The Cellar

I met Lucinda Hayns of Illimis Wines in the Western Cape and she poured me a Cinsault that stopped me completely.

Almost translucent. Barely trying. Elegant and light in the glass, and then — everything was there. Fruity, complex, unexpected.

I hadn't tasted Cinsault like that before. As its own thing. As itself. Not blended away, not overwhelmed — just standing quietly and being extraordinary.

I spent months nurturing it in the cellar. We bottled it on the 10th of June.

I just wanted to share it.

Gunther didn't mean to plant it.

The nursery sent him a row of Sauvignon Gris by mistake. He called me, brought a barrel sample, and the moment I tasted it I understood why we were keeping that row. Forever.

Electric acidity. Fresh, juicy, alive. Most people have never tasted Sauvignon Gris as a singular expression of itself — I hadn't either, not like this.

We've reserved that accidental row permanently now. Every vintage we'll make wine from it, experiment with it, see what it becomes.

This is the first one.

This one was an accident.

A happy one — the best kind. I'm not going to over-explain it because some things are better experienced than described.

What I will tell you is that it exists only in double magnum. Three litres. 68 of them in the world.

A bottle this size demands a table. It demands people around it. It ages differently, opens differently, gives differently than anything you'll pull from a standard rack.

If you know, you know. If you don't — this might be the one that teaches you.