Wine of the Week 11: Ernie Els Major Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

When winemaker Louis Strydom started making wines for Ernie Els, he sat down with the golf legend and had him taste a selection of wines until he found a style that appealed to the man nicknamed The Big Easy. Since that day over 20 years ago, Louis has created a progression of big cabernet sauvignons and Bordeaux-style blends from the estate’s prime pocket of Helderberg mountainside within the renowned Golden Triangle of Stellenbosch.

“This terroir is made for bigger is better. It’s in the DNA of this north-facing slope, these deep red soils, this richness…” he says. “I like to call myself a viticultural winemaker. I love the vineyards. It’s taken me a lifetime to understand what I have here and what to do with cabernet. I now make cabernet with much more complexity and diversity than I did way back.”

A large portion of the vineyard is devoted to cabernet sauvignon, the estate’s primary focus. “Cabernet is not just cabernet… we have nine different clones planted on the farm in hectare components. By the end of the fermentation season I could have about 40 different cabernets in my cellar.”

The state-of-the-art cellar, tasting room and restaurant at Ernie Els Wines all have fabulous views over the wide expanse of vines, towards Stellenbosch and the Helderberg Mountains on the one side and to Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula on the other. “They always say of this area, if the vines can see Table Mountain, you’ll make excellent wines,” Louis says.

The 2018 harvest

The 2018 harvest season was during the long drought when Day Zero threatened the Cape. “At Ernie Els Wines we are very blessed to have bountiful water on the Helderberg. We were, however, still careful with our water use during the summer months leading up to harvest. We’d also been working hard to adapt our viticultural techniques during the previous three years to help the vineyards cope optimally with the heat and limited irrigation.”

A surprisingly cooler season helped buffer the drought, Louis says, and the vines reacted gracefully with no abnormal growth patterns observed. “Vines are resilient plants and their natural instinct in drier years is to produce smaller bunches with smaller berries. Small berries are usually the start of a great wine and 2018 was no different.”

Hand-picked bunches of the estate’s various cabernet sauvignon clones were sorted and fermented separately, with premium selection grapes from selected parcels fermented in small open fermenters. Each clonal batch of cabernet was maturated separately (micro-vinified) in oak barrels before blending.

Ernie Els Major Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

Aged for 17 months in 300-litre French oak barrels (20% of which are new), the Major Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 scored double golds at the 2022 Veritas Awards and Global Fine Wine Challenge, among other accolades.

The touch of poetry in the tasting notes paints a picture before the wine even hits your glass: “A fragrant unspooling of red berries, just plucked off a wintery branch, cool and incandescent. The aromas deepen to the darker tones of cassis, brambleberries and black cherries. The vivid fruit is overlaid with a hint of balsam, sketched in with woody spice, fresh cinnamon, touches of vanilla smoke and classic cigar box.”

The juicy fruit, refreshing natural acidity, fine-grained tannins, and appetisingly clean and dry finish, make it a natural partner to slow-braised beef dishes, lamb, rich mushroom braises, and mature, full-flavoured cheeses.

Estate Ernie Els Wines
Wine Major Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2018
Winemaker  Louis Strydom
Wine region Stellenbosch
Cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon
Alcohol 14.38%
Food pairing Beef, Charcuterie, Game, Hard Cheese, Lamb, Pork, Poultry, Spicy Food
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