May 6

I should have been caught up by today, but between a glitch and a hail and a thunderstorm the conspiracy won.

Namedropping time, I had lunch with Emil den Dulk of De Toren Private Cellar of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Well lunch was in Millis, the winery is in South Africa. Everyone needs a winery on a hillside with an ocean view, yeah, I had the pleasure of visiting there back in 2008. Anyway, he was in Millis to show me the latest releases of his two top wines, Z and Fusion V.

Ahhh perfection! The Z is the lesser of the two, retails for $27.99, and emulates Right Bank Bordeaux with more Cabernet Franc in the blend. You can drink it now and you will be happy, but you should wait a few years and be very happy or a few more years and be wicked very happy. Seamless is a great word to describe the wine now. The wine is closed and you know it will get better with time or you could taste past vintages and be wowed, if you can find any. Although the wine is closed, it is so balanced that you have to work to find the tannins that are in perfect balance with fruit and alcohol. This is one of those wines that people look for that are not expensive now, but will taste very expensive in a few years of proper storage.

More perfect doesn't make sense, but the De Toren Fusion V, a Left Bank Bordeaux style blend with more Cabernet Sauvignon in the classic blend of the 5 Bordeaux grapes is more better. Love bad English. More money and more than worth it at $44.99 a bottle. Think famous named Chateaux that costs 4 times as much to deliver the same quality.

Now the problem. The winery has only been around for a dozen years. I cannot taste, nor can anyone else, older wine from them. Emil was kind enough to tell me that the first vintage has still not reached its peak. I sold a ton of the 2003 and told people to wait. Recently one of these wise customers opened a bottle of the 2003 and was thouroughly impressed, but offered his opinion that it also was still going to get better. Emil also has kindly put on accurate and informative back labels to the wine. The label tells you that the wine will age well for a decade, well I see your decade and raise it a score.

These are truly world class wines at insanely reasonable, more bad English, prices. Emil is no dummy, he will be raising prices with the next vintage.