Description
The 2018 Three Pines Cabernet Sauvignon is a beautifully crafted wine, aged for 20 months in French oak barrels, including 70% new oak. It offers a perfect balance of freshness and power, with vibrant blackcurrant fruit complemented by notes of black cherry, violet, and wood spice. The wine’s silky tannin structure and firm focus highlight its impressive depth and staying power. This wine combines refinement with bold, gravelly power, making it one of the best expressions of Cabernet in South Africa.
Food Pairing: Pair with ostrich fillet, springbok loin, roasted leg of lamb, venison, game birds, or beef.
Reviews
Tim Atkin 94
If Jose Conde were making red of this quality in his native United States, he’d be charging three times the price, so fill your cellars and wine racks, folks. This single vineyard site at 360 metres on decomposed granite and clay is fresh, direct and focused, with no sign of the heat or drought of the vintage. Dense, layered yet very well balanced. 2023-29 [Tim Atkin, 01/01/2023]
Greg Sherwood 94
[Greg Sherwood, 01/01/2023]
JancisRobinson.com 17.5/20
Bottle number 99 of 8,332. 2018 was one of their driest vintages. ‘The skin-to-flesh ratio was so low!’, winemaker Rudger Van Wyk. ‘In its youth it was a beast! Needed extra racking, more new oak. Everything. The polymerisation of tannins happens in the first third of fermentation so we had to work really fast and hard.’ Spontaneous fermentation. Aged 20 months in small French oak barrels. When I first smelt this wine, just opened, all I could smell were fresh redcurrants. Today, having been opened for three days, the fruit has deepened. What hasn’t changed is the freshness, the purity of the wine. Blackcurrant juice bleeds tar dust into a whisper that turns into a forbidden kiss. Angles and argument, cedar and sinews, the tannins edgy and the acidity nervous and the wine parkour-street dancing with energy and edge that looks wild, yet is stunningly controlled. [Tamlyn Currin, 20/09/2022]
