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Stellenbosch Cabernet Collective's 2015s

Thelema Mountain Vineyard in Stellenbosch, South Africa

A great vintage from the toughest country, a classic grape, and purity of fruit. Burnt rubber banished, but complexity a little lacking in some wines.

It was in the cellar of the old La Vigneronne wine shop in London’s Old Brompton Road where the late Liz Berry MW, about whom I wrote recently, hosted so many seminal wine tastings that I tasted the 28 wines below. The site is now occupied by another independent wine merchant and Master of Wine, James Handford, whose colleague and fellow MW Greg Sherwood is South African and never misses a chance to wave...