Three glasses of wine in a loose row on a weathered wooden table on a shaded stoep, Western Cape

Buying Guides22 October 20264 min read

Sweet red wines in the UK: four soft South African reds

By South African Wines

Most people searching for a sweet red want ripe fruit and no harsh edges. These four South African reds deliver that, from a light weeknight blend to a perfumed Pinot Noir.

Sweet red wine in the UK covers two different styles: dessert reds with sugar left in them, and dry reds so ripe and soft that the fruit reads as sweet on the tongue. The four bottles we would pick belong to the second group. One of them, Tassenberg, has Dry Red printed on the label, and none is a dessert wine.

What they share is generous red fruit, gentle tannin and nothing rough, which is what most people mean when they ask a shop for something sweet and red. Our guide to sweet red wine from South Africa covers the style and where it comes from in more depth.

Why a dry red can taste sweet

Sweetness in wine comes from residual sugar, the grape sugar left behind when fermentation stops. Most reds ferment until very little remains, so the sweetness people notice in a soft red comes from ripe fruit flavour, low tannin and moderate acidity. Tannin is the drying grip you feel on your gums and the inside of your cheeks, and acidity is the mouth-watering edge.

Keep both of those gentle and push the fruit forward, and a red comes across as sweet with almost no sugar in it. Unoaked wines keep that fruit at the front, and so does temperature. A soft red left to warm up in a centrally heated living room tastes flat and alcoholic, so the lighter wines here want a slight chill, around 14°C to 15°C, which twenty minutes in the fridge before opening will get you close to.

The softest pair: Tassenberg and Forge Mill

Start with Tassenberg Dry Red Blend if most reds feel too heavy for you. Cinsaut leads the blend, bringing juicy red fruit and a light, silky texture, with small amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir added for shape and suppleness. At 12.5% alcohol it is one of the gentler reds in our range. Pour it with bangers and mash under onion gravy, or roast chicken thighs done with paprika and lemon, served at 15°C.

The Forge Mill Shiraz/Cinsault/Mourvedre has a little more spice. Each of the three grapes is picked on its own date and fermented separately in stainless steel, and none of it sees oak. The Cinsault comes from bush vines and is handled gently to keep it soft and light, while the Mourvèdre gets a longer ferment that adds spice and some structure. For a tomato-based supper we would choose the Forge Mill, as that extra structure keeps it from tasting thin beside spaghetti with a rich tomato and basil ragù, or a beef burger piled with caramelised onion. It is made for drinking young, so open it within a year or two of buying.

Sweet fruit with spice: Ernst Gouws Pinotage

Pinotage is South Africa's own grape, a cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut, and the Ernst Gouws Pinotage shows its ripest side. The grapes are hand-harvested from Stellenbosch sites and made with a light touch, giving a bold ruby wine with a sweet-fruited finish and a thread of clove and exotic spice. The tannins are firm enough to give the wine shape and polished enough that nothing scrapes.

Of the four, this is the one for spicy food. Ripe fruit sits comfortably against chilli heat, so a Thai red curry or a fragrant lamb biryani makes a strong match, and South Africans in Britain will recognise it beside bobotie with yellow rice. Serve it at 18°C, a little warmer than the others, as it has more body. Anyone wary of Pinotage's reputation can read our piece on whether Pinotage tastes of burnt rubber first. Drink it over the next two to three years, when its fruit is at its most generous.

A finer red for someone who likes it fruity

The Meerlust Pinot Noir is the least sweet-tasting of the four, and the one to give a fruit lover whose taste is moving towards something more detailed. It is 100% Pinot Noir from the cooler southern edge of Stellenbosch, where breezes off False Bay and evening sea mists slow ripening and hold on to natural acidity. The result is perfumed red fruit with bright freshness and fine, powdery tannins. Tim Atkin's South Africa special report scored a recent vintage 93.

Whole bunches are fermented with wild yeasts, and the wine is aged partly in a large foudre and partly in smaller French oak casks, so the wood stays in the background. Serve it at 14°C with roast duck breast and a cherry jus, where the sauce brings sweetness to the plate and the wine's acidity keeps the duck fat in check. It drinks well now and will keep for five to ten years, gaining savoury, mushroomy notes as it goes.

Our South African red wines page has these four alongside the rest of the reds we carry. Before opening the lighter bottles, give them a short spell in the fridge: the Tassenberg at 15°C and the Meerlust at 14°C keep their ripe fruit at the front of the glass.

Your Bag

Sweet red wines in the UK: four soft South African reds

Why a dry red can taste sweet

The softest pair: Tassenberg and Forge Mill

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Sweet fruit with spice: Ernst Gouws Pinotage

A finer red for someone who likes it fruity