The 2025 vintage arrives on the market as one of the most talked-about in recent Swartland memory. After winter rains replenished groundwater and set vines up for a healthy viticultural season, a cool, dry growing period unfolded, often being described as a “Goldilocks” year in contrast to the deluges of 2024. 

For the whites, moderate, dry harvest conditions allowed grapes to reach the cellar in excellent health, delivering wines with bright acidity, vivid fruit purity and real textural precision. The reds benefited from the same steady ripening window, with the Swartland’s noble red cultivars like Syrah developing intense colour, concentrated flavours and firm natural acidities, while low yields helped concentrate the wines’ character further.

The result is a premium RAAR range from the Riebeek Valley Wine Co. that captures a vintage of balance and clarity, producing wines that speak honestly of their terroir, a well chosen picking window, and winemaker Sheree Nothnagel’s distinctive, low-intervention style. 

Raar Grenache Blanc 2025, WO Swartland, 12.5% Abv.

Both Grenache Noir and Grenache Blanc have been two absolute success stories in the Cape over the past decade, with both cultivars finding a comfortable home in the Swartland region and surrounds. This small batch production white in the RAAR range is an absolute delight, with incredibly intricate aromatics loaded with white flowers, pithy white citrus, green apple, honeysuckle, crunchy peaches and a pronounced mineral undertone of Granitic spice. On the palate, the energy is almost boundless, the palate tart, tangy and deliciously fresh with a succulent lemony acidity supported by pithy lemon and yellow grapefruit notes, green apple, fennel root and a pithy wet stone minerality on the drying saline finish. A wonderful expression to enjoy now and over the next 3 to 5+ years.

(Wine Safari Score: 93/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Raar Skin Contact Chenin Blanc 2025, WO Swartland, 12.5% Abv. 

This Old Vine certified bush vine Chenin Blanc was planted in 1979 on decomposed Granite soils. After a cold soak on its skins for six days, the wine was fermented in barrel using wild yeasts before being aged on its fine lees for six months. The aromatics show reductive notes of struck flint, dusty crushed Granite, dried straw, bruised yellow orchard fruits and subtle pithy orange marmalade hints. The palate is pithy and spicy, with a notable wet stone minerality, green apple, white peach and an exotic dried herbal complexity on the finish. A characterful, mineral laden, picante expression of skin contact Chenin Blanc making it the perfect gourmet-styled wine pairing option to drink now and over the next 3 to 5 years. (3,733 bottles produced.)

(Wine Safari Score: 92/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Raar Grenache Noir 2025, WO Swartland, 13% Abv.

This light to medium bodied red shows a beautiful aromatics of sweet purple flowers, a delicate sapidity, pressed violets, cranberries and savoury red bramble berry fruits. The palate displays the distinction and intensity of a great vintage like 2025, packed with a glycerol fruit concentration, a stony mineral skeletal frame, fresh integrated acids and sweet, soft pithy red berry fruits that linger long on the finish. You might need to give this young wine some time to add complexity, but stylistically, it’s a real beauty! Drink now to 2034+. (5,600 bottles produced.)

(Wine Safari Score: 93+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Raar Shiraz Carbonic Maceration 2025. WO Swartland, 14% Abv. 

Few grapes perform as well in the Swartland as Shiraz or Syrah, and this small batch production of 4,436 bottles used intra-cellular fermentation on 100% of the whole-bunches in the style of France’s Beaujolais region, followed by alcoholic fermentation, extended skin contact and then eight months barrel ageing before bottling. Always one of the most impressive cuvees in the RAAR range, this 2025 is certainly no different, bursting with a perfumed aromatics of violets, fresh rose petals, savoury black currants, black olive tapenade, sweet red peppercorns, cured bresaola and delicate hints of leafy sapidity. The texture on the palate is tight knit and creamy with a pronounced mineral chalky tannin structure, a tart bright integrated acidity and a beautifully spicy red and black berry fruited medley on the finish. Wonderful energy and a mouth watering acidity make this a particularly attractive red wine expression suitable for serving gently chilled. Drink now to 2032+.

(Wine Safari Score: 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Raar Petite Sirah 2025. WO Swartland, 14% Abv.

This Petite Sirah, aka Durif, profiles an opulent cultivar grown in the Swartland, made from dry-grown bush-vine grapes that were wild fermented with 30% whole bunches and extended post-fermentation maceration, then aged in old French oak barrels for eight months. The result is an opulent, ever so slightly hedonistic red expression that is bursting with aromatics of red plum compote, mulberries and earthy black currants. Super ripe and intense, there is a notably picante character on the palate, that’s layered with sweet black and blue berry fruits, hints of molasses and stewed black orchard fruits. The tannins add a drying structural support of chalky minerality and sweet berry fruits to finish with a delicately chewy, grippy persistence. Young, bright and exotic, this could be the perfect wine for a barbeque / braai. Drink now to 2032. (2,490 bottles produced.)

(Wine Safari Score: 91+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)