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By South African Wines
Warwick Estate's Simonsberg Sauvignon Blanc, chosen in South Africa and opened at a table in Britain. Here is what it tastes like on arrival and how to tell them to serve it.
Professor Black Sauvignon Blanc is a white from Warwick Estate, grown on two blocks high up the Simonsberg. If you are in South Africa and choosing it for someone who now lives in Britain, you probably know why already. It is the Sauvignon they poured at your table, and the one they bring up when they talk about home.
We sell only South African wine, and we sell it from the UK, so the bottle goes straight to their address in Britain while you choose it from where you are. This post is for you, the sender, and covers what the wine will taste like when it reaches them and how to get the best out of it once it does.
The vines sit high enough on the Simonsberg that cool mountain air slows the ripening, which keeps the natural acidity in the grapes. The soils are granitic foothill soils, and they give the wine a mineral backbone, a taut, focused line that runs through the fruit from the first sip to the finish. Anyone who has drunk Professor Black at home will recognise that line before they pick out anything else.
There is no oak in it. Fermentation is cool and slow in stainless steel tanks, so all the flavour comes from the grapes. For a bottle going to someone who knows it, that means the wine poured in a flat in Leeds or a terrace in Bristol tastes the way they remember, with the same tropical fruit and the same tension. If they want to explore further once it has gone, our South African Sauvignon Blanc page gathers the other bottles of the grape we carry from the Cape.
The grapes are hand-picked in the cool of early morning on the Simonsberg, over several passes through the vineyard. Each picking brings in a different layer of aroma and ripeness, and that early mountain fruit is what someone far from home will recognise in their glass.
Whole bunches then go into stainless steel for six to twelve hours of skin contact before a gentle pressing. Skin contact means the juice sits with the grape skins for a while, and it draws out texture and aromatic depth. The two blocks behind the wine were planted nearly two decades apart on the same mountain at Warwick Estate, so every bottle holds fruit from vines of two different generations.
Put the temperature in your gift message. Professor Black should be well chilled, at eight to ten degrees, which is cold enough to keep the acidity bright while leaving room for the texture from the skin contact to show.
For a first bottle in a British kitchen, suggest pan-fried sea bass with brown butter and capers. The acidity keeps the brown butter from feeling heavy, and the salty capers sit well against the mineral finish. On a weeknight, Thai prawn noodles with lime and chilli work too, since the wine is fresh enough to handle both the lime and the heat.
If they live near a good fishmonger, fresh oysters with a squeeze of lemon make a short, celebratory supper for two. A goat's cheese and asparagus tart is the better choice when they are cooking for new friends and want something that can sit on the table while everyone helps themselves.
The wine drinks well as soon as it arrives and will hold for another three to four years. Its acidity gives it more staying power than many Cape Sauvignons. After a year or two in bottle the tropical fruit softens slightly and the texture turns richer and waxier.
For a bottle sent from home, we would suggest opening it soon, ideally on a video call with you holding a glass of the same wine at your end. If you send two, the second can wait a year or so for that rounder, waxier version. For a red from the same estate to go alongside, First Lady Cabernet Sauvignon is the one we carry.
Whoever opens Professor Black in Britain will know the taste from the first glass, so the note you write can be about dinner. Pan-fried sea bass with brown butter and capers suits it best, with the bottle chilled to eight to ten degrees and opened as the fish goes into the pan.