En primeur: Stellenbosch 2025

With a powerful tannin charge and a quite formidable structure, this is a superb rendition of Kanonkop’s Estate cabernet sauvignon which so often finds itself in the shadow of Paul Sauer when it deserves the limelight itself. The intensity, purity and focus of the fruit – which is dense and concentrated cassis and black plum – was impossible to ignore while tasting from barrel. This is a full-bodied, rich and exceptionally long cabernet, with that savoury peaty character so familiar to lovers of Kanonkop wines, and overt mocha oak. All of the ripeness is moderated by a juicy, brisk acidity and contained within sculpted, palate-hugging tannins. Like Paul Sauer, the different cabernet blocks from the estate are blended before they are barrelled down (in 50% new French oak) for ageing for 24 months, with a further 24 months in bottle before release. As all en primeur wines will be arriving by Spring 2028, this is a wine which will be in Members’ Reserves a full two years before it will be released to the market but don’t be tempted to drink this too soon; it will be best approached when it’s at least seven years’ old. A cabernet for the ages! Drink from 2032 to 2050. 13.5%

Drink from 2034 to 2053. 13.5%

Kanonkop Paul Sauer is one of the most prestigious names in South African fine wine, as well as one of the Cape’s very first Bordeaux-style blends, making its debut with the 1981 vintage. You can hear Kanonkop’s viticulturist Michael Malherbe talk about the 2025 vintage in the vineyard in great detail in the recording of the online event we held live from Stellenbosch last month, but the topline summary is that ‘in 2025, nature gave us almost everything that we could hope for.’ He said that in his 32 years of farming, he has never experienced a growing season like it and that the fruit quality at harvest was the best he has seen. Tasted from barrel both in February and in July (Paul Sauer is one of just a few wines in this selection which is blended before maturation), this has a certain electricity to the mid-palate – a bolt of brightness – which carries the spicy and intense fruit to a long, reverberant finish. A blend of 72% cabernet sauvignon, with equal parts cabernet franc and merlot, this will be aged for a total of 24 months in 100% new French oak before bottling (as it has been since the mid-1990s), but as is the theme this vintage, superb integration of oak and fruit is already evident across the four different coopers Kanonkop employ. There is significant concentration of fruit, with blackcurrant, liquorice and coffee-bean flavours lifted by brighter red-plum character and a dried-flower perfume. The tannins are so fine they almost float, but there is a deep underlying ageworthy structure. An elegant, measured Paul Sauer, with signature savouriness and layers upon layers of complexity. Drink from 2034 to 2053. 13.5%