Wine Crush Wednesday: Spice Route Malabar

Wine making is pretty easy.

Making a wine that stands the test of time, years that offered low yields, seasons saturated with rain and more recently days of drought and dry soils is a little more trying.

Spice Route’s Malabar a Shiraz, Mourvèdre and Petite Sirah blend with elementary touches of Grenache and Tannat is an excellent example of a timeless wine now gracing us with it’s 10th vintage.

Spice Route strives for full bodied bunch selected blends and finds that with hand picked and sorted grapes foraged and farmed in the Swartland the best means of maintaining a flagship wine is consistency.

Flights of Malabar

Winemaker Charl du Plessis believes a wine producer should “play” and evolve their entry level wines to maintain momentum with wine trends however iconic signature bottles such as Malabar should echo the palate of the estates maiden vintage just with minor tweaks to elevate the flavour profile, complexity and colour of each evolutionary vintage.

Mustard Dressed Green Bean Salad

Malabar is a bold blend in the midst of a flourishing French affair. In it’s intirity this wine sees no less than 22 months in French Oak and is blended using only premium quality unfiltered single variatal aged in first fills to create these full bodies fermented vintages.

Having flights paired with family styled food by chef Bertus Basson had myself and the table reveling over the 2007 and 2012 vintages.

Warm Jerusalem Artichokes, Jerusalem Artichoke puree, Pine Ring Mushrooms, Pine Oil, Crotin

A decade of Malabar was an event held at the new Spice Route cellar style tasting room on the Spice Route esttae.

We were accompanied by Charles back and wine maker Charl du Plessis on a journey much like the ancient mariners who braved uncharted seas to round the Cape of Good Hope in search of exotic spices 50 years back-the reason for the estates name I’m sure. What a Journey, What a wine!