Bio-dynamic Red'ster from False Bay: Reyneke Cornerstone 2008, Stellenbosch

Today’s wine is a red blend made of Cabernet Sauvignon (50%), Syrah (40%) and Merlot (10%) from a biodynamic winegrower and producer in Stellenbosch. Mostly known for its various and very unique Sauvignon Blanc wines, Reyneke gained quite some reputation over recent years. Today’s red blend was pretty unique and somehow full of character. So let’s get on with it …

The Cornerstone red blend's colour was very dark red-blue, faint and had tons of particles in it. Its nose appeared to be very complex and unique right from the start. I smelled plenty of plum and rum pot fragrances (probably from the 40% Syrah), very intense black pepper, earth, rubber, high percentage milk chocolate, mint and a cool-appearing green ripe freshness. An appealing duality of very fruitful and very earthy scents. This duality continued with its taste. It showed strong, almost sophisticated, and multi-layered flavours combined with a very unique creaminess. In the first hours I mainly spotted aromas of plums, cherries, air-seasoned salami, beefy smoke, black pepper, chocolate mints, nougat and milk chocolate, plus a wild, but sweet, spiciness of oregano, olives and black pudding. After a few more hours the olives and black pudding took the lead. Still assisted by the already mentioned cherry and salami flavours. On the second day huckleberries, dark cherry sherbet and even more fresh(?) creaminess developed. The fleshy-salami(+ beef jerky) remained in the background. The wonderful thing about this blend was its very precise and well balanced body and is inflammatory freshness. There were no impressions of superficiality, overpowered features or alcohol at any time. It appeared to me as a very accessible and pretty difficult wine at the same time. It was very smooth, fruitful and crisp, but had a very unusual structure, had rather challenging meat flavours and quite a lot of smoke. I guess if you like this kind of wine, you really gonna like it. There won’t be any problem with its complexity or unusual flavour spectrum. But, I am pretty confident that this wine won’t please everybody. Maybe a bit too polarizing. For sure nothing for a party. Great QPR. More like something for a curious crowd.