Darling Cellars Chocoholic Pinotage 2018

• Awarded 92 points from Tim Atkins and Gold (95 points) at IWSC, yes, 95 points!!

• Most of the grapes come from unirrigated bush vines

• Located north of Cape Town towards Langebaan and 15km inland from the sea

Darling Cellars have 13,000ha under vines and about 95% of these are unirrigated and bush vines, so not on a trellis in those amazingly straight lines we all associate with modern vineyards. In South Africa, this is quite different, particularly on this scale.

These bush vines will dive deeper for water and hence be more resilient to variations in rainfall through the seasons. They will also regulate their yield, so in a drier year they will produce less bunches of fruit. In a higher rainfall year they will produce more fruit, so the vines are more resilient and manage the yield through the seasons. It’s a great illustration of the resilience of the vine.

For this wine, the clue is in the name. This wine is off-dry and has a reasonably high residual sugar. You will taste chocolate, dark cherries, plum and some people taste Turkish delight.

It’s unbelievable value for the wine, go and get some, we don’t have very much of it.