By now, it feels a bit played out to encourage people to drink seasonally, but please humor me one last time because you’re going to want a sizable trove of today’s wine on hand for the cooler months ahead. Today’s 2017 “Night Sky” from South Africa’s Fable Mountain Vineyards is the sort of indulgent, fascinating Rhône-style blend we all crave in the winter.
At $25 a bottle, this organic, high-elevation “GSM” (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre) red is an outrageous and luscious value, one you won’t hesitate to crack open whenever a friend comes around. You’ll want to stock up on it, too, both because it’ll pay massive dividends in the years to come and because SommSelect is among the few places in the country with access to this spectacular vintage. Act fast—a wine like this doesn’t hang around in our inventory for very long!
In general, wines in this price range—much less ones that over-deliver this spectacularly—don’t come from places like Fable Mountain Vineyards. Perched at 650 meters elevation in the Witzenberg Mountains, about two hours outside of Cape Town, it’s a truly self-sustaining farm. The vineyards, planted primarily to Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre, are farmed organically. In the off months, cattle and sheep graze in the vineyards, tended to by a full-time shepherd. The Southern Rhône varieties planted here thrive in the warm climate, while the Witzenberg Mountains offer shade and massive diurnal temperature swings, helping to preserve acidity. All of it combines for a wine that marries warm-climate generosity to a sense of verve and savor typically only found in South African wines that cost twice as much.
The winery at Fable Mountain is just as beautiful as the vineyard, and goes some way toward explaining how they can get such pristine juice into the bottle. It’s entirely gravity-fed, and specifically designed so the team, headed by winemaker Tremayne Smith, can divvy up their fruit into as many small lots as necessary. Fermentations here occur spontaneously, with very gentle handling and minimal new oak. The result is beautifully pure, an obvious and unadorned display of the beautiful fruit they grow without any makeup. It’s honest and authentic, full of deeply fruited deliciousness.
The 2017 “Night Sky” is a near-even split between Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre, aged in large French oak, about 20% new. A decant would only help this wine, but feel free to pop and pour because you’ll want to get straight into it: The nose is decadent, with dark fruits like blackcurrant, blueberry, and black cherry, all just on the right side of lush. Candied violets and rose petals join the fray, with an underpinning of cinnamon and clove spice. The palate is full and mouth-coating, warming and comforting—but never extracted and hot. Despite the open-knit style and obvious fruit, there’s great freshness here owing to some tuned-in acidity and a fine blanket of tannins. The palate turns a touch more red-fruited, with bing cherry and raspberry and a hint of garrigue coming to the fore. “Night Sky” is perfectly delicious on its own, but at the table it begs for something equally comforting and pleasurable, like braised short ribs. Like I said above, you’ll want to act fast and grab as much as you can take: this is the wine you’ll want to have stashed away for the next few months, and who knows if we’ll ever see it again!
