To me, Rust en Vrede is very special; it being the place where I grew up and still live today. Accolades such as these are not achieved without sacrifice, determination and commitment. Over decades many people have contributed to our success: most notably my parents and family, Kevin Arnold (winemaker, 1986 -  1997), Louis Strydom (winemaker, 1998 - 2004, and today heads up production at Engelbrecht Els Wines), Coenie Snyman (winemaker, 2006 - present), and of course David Higgs. I thank my colleagues who have always been willing to go the extra mile and I thank our patrons without whom this remarkable feat and achievement would not have been possible.

Regards,

Jean Engelbrecht

FORGIVE me if I’m excited, but I can’t help it. I want to tell you straight out that South Africa, of all places, is one of the greatest sources for moderately priced cabernet sauvignon on the planet today.

I suspected this before, but after the wine panel tasted 25 South African cabernets recently, I can say it unequivocally, without the usual hedging and qualifications.

Well, almost, but I’ll get to that later.

First I want to focus on the exciting news. If you like cabernets that are balanced, with a sense of structure and shape, that are indisputably cabernet sauvignon with flavors of cassis and violets, cedar and minerals, then you are going to love these wines.

In bottle after bottle, including one to which the panel gave a rare top rating of four stars, the defining characteristic was balance. These wines were not over-the-top fruit bombs, although, yes, we did find a few of those. Nor were they soft, plush and syrupy. They demonstrated power, but they also showed finesse. It would be a pleasure to serve our favorites with all sorts of different foods.

It would be tempting to characterize these wines as more Bordeaux than California, but I think that’s too easy. A more accurate and meaningful comparison would be to liken these wines to Napa Valley cabernets of 25 to 30 years ago, a time before so many California producers began picking grapes that were riper than ripe, thus producing Napa red rather than Napa cabernet.

These wines would never be called weedy or thin, although some California producers might sneer at them as “green,” simply because, like Bordeaux and an earlier generation of Napa cabernets, they offer herbal flavors like mint, sage and thyme. In my opinion, these flavors are not only appropriate but even delicious within the cabernet spectrum.

Not that we found any of our South African wines harking back to the bygone days of 12.5 percent alcohol.

No, these are potent bottles, most of them around 14 to 14.5 percent alcohol. But because they are so well balanced, they don’t feel too big. Nor do they feel self-important or grandiose — not at these prices, which are decidedly moderate by Napa standards. For the tasting, by the way, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Paul Grieco, an owner of Hearth, Insieme and Terroir in Manhattan, and Rebecca Foster, a representative with Empire Merchants, a distributor.

South Africa is not exactly the first country that comes to mind when one is thinking of good wine, at least not among Americans. In fact, many people do not associate South Africa with wine at all, which might be somewhat surprising when you consider that wine has been made there for hundreds of years.

We’re more concerned with recent history, and for much of the second half of the 20th century, when wine exploded as a global commodity, South African wines were largely off limits to the rest of the world because of the country’s apartheid policies.

In a way, the resurrection of the South African wine industry is analogous to the rebirth of wine producing in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There’s been a lot of catching up in a very short time.

South Africa has caught up, and how. Just consider our No. 1 wine, the 2004 Stellenbosch cabernet from De Trafford, which we awarded a top score of four stars.

“Hallelujah!” exulted Paul, who found aromas of cedar and tobacco in the glass and declared it a wine of “absolute terroir.” Florence and Rebecca both concurred, finding it rich yet graceful and structured. I was a touch more hesitant in my assessment (but only a touch) because of the ripeness of the fruit. But in the end the structure dominated the power, giving the wine shape and agility. A price of $32 for a wine like this makes it a great deal.

If it had been only one wine that impressed us so much, we would not have been nearly so excited. But there were plenty of others, like our No. 2, the 2004 Stellenbosch cabernet from Rust en Vrede, a balanced, well-shaped wine with beautiful aromas of flowers, fruit, minerals and herbs, and our No. 3, the 2003 One Stroke One from Stellenbosch, which balanced lightness with intensity. In South Africa, by the way, One Stroke One goes by the name of its producer, Graceland Vineyards. In the United States, I guess, Elvis got there first.

While the four-star De Trafford could have been our best value in the tasting, I decided instead to give that honor to the least expensive wine in our top 10, the 2006 Bon Cap, a $15 wine made from organic grapes that had lovely aromas of flowers, fruit, herbs and, yes, bacon.

Skip to next paragraph There did seem to be some relation between price and quality in these wines. Of the 14 bottles in the blind tasting that were $20 or under, only the Bon Cap and the 2004 Neil Ellis at $20 made our list of favorites. By contrast, 8 of the 11 most expensive bottles made our top 10, including the 2005 Stark-Condé at $40, which just squeaked in at No. 10. This wine, from the Jonkershoek Valley, a subdivision of the Stellenbosch region just east of Cape Town, was powerful and a little rounder than some of the more structured wines, yet it was still in balance.

Almost all of our other favorite cabernets came from the Stellenbosch region, practically on the southwestern tip of the African continent and centered on the old university town of Stellenbosch. The area is blessed with weather as gorgeous as the vistas for which it is renowned. The Bon Cap was the lone outsider, coming from Robertson in the Breede River Valley to the east.

Well, I’ve been all breathless enthusiasm up to here. Now it’s time for my hedge.

In California, where producers used to strive to make wines like these, the trend in the last 15 years has been to pick grapes later and later, resulting in big, overly alcoholic wines of surpassing fruity sweetness but little shape or structure. These are the wines that have mostly received the greatest praise and for which producers have charged the most.

Could such an evolution occur with these South African wines? I can’t answer that, but I see some possibly disturbing notes.

