Closure Type: Synthetic cork

(2024) Nice and unusual to have a delicate, 11% rosé from the volcanic island of Madeira, made from the local Tinta Negra Mole grape. The colour is a light to medium salmon pink, and it's a very fragrant wine with flowers and pert red berries, a sense of minerality too. On the palate juicy and quite creamy, a pulpy strawberry fruit quality comes through, but it keeps that spritely mineral crispness.

(2024) The noble Barone Ricasoli of Chianti Classico fame makes this pale, peachy pink by blending Sangiovese and Merlot. Attractively packaged, aromas are subtle and citrussy, raspberry and a touch of rose-hip and herbs are all very delicate. On the palate that crisp and linear style might make you think this was a white wine if blindfolded, but lightly smoky berry fruits, touched by herbs and spice, move into that refreshing lemony acidity.

(2024) It's fair to say that Colombard is not the world's sexiest grape. A staple of Armagnac and Cognac production, but rarely seen as 'fine wine', Ian found a 1983 vineyard planted on sand, in the far north of coastal Swartland and has treated it with the care afforded all of his wines. It opens with a delightful peach and Ogen melon suggestion of fruitiness, even hints at lychee and mango, but there's a leesy element and layer of saline that keeps that in check. The palate has real texture given the 11% alcohol, an orange undertow of acidity supporting those creamier, fruity characters. Delightful.

(2024) Last time I tasted this wine was the 2014 vintage and indeed, the wine was not made again until the 2019 vintage when Ian could once again access the fruit. Pale in colour and featherweight with 11% alcohol, there's a definite rose-hip and redcurrant lightness to the aromas and on the palate. A little creamy and vanilla nuance from old barrel ageing is way in the background. Firm, small and savoury red fruits with a herbal nuance on the palate dominate in this savoury, dry and light wine with very fine tannins and sour cherry acidity to balance.

(2024) This wine, as much as any other in the Naudé portfolio, struck me as the essence of 'natural' Chenin, with neither the flinty reductive quality of some hip examples, nor the enhanced fruitiness of more commercial bottlings. Fruit comes from vineyards in Swartland, Durbanville and Stellenbosch, fermented naturally in oak and aged six months. It's a wine with an unforced concentration, only 11.5% alcohol, but the dry, savoury precision of the 50-year-old vineyard fruit, like yellow plum and greengage, just teasing at something more luscious. It is textured, but sharpened by a fine acidity.

(2024) Ian Naude named this wine after his grandfather and references Cape wines of the 50s and 60s as its inspiration, 82% Cinsault being blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and a little Cabernet Franc. Having been lucky enough to taste such old wines, largely thanks to Michael Fridjohn, I get it immediately. Fruit comes from a 1968 vineyard in Darling and it is aged in older French oak barrels. It's a dry, cranberry, herb and rose-hip scented wine of light colour and low alcohol. And yet the palate has such intense, inherent sweetness of cranberry and redcurrant, with some of the tartness of those berries and a background of warming clove spice. I have absolutely no doubt that this ultimately delicious wine will age well for decades.

(2024) From West Coast vineyards way up in the north of Swartland, Chenin Blanc is 83% of the blend along with Colombard. It does not see oak, but was left on the lees "for as long as possible," according to Ian. The nose has a mealy, slightly almondy character, balanced against delicate lime and blossom and a hint of leafy dill. In the mouth it is fresh and saline, again lime and crunchy yellow apple, hinting at fuller peach but always stopping just short of anything too obvious. Long, focused, the natural feel of the wine yielding to fresh acidity in the finish, even a hint of delicate spice.

(2024) Made from a single vineyard of late-harvested Vermentino co-planted with 15% Viognier, harvested around three week later than normal. It spends three months on the lees. There's a delicious edge of pineapple-like tropical fruit on the nose, the Viognier perhaps enhancing that exotic and floral appeal. Luscious honeyed notes and a hint of marzipan also suggest dessert wine sweetness, and yet the wine is dry with some edge and extract, giving a much more lime skin sense of grip and waxy/saline concentration. That hint of tropical fruit gives a balance of real charm and considerable intensity.

(2024) Sangiovese spends around four months on the lees in stainless steel, then into French oak barriques for 12 months, 20% new oak. Cherry dominates the aromatics, but the oak has given a lovely tobacco and vanilla roundness, a warming chestnut character in the background too. Once again that touch of lift to the aromas. The palate has a creamy ripeness to the tannins, which along with the oak-enriched red fruits that are also ripe and fleshy, gives the wine a chocolaty texture. The juicy plum-skin grip of the acidity balances the finish with a welcome touch of bitterness.

(2024) Made in stainless steel with three months on the lees, this local grape variety was always a blending variety, but is being made as a single variety more and more. Very fruity and floral, the cherry and violet scents show a little white pepper lift. Lots of fruit on the palate too, again cherry. The tannins are fine, gentle but bone dry. Those marry with a refined acidity to make this fresh, red-fruited and finishing with just a hint of spice. The Cantina believe this variety has ageing potential too. Lovely.