Top 3 in Platter’s 2025 Guide from Elgin, Durbanville, Tulbagh
THE TOP-RATED wines in the 2025 edition of Platter’s South African Wine Guide – scored 98/100 – are the Cap Classique sparkler Cipher Blanc de Noirs 2018 from the Elgin […]
One-of-a-kind Pinot Meunier Cap Classique now for everyone
RELEASED exclusively to their club members when launched a few months earlier but then made available to all wine lovers, Graham Beck Pinot Meunier 2022 is the first and only […]
Cap Classique house Des Dieux joins club of specialists
IT WAS NOT that long ago that Domaine des Dieux was making headlines with Chardonnay, scoring 96 at the Decanter World Wine Awards in the UK, winning the trophy for […]
Méthode Ancestrale, Pét Nat… Is it catching on in the Cape?
AA Badenhorst outside Malmesbury in the Swartland was one of the pioneers of South African bubbly made ‘the original way’ invented by the French in the 16th Century. Vondeling of […]
Champion Cap Classique, the ‘Joy of Life’, not yet sold out
AMAZINGLY, well into 2024 – after the December festivities, months since the wine top-scored at the 2023 Veritas Awards to win the Duimpie Bayly Vertex Trophy – the Benguela Cove Cap […]
Sprankel! Babylonstoren top Cap Classique in Platter’s guide
2018 is the eighth vintage of Babylonstoren’s Cap Classique. How time flies! The bottle-fermented sparkler has a good track record and this year could be the best to date. It’s […]
Most highly rated Cap Classique sparkling wines in 2023
THE TOP sparklers from South Africa are applauded around the world, not just locally. Some of them are now commanding prices in line with Champagne, although most still present better […]
Des Dieux does it again at Cap Classique Challenge, and yet…
DOMAINE des Dieux’s win at the 2022 Amorim Cork Cap Classique Challenge was their third, having also been applauded as Best Producer in the 2018 and 2014 editions of the […]
Sparkling delight: white Pinotage taken to whole new level
ON THE FARM Dekkersvlei in Klein Drakenstein, Paarl, Mellasat is off the beaten track. At these vineyards, proprietor Stephen Richardson, cellarmaster Gizelle Coetzee and their team like to do things […]
Vondeling Rurale synonymous with Méthode Ancestrale SA
WHY SPARKLING wine made according to the Méthode Ancestral(e) is different relative to bubbly made the ‘traditional’ way – aka Champagne, Cava and Cap Classique – is that the fermentation […]
How about that! There was wonderful bubbly pre Champagne
ANCESTRAL(E)… Oldest method of making sparkling wine, whereby the wine is bottled during the (single) fermentation process, before the completion of alcoholic fermentation. (Excerpt from Mini Wine Encyclopaedia on Top […]
Top 10 Classification = superb wine time and again, year after year
THE TOP WINE SA Hall of Fame is one thing, but so exclusive, very limited… Also prestigious is a Top 10 ranking in the South African Wine Classification – each […]
