B Vintners, Lone Wolf, Cinsault Red, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2018

Producer Profile

B Vintners is a joint venture between Bruwer Raats, owner and winemaker of Raats Family Wines and his cousin, Gavin Bruwer Slabbert, who joined Bruwer as winemaker and viticulturist in 2009.

B Vintners focus on creating a small collection of single vineyard, hand-crafted wines; the first being the Muscat d’ Alexandria 2014 from a tiny vineyard in Helderberg. Minimal intervention, with an organic attitude towards the winemaking results in wines that are textural and complex.

Viticulture

This is from an old bush vine vineyard on granite and schist soils in Stellenbosch - dryland farmed - it yields tiny amounts of grapes, between 4 and 6 tons per hectare.

Winemaking

Spontaneous whole bunch and semi carbonic fermentation for 10 days before pressing with a basket press into a seasoned barrel. The wine then rest in barrel for 10 months before bottling.

Oak Ageing

Time: 10 Months
Type: Old seasoned oak
% wine oaked: 100
% new oak: None

Tasting Note

Fresh strawberries and cherries with an underlying cinnamon and nutmeg spice. Fynbos shrub and flora unveil themselves with time in the glass. The wine is fresh and delightfully light of touch on palate, but holding a long and delicious finish.

Food Matching

Game fish such as salmon and trout.

Awards

Wine Safari 94+ /100
60 x 6 cases total production – About a ton of Cinsault from the bottom of a Pinotage vineyard at Bellevue in the Bottelary Hills planted in the early 1950’s on granite and schist soils. Fabulously lifted and finely perfumed, this wine screams individuality, with potpourri spice, rose petals, dried violets, Turkish delight and cranberry reduction. Suave and cool, there is lovely liquid minerality, piercing concentration and a long, restrained red currant berry fruit length. A wonderful old vine expression of Cinsault that really is noteworthy. Minute production that might just possibly have been exported all to the UK. GS MW, 94+/100, July 2019.
Decanter Cinsault: South Africa’s new star from old vines. 94 Points
Cousins Gavin Bruwer and Bruwer Raats source grapes throughout the Cape for their range, finding a 1953-planted dryland bushvine vineyard for this bright, pure and enticing Cinsault. Like a spiced berry explosion on the nose and palate, with tangy raspberry acidity, great concentration of youthful fruit and a dusting of cinnamon. A delicious drop. 94 Points, TG, May 2021.