Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 2021
Original price was: £29.95.£26.95Current price is: £26.95. incl. VAT
59 in stock
Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 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.
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.
