Vilafonté is a groundbreaking South African/American joint venture and a very ambitious one at that. You can taste it in today’s supremely elegant Bordeaux-style blend. And what, you may ask, does ambition taste like? Like a seamless melding of perfectly ripe fruit, freshly turned earth, and a subtle accent note of oak spice.
But it’s just as much about how the wine
feels as how it tastes: Fine-grained tannins and well-calibrated acidity frame the fruit perfectly, with no sharp edges to be found. Not a hair is out of place, but there’s a lot of soul there, too—courtesy of an all-star team that includes international winemaking celebrity Zelma Long, her viticulturist husband, Dr. Phil Freese, and their South African partner, Michael Ratcliffe, whose family estate, Warwick, is widely regarded as one of the country’s best. This visionary trio first got together in 1997, naming their venture after the ancient
vilafontes soils in the foothills of the Simonsberg Mountains, on South Africa’s Western Cape—soils estimated to be somewhere between 750,000 and 1.5 million years old. That is indeed some seriously old dirt, a poor clay/gravel mixture in which the Vilafonté team grows the full range of classic Bordeaux varieties. “Seriously Old Dirt” the wine, a succulent blend of Malbec, Merlot, and the Cabernets, is Vilafonté’s take on a Bordeaux-style ‘second wine’—a more affordable, though no less appealing, alternative to their cult-favorite “Series C” and “Series M” bottlings. Put it next to Bordeaux/Napa wines costing twice, even three times as much and it’s likely to blow them away. All the Bordeaux geeks around here were floored by it, and believe me, you will be too.
Long and Freese are unquestionably a 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. The Vilafonté property spans 42 hectares (16 planted to vine) in the Paarl appellation, just north of the Simonsberg Mountains. Incredibly, the vilafontes soils have never been uprooted by glaciers or volcanic activity. They are weathered, gravelly clay soils, well-draining, and high-density vines rooted in them cascade downhill on a gentle northwest-facing slope. The maritime climate is akin to that of 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 Vilafonté project very much follows the Bodeaux “château” model, with a little of the elite-level California cult wine ethos thrown in as well: Prior to introducing “Seriously Old Dirt” to the lineup, they produced just two red wines: “Series M,” a Malbec/Merlot blend, and “Series C,” a Cabernet-dominant red. To their credit, these wines taste considerably more expensive than they are, and as for Seriously Old Dirt—this wine just hits it out of the park in terms of value-for-dollar.
And it’ll do so by way of its balance and refinement, not its outsized proportions: This is a wine of real breed, aged in used French oak and full of soil character. In the glass, it’s a deep, nearly opaque garnet red extending to the rim, with aromas of black and blue fruits that speaks to its Malbec component (the largest component of the blend at 37%). Scents of black and red cherry, cassis, violet, sweet tobacco, graphite, ground coffee, cacao nibs, and dusty earth carry over to the full-bodied palate. Tannins are silky and fine-grained, and as I said above, everything is in its place—it’s a polished, beautifully constructed red that will age gracefully over the next 5-7 years, but enjoying it right away is hardly out of the question. Decant it 30 minutes before serving at 60-65 degrees in Bordeaux stems with a properly pan-seared duck breast and some simple sides. Simple elegance at its best. Enjoy!
