The year preceding drought is often among a wine farm’s best vintages. This ancient insight from Carel Nel’s late grandfather was reaffirmed last week when Carel’s Boplaas Cape Vintage Reserve 2015 was selected as one of just two fortified wines in Winemag’s latest 10-Year-Old Wine report.
“An approaching drought induces just enough stress on a vine to make for a very concentrated port, but also affords enough water for the plant to get through the season without compromising flavour,” says Carel, one of South Africa’s most experienced makers of the style.
For the family owned Calitzdorp farm, the latest recognition of the Cape Vintage Reserve is important because it once again highlights the exceptional ageing potential of the wines.
This is the very pursuit of the Winemag show: “One of the most important measures of great wine is that it should be age-worthy, that is it should become more pleasurable and more interesting to drink with time in the bottle and the annual 10-Year-Old Wine Report sets out to examine precisely this.”
Most notably, it has been time and again that the Boplaas Cape Vintage Reserve 2015 has returned to the podium in this specific annual event. This year, it scored 95 points – another ringing endorsement of the Nel Family’s knack for producing ports that age into greatness. But since 2019, Boplaas’s fortified wines have also been the overall favourite while scoring above 90 points no less than five times.
It is also significant that the 2015 vintage in general is regarded as one of South Africa’s top vintages of the past 50 years. The achievements of the Boplaas Cape Vintage Reserve among its peers of that era – including as winner of Double Gold at Veritas – truly place it among the country’s best of the best.
Winemag’s 10-Year report, which evaluates South Africa’s best wines after a decade, spotlighted the 2015 Vintage Reserve for its “super-dense fruit, fresh acidity, and sleek tannins.”
What started as a robust bottle of fortified wine in 2015, comprising 60% Touriga Nacional, 30% Touriga Franca, 8% Tinta Barocca, and 2% Souzão, has matured into a layered marvel of blackberries, floral herbs, and spice.
It’s a triumph rooted in Calitzdorp’s arid terroir, where Portuguese varieties thrive under conditions echoing the Douro Valley – the ancestral home of the world’s greatest port wines. It was this terroir that led Calitzdorp in the 1990s to claim the title as South Africa’s capital of the fortified style. These latest achievements continue to underscore that claim.
Boplaas fortified wines are available for sale at its various tasting rooms and on the brand website for delivery to your door.
For more information, email admin@boplaas.co.za, call 044 213 3326 or visit www.boplaas.co.za. Boplaas is also on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Boplaas1880/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boplaaswines).