Cape Cabernet isn't a copy of Bordeaux

There is a habit, deep-set and mostly well meant, of talking about Cape Cabernet as Bordeaux's understudy. Same grape, similar barrels, a family likeness in the glass. The implication sits just underneath: that Stellenbosch is working from someone else's script and getting fairly close to it.

I'd rather test that against an actual bottle than argue it in the abstract, so let's use the Kadette Cabernet Sauvignon from the 2021 vintage. Tim Atkin gave that vintage 92 in his SA Special Report, which tells you the wine is taken seriously. What interests me more is what it tastes like, and why it tastes that way.

The comparison didn't come from nowhere

Be fair to the belief first, because it has decent foundations. Cabernet Sauvignon is a Bordeaux grape, and it arrived in the Cape carrying Bordeaux's ideas about how to grow it and what to do with it afterwards.

Kanonkop itself makes no secret of the lineage. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc grow side by side on the lower slopes of the Simonsberg, and the estate's flagship Paul Sauer, named after the family patriarch, is a Bordeaux-style blend that became one of the Cape's most sought-after reds. Nobody there is pretending the template was invented locally.

So the resemblance is real and deliberate. The leap people make is from resemblance to ranking, and that's where I'd push back.

What the simonsberg actually does to a Cabernet vine

Stellenbosch wears its warmth lightly, which is not what most people expect. The granite-flanked mountains funnel cool maritime air off False Bay across the vineyards, stretching the ripening season out and letting Cabernet Sauvignon hold onto its natural acidity and deep colour.

Underneath the vines, decomposed granite drains fast and keeps the plants working for their fruit. That combination gives a particular kind of firmness, a mineral spine you can feel beneath the fruit rather than taste on top of it.

None of that is an approximation of somewhere else. It is a specific set of conditions producing a specific wine, and the fact that the grape happens to have a French passport doesn't change what the site puts into the glass.

A cellar making different choices on purpose

The winemaking here is old-school Stellenbosch, and it's the part of the story that most directly answers the copy accusation. Fermentation happens in open-top concrete tanks, with the cap of skins punched down by hand roughly every couple of hours: slower and far more labour-intensive than letting a pump do it.

Then comes the decision that shapes everything. The juice is drawn off the skins after only five or six days, a deliberately short stay that keeps the tannins supple instead of chewy. After malolactic fermentation the wine spends twelve months in older French oak, seasoned wood that adds a whisper of spice while leaving the cassis and dark cherry firmly in the lead.

That is not a lesser version of a structured young claret. It is a different shape entirely, chosen because Abrie Beeslaar and the team wanted this wine to give you something on a Tuesday rather than a decade from now. Beeslaar has three IWSC International Winemaker of the Year awards to his name, which suggests the approach is working.

Approachable is not the same as simple

Here's the bit worth holding onto. The tannins are polished rather than firm, so nothing needs to soften before you enjoy it, but there is still structure and acidity underneath. Leave a bottle in the rack for another five or six years and the bright fruit settles into something more savoury and cedary.

So you get both. A wine that's generous the night you open it, and one that will repay a bit of patience if you can find it. The received opinion frames early drinkability as a compromise; here it's the result of a short maceration and careful, restrained oak, which is to say a set of decisions made by people who knew exactly what they were after.

Kanonkop is still in Krige family hands, run now by fourth-generation brothers Johann and Paul, and very little has changed in the vineyard or the cellar philosophy. That consistency is the point. You're tasting a method, not a trend.

September, and something slow in the oven

This is the month when the cooking turns again, and this Cabernet arrives at exactly the right moment. A slow-cooked venison casserole is my first thought: the wine's dark fruit sits happily against gamey depth, and the fresh acidity cuts through all that long-simmered richness.

Rosemary roast lamb shanks work for the same reason, as do braised beef short ribs on a Sunday when nobody has anywhere to be. If you want something more direct, a grilled ribeye with peppercorn sauce meets the savoury edge of the wine head-on. And at the end of the evening, mature Cheddar with quince paste will see off whatever's left in the 750ml bottle.

Serve it around 17 degrees, which in a British September usually means the bottle needs twenty minutes somewhere cool rather than any warming up. If you like where this goes, the Kadette Cape Blend from the same cellar takes the idea somewhere the Médoc never went, and there's plenty more to explore across our South African reds.

If you're curious about what Stellenbosch Cabernet does when it stops being compared to anywhere else, the Kadette Cabernet Sauvignon is a properly satisfying place to find out. It suits anyone with a lamb shank or a venison casserole planned for a cool Sunday, and anyone who'd rather not wait years for a serious red to come round.