First, the 2006 Boekenhoutskloof cabernet from the Franschhoek region was, at $47, the most expensive wine in our tasting. While the winemaker is critically acclaimed, we rejected the wine for its generic vanilla-cherry cheesecake flavors, which I often taste in New World red wines that are intended to please an international audience.

Second, while we all loved the 2004 De Trafford cabernet — our No. 1 wine — a look at the De Trafford Web site indicates that the next vintages are evolving in a bigger, riper direction. The 2004 was 14.5 percent alcohol, but the ’05 and ’06 are both well above 15 percent. Admittedly, I haven’t tasted either of those wines, but on paper at least they seem ratcheted up in size.

If anything, our tasting indicates that South Africa has the potential for greatness. In the snapshot offered by these 25 bottles, we found a region offering wonderful values and lovely wines.

Yet the track record is slim. We don’t know yet how these wines will age. Many of these producers are too new to have shown consistency over time.

Winemakers cannot change the soil in which they plant their vines. Nor can they influence the climate or change the weather. The main thing they can control is the style of wine they make.

We very much enjoyed the styles of cabernet sauvignon we sampled, and we appreciate the fact that the winemakers’ sites and climate permit them to make cabernets in these styles. As for next year and the year after that, we hope for the best.

Tasting Report: Cabernets, Here Defined by Their Balance

De Trafford Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

$32

****

Ripe yet structured and graceful with aromas and flavors of rich fruit, flowers and cedar. (Importer: Boutique Wine Collection, Philadelphia)

Rust en Vrede Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

$27

***

Aromas of violets, minerals, earth and herbs; well balanced and nicely shaped. (Terlato Wines International, Lake Bluff, Ill.)

One Stroke One Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2003

$28

***

Light-bodied and intense with aromas of blackberries, flowers and herbs. (Fairest Cape Beverages, Santa Ana, Calif.)

BEST VALUE

Bon Cap Robertson Cabernet Sauvignon 2006

$15

** 1/2

Balanced, earthy and well structured with flavors of fruit and a touch of bacon. (Indigo Wine Group, Venice, Fla.)

Thelema Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

$33

** 1/2

Elegant and restrained with balanced, delicate flavors of fruit and herbs. (Cape Classics, New York)

Neil Ellis Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

$20

** 1/2

Dry and cedary with flavors of blackberries and minerals. (Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, Ala.)

Bilton Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

$25

** 1/2

Nicely structured with pretty aromas of flowers and plums. (Southern Starz, Huntington Beach, Calif.)

Waterford Estate Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

$29

** 1/2

Big, bright and fruity yet balanced and structured. (Yellowwood Wine, Calistoga, Calif.)

Alto Estate Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

$30

**

Ripe fruit and earthy flavors with a spine of acidity. (Tafelberg Imports, Emerson, N.J.)

Stark-Condé Jonkershoek Valley Twin Peak Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

$40

**

Pretty floral aromas; powerful yet balanced. (Vineyard Brands)

WHAT THE STARS MEAN:

Ratings, from zero to four stars, reflect the panel’s reaction to the wines, which were tasted with names and vintages concealed. The wines represent a selection generally available in good retail shops and restaurants and on the Internet. Prices are those paid in shops in the New York region.

Tasting coordinator: Bernard Kirsch

RUST EN VREDE
1694 Classification Stellenbosch 2006
93 points / $110 / 100 cases imported / Red

Impressive, large-scaled wine that offers loads of currant paste, braised fig, beef, roasted earth, tar and graphite notes, all backed by grilled herb, aged tobacco and bittersweet cocoa on the finish. Very dense, but the fruit and tug of earth should merge fully with cellaring. Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. Best from 2010 through 2013. – J.M.

The vineyards have been a very busy place since last harvest. Our staff have undergone intensive in-house and institutional training and are now proudly showing off their new found skills We have spent a lot of time on re doing the trellising systems, pruning and shaping them before bud burst. Spring was a little later than normal (not a train smash) and the season got off to a brisk start. Now after much effort we canopies are looking neat, even and open - which is any viticulturists wish for this time of year.

We are taking the vineyards in a new softer direction that allows us to use less fungicides, pesticides and herbicides. We are getting microbes back in the soil and creating a healthy, diverse bio system that will soon be fighting off pests and disease .

We have employed some new technology that will keep us at a competitive edge. A state of the art electrostatic spray pump is doing wonders for productivity and the environment. A topping machine is helping create the type of canopy we want, while freeing our staff up to do more important vineyard work. Nitrogen Pressure bomb sampling in the vineyards will give us the ability to determine the right time to add supplementary irrigation. Infra red remote sensing is helping us to understand where our weak spots are and fix them, and when to harvest certain parcels in individual blocks at optimal ripeness. This is an awesome tool for increased quality.

So all in all, our strive towards precision viticulture has taken leaps in the right direction and the results are starting to be seen in the vineyards. We hope you see the results in your glass in a few years.

Internationally the wines have also impressed, at the Decanter World Wine Awards in England the Estate picked up one of only nine gold medals for South African Red Wines and was honoured with a Silver Award at the acclaimed International Wine and Spirit Competition.

The Rust en Vrede Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 picked up a silver award at the IWSC and the “best in its class” from the International Wine and Sprit Competition. The Rust en Vrede Shiraz 2003 got two Silver Awards, one at the Decanter World Wine Awards and the other at the IWSC.

With less than a month to go until the much anticipated opening of the Rust en Vrede Restaurant ( early November) all is on schedule for the big day. Jean Engelbrecht, David Higgs and Neil Grant have worked day and night to ensure that the that the Rust en Vrede Restaurant opens on time and impresses beyond expectations.

For bookings and information call +2721 881 3881 or e-mail: dining@rustenvrede.com