Entries were as follows: 1) Natural Sweet – two; 2) Noble Late Harvest – 10; 3) Straw – four; 4) Hanepoot – two; 5) Muscadel – 10; and 6) Port – eight. A total of 36 wines, 27 wines rated 90-plus on the 100-point quality scale, an extremely strong showing.
The 10 best wines overall were as follows:
Boplaas Cape Tawny Reserve 1995
Boplaas Cape Vintage Reserve 2015
De Krans Cape Vintage Reserve 2016
De Krans Cape Vintage Reserve 2017
De Krans Muscat De Frontignan 2019
Delheim Edelspatz Noble Late Harvest 2019
GlenWood Noblesse Grand Duc 2017
Highlands Road Noble Late Harvest 2017
Nuy Rooi Muskadel 2010
Villa Esposto Muscat D'Alexandrie Straw Wine 2017
The 10 best wines
“South Africa has a long history of making excellent sweet wine and fortifieds. Unfortunately, these wines are currently out of fashion but wine lovers really should engage with them again as there is so much good stuff to be had,” says Christian Eedes, chairman of the tasting panel and Winemag.co.za editor.
To read the report in full, including category definitions, key findings, tasting notes for the top seven and scores on the 100-point quality scale for all wines entered, go to Winemag.co.za.
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