Fairview, Jakkals Fontein Shiraz, Swartland

2nd bottle in a week, the first was impressive, but I felt decanting would help unlock more..... Not to be, just as good. The deep ruby colour matched the tastes of deep fruit, licorice and brambles. I feel the 2003 is not going to improve much more than it is currently delivering. Drink it now, it's superlative.

Last scored a 90 blind about three years ago. Tasted non-blind tonight. Not decanted and that was good because it tasted best right away. Started fresh and vibrant but after three hours seemed a bit tired and oxidized. Notes of currant, plum, licorice and smoke. Still very good and interesting but fading.

This is a very nice wine. Dark in colour - deep and concentrated with a nice smokey meaty complexity to the dark currant and blackberry fruit. Ripe, nice deep blackberry fruit, firm with savoury currant finish. Not mouthfilling or that sweet, yet is not lean - interesting. The texture reminds me of some Washington Syrahs - good crisp acidity over ripe fruit. Pretty good value for the price.

This was an interesting experience: The bottle was oxidized, the wine was falling apart. I considered pouring it down the drain right away. But after retasting and retasting the wine I found it so intriguing that I couldn’t resist taking sip after sip. Apart from alcohol there was not much on the nose, of course. But on the palate the wine still showed many lovely components. Despite being sour and very astringent the wine still showed lots of chocolate, dark …

Very nice. Clean and pure. Prolific nose of berry, spice and toasted oak. Bright fruit on the palate, soft and sweet oak, and a long sweet tannin finish.

Very enjoyable and balanced. I will look for a couple more bottles.

Blind tasting of Shiraz/Syrahs. The most elegant wine of the night. A very pleasant and good tasting wine that was not huge and did not particularly stick out among the brutes. I again failed to guess this one right.