Ten minutes with Atticus, in order

Most of us drink good wine on autopilot. The bottle gets opened while the potatoes are still browning, the first glass disappears in conversation, and by the time anyone notices what's in it the roast is halfway gone. Nothing wrong with that. But a bold red blend rewards a bit of attention, and ten minutes is all it takes.

So pour yourself a small measure of Bellevue Estate Collection Atticus and sit with it. There's plenty in a 750 ml bottle to spare a taster before the table gets going. What follows is the order I'd go in if I were sitting opposite you.

First, fix the temperature

This wine is happiest at 17 degrees, and in a British kitchen in September that's a slightly awkward number to land on. Room temperature in a house with the heating just switched back on is warmer than you think. A shelf near the oven is warmer still.

Fifteen or twenty minutes in the fridge before you open it usually does the job. Too warm and the alcohol pushes forward, flattening everything behind it. At 17 the tannins read as grip rather than heat, and grip is the whole point of a wine like this one.

Minute one: look, then leave it alone

Tilt the glass over something white, a napkin or the tablecloth, and look at where the colour runs out at the rim. That thin edge tells you more about a young red than the middle of the glass ever does: how densely packed it is, how much stuffing there is to work with.

Then put it down. Give it two or three minutes without touching it. A wine like this, still muscular in its youth, changes noticeably in the glass, and you want a before and an after to compare.

Minute three: smell it twice

First pass, no swirling. Nose just above the rim, one steady breath. What you get here is the calm part of the wine, mostly the oak: it spent around eleven months in French and American barrels, a third of them new, which is where the warmth and the sweeter edge come from.

Now swirl properly and go back in. This is where the three grapes start declaring themselves separately, and it's the most useful thing you can teach yourself about a Cape blend. Pinotage brings the smoky, slightly wild note. Cabernet brings cassis. Petit Verdot brings the spice that sits underneath both.

Once you can pick those three apart, you can pick them apart in any bottle from Bellevue or anywhere else. That's the skill, not the vocabulary.

Bellevue Estate Collection Atticus maturing in the cellar, ageing and cellaring, South

Minute five: the sip, and where the tannin lands

Take a proper mouthful rather than a polite sip, and pay attention to where the drying sensation settles. Front teeth? Gums? The sides of your tongue? That's the tannin, and in a young Atticus it's firm and obvious.

Here's why it feels structural rather than harsh. The fruit is handpicked, cold soaked before fermentation, then given three pump-overs a day for around four days. That's a deliberately unhurried way of drawing out colour and fruit without squeezing hard tannin out of the skins.

The softening happens later, in barrel. Malolactic fermentation takes place there rather than in tank, which rounds the wine from the inside before the three components are blended and put back into oak. You're tasting the result of that patience: grip with a cushion under it.

Swallow, wait, and count how long the flavour hangs around. Length is the honest test of whether a red is built to last, and this one is. Give it five to eight years and those tannins settle, the smoke and the cassis stop arguing and start agreeing.

Minute ten: put food in front of it

Now the important part. Everything you've just noticed changes the moment there's a plate involved, and that's not a failure of tasting, it's the point of it.

The grip that dried your gums is exactly what cuts through the fat on a slow-roasted lamb shoulder studded with rosemary and garlic, which is the pairing I'd choose first and the one that has never let me down on a Sunday with one bottle to spare. Roast beef with all the trimmings works on the same principle. So does a chargrilled ribeye with peppercorn sauce, where the char and the smoky Pinotage note meet in the middle.

If you've kept a bottle back for a few years, aim gamier: a venison casserole with juniper, or aged Cheddar with quince paste at the end of a long lunch. The softer the tannins get, the more the wine wants savoury, slow-cooked company rather than a sear.

Then stop analysing and pour properly. You've earned the second glass, and it's a better glass for knowing what's in it. That's true of any bottle in the South African reds you keep at home.

If you're curious about how three grapes can sound like three different voices in one glass, Atticus is a generous place to practise. It suits a table with lamb on it now, and it suits a rack where a couple of bottles can sit quietly and soften. Either way, the ten minutes are worth taking.