Crescendo, Stellenbosch, 2019

The fantastic 2019 shows that there was no beginner’s luck with the 2018. A contrasting, cooler, later vintage, the Crescendo 2019 has a cool, lifted, stony red and black fruited bouquet with a fine salinity, trembling freshness and distinguished tannic structure which will require a few years longer in bottle to show at its best. Fermentation takes place in stainless steel and cement, followed by a long gentle cuvaison of up to 60 days, before it is racked in to cement for malolactic fermentation. The wines are blended and moved to French barrique, a third new, where they age for 14 months. After that it is re-assembled entirely and split 70% in to foudré and 30% in to cement for another year in order to “refine the mouthfeel and heighten the sense of perfume. We get all the benefit of foudré aging without adding any extra wood tannin or taste.” It is then held back in bottle for a year prior to release. There are no shortcuts here and everything is done with an eye for quality. In our view, Crescendo is South Africa’s best Bordeaux-blend at the moment and certainly a wine worth following.