The 2025 Taaibosch Crescendo is the seventh vintage of this revived Stellenbosch icon (the 2023 was not bottled) and one to get your hands on while it still flies somewhat under the radar. Formerly known as Cordoba Crescendo, this cabernet franc-driven Bordeaux blend became a cult wine in the Cape in the late 1990s. However, the property was sold and, while grape growing continued, wine production ceased in the early noughties. Bought by the Oddo family in 2017 and re-christened Taaibosch, this stunning estate on the slopes of the mighty Helderberg mountain has been reimagined and regenerated under the charismatic Schalk Joubert, former head winemaker and CEO at Rupert & Rothschild. There is always a vitality to Crescendo, a brightness and precision of fruit expression, irrespective of the vintage, and the 2025 rendition is true to form. With fragrant perfume of hedgerow fruit, black cherry and blackcurrant leaf, this is so fine with a tight-knit, fine-grained tannin texture, silky and seamless already. Elegant and vibrantly fresh, there is a nervousness to the fruit which shows a red as well as black cherry character on the palate with a graphite-mineral intensity. One of the most elegant wines of this selection, it is medium-bodied and the finish is dry, chalky, and brilliantly persistent. A blend of majority cabernet franc, with merlot and cabernet sauvignon in support, the three components mature separately for fourteen months and are then blended before another fourteen months in a combination of foudre and concrete, after which the wine is brought together for a final three months in concrete before bottling. Drink from 2030 to 2045. 13.5%
