Simonsig's Best Wines Are the Ones Nobody Talks About | Simonsig Grapesmith

Everyone knows Simonsig for the R3 bottle that kickstarted Cap Classique. Almost nobody knows the two wines that prove the pioneering never stopped.

Simonsig is Stellenbosch furniture — an institution on every supermarket shelf, best known for Kaapse Vonkel, the wine most people credit with the big bang of South African Cap Classique (and, in 1971, the priciest bottle in the land at a whole three rand).
But treating Simonsig as a monument misses the point: the pioneering never stopped, it just got quieter. In this one I taste the two wines that prove it — the Simonsig GrapeSmith Mediterraneo 2021, a barrel- and amphora-raised white blend of Marsanne, Roussanne, Grenache Blanc and Verdelho with the malolactic deliberately blocked (there are only 11 barrels of it in existence), and the Maritimo 2021, a maiden-vintage, lighter-framed Mediterranean red of Mourvèdre, Grenache Noir, Syrah and the heat-bred Marselan.

Along the way: how Frans Malan built the New World's first real wine route, why Simonsig planted South Africa's oldest Verdelho vineyard back in 1996, and how Johan Malan's trip to Tablas Creek and Château de Beaucastel started the whole GrapeSmith adventure. Curious wines for curious minds.

In the glass Simonsig GrapeSmith Mediterraneo 2021 · Marsanne, Roussanne, Grenache Blanc, Verdelho · Alc. 12.5% Simonsig GrapeSmith Maritimo 2021 (maiden vintage) · Mourvèdre, Grenache Noir, Syrah, Marselan Simonsig, Stellenbosch, South Africa