage. Power and pedigree, a wine that demands your attention and engages your senses. 

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)