James Beard Award-winning winemaker Zelma Long is not merely a technician, but someone who spent decades striving for better farming and terroir-expressive wines in California. She’s a believer, like we are, that the bigger, riper, more heavily extracted style of wine that many California winemakers adopted is only a trend.
Long spent nearly a decade at Robert Mondavi Winery during the ’70s and became one of the first female CEOs while at Simi; as a consultant, she’s made wines for Donum, Hyde de Villaine, Gundlach Bundschu, and her own Long Vineyards in California; Bookwalter in Washington; Chêne Bleu in the Rhône Valley; and Vilafonté in Paarl, South Africa, an incredible region which I visited back in 2012. Today’s 2014 “Series C” is one of the most profound Bordeaux blends I’ve tasted from South Africa. Its sumptuous aromas could easily be confused with three-digit Napa Cabernet from an elegant appellation like Rutherford, or even blue-chip classified Left Bank Bordeaux. It has Old World notes of graphite and tobacco but also beautifully ripe blackberry mountain fruit, luscious round texture, and refined tannins. Utterly sophisticated and drinking perfectly right now, this is a game-changing Cabernet blend at this price—a great achievement from someone who’s had a lot of them!
Founded in 1996, Vilafonté is a joint venture between California’s renowned winemaker Zelma Long, her husband and viticulturist Phil Freese (who designed the vineyards at Opus One), and Mike Ratcliffe, the son of legendary vintner Norma Ratcliffe, who founded Warwick, a top Stellenbosch Estate. Talk about an all-star team!
Long and Freese are unquestionably a visionary power duo—well before anyone from California cared, they knew that pockets of South Africa were capable of producing Bordeaux varieties that might someday rival the best of France or Napa. Long’s zealous belief in terroir is the driving force behind such foresight, and it’s why Vilafonté produces just two wines: “Series M,” a Malbec/Merlot-based blend, and “Series C,” a Cabernet-dominant red. For Long, one key to unlocking the true terroir of a site was to cut back on irrigation—something she learned in trials with Joseph Phelps. Rather than employ one rule for an entire vineyard, she learned to manage water according to shifts in soils, block by block. That may sound like old news, but it was a radical discovery.
Vilafonté sits atop 100 prime acres in Paarl, just north of the Simonsberg Mountains. Incredibly, the soils have never been uprooted by glaciers or volcanic activity—the “Vilafonté” soils, as they are known, date back 1.5 million years and have sat, undisturbed, for that long. These are weathered, gravelly clay soils, well-draining, and high-density vines rooted in them cascade downhill on a gentle northwest-facing slope. The maritime Mediterranean climate is akin to Bordeaux, where cooling Atlantic and Indian Ocean breezes usher in cold, wet winters, which turn to warm, dry summers, making the region perfectly suited for ripening Bordeaux varieties.
The 2014 Series C is blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 10% Malbec and 6% Cabernet Franc, and was aged in two-thirds-new French oak for 22 months. Paarl experienced an exceptional growing season in 2014, making for some of the most age-worthy wines from the area in the last decade. Deep ruby, nearly opaque in color, it leads with aromas of black currants, cassis, leather and tobacco and a kiss of pencil lead. All of this transitions to a round, medium-plus-bodied mouthfeel with lip-smacking blackberry mountain fruit, graphite, and soft, fine-grained tannins. Drinking impeccably well now, it will evolve nicely over the next 7-10 years, peaking around its 10th birthday. I would give it a good hour-long decant, serve it in large Bordeaux stems at 60 degrees and pair it with bone-in-ribeye or roasted lamb. Do check this wine out—it is very much worth your time!
