South African reds – a mixed bag

These tasting notes on 57 South African reds were made at a blind tasting for business class on British Airways last year. This selection is clearly not the crème de la crème, and is a slightly dated snapshot of Cape red. I found many of the wines pretty unsubtle – a bit like the reds made elsewhere up to five years ago. There were not too many real duds, but only a handful of really exciting wines. On the basis of this selection, there seemed to be quite a bit of work to be done on tannin management, but then...