Swartland Bush Vines Syrah
£10.99
£14.65 per litre · incl. 20% VAT
Only 2 bottles left
Looking for a generous, spicy South African Syrah that won't stretch the budget? This is it. Old bush vines in the sun-baked Swartland deliver dark berry fruit, a peppery lift and soft, easy tannins. A proper midweek crowd-pleaser with real personality, and brilliant value at just under eleven pounds. Delivered to your door anywhere in the UK.
Not for sale to persons under 18. Adult signature required on delivery.
UK wide delivery
Our Verdict
We keep coming back to this one because it punches so far above its price. Plenty of wines at this level taste thin or jammy; this stays fruit-driven and properly spicy, with the savoury backbone real bush-vine Swartland fruit gives you. It's our go-to recommendation for anyone who wants an honest, everyday red with genuine character rather than supermarket sameness, and it's quietly become a customer favourite. Stock moves quickly and we're running low at the moment, so grab a few if you want them. If you love it, the rest of our Swartland reds are well worth exploring too.
Tasting Notes
A nose of sweet vanilla and dried prune draws you in, warm and inviting rather than showy. The palate follows with generous dark berry fruit, blackberry and brambly plum, lifted by a peppery, savoury spice that keeps it from feeling jammy. The French oak adds a soft vanilla warmth without dominating, and the tannins are rounded and integrated, so it slips down easily. The finish is gentle and fruit-driven, leaving a lingering note of spice that makes you reach for the next sip.
About This Wine
Here's the thing about the Swartland: it was once written off as too hot and too wild for serious wine. Now it's the most exciting corner of the Cape, and old bush vines like these are exactly why. Low-yielding, unirrigated, gnarled by decades of dry summers, they concentrate everything into small berries packed with flavour. Small berries, big taste, as the locals say. In the glass you get exactly what bush-vine Syrah should give you: dark berry fruit, a warming hit of black and white pepper, and a savoury, spicy edge underneath. Twelve months in French oak (a quarter of it new, the rest seasoned) rounds everything off with a whisper of vanilla and a soft, supple finish. The tannins are gentle and the fruit does the talking. This is grown-up wine without the fuss or the price tag. Pour it with whatever the British weather demands. A slow-cooked lamb shoulder on a cold Sunday, sausages and mash midweek, or a rack of ribs off the barbecue when summer finally turns up. Serve it at around 16 to 18 degrees and give it twenty minutes open to stretch its legs. At this price it's a fridge-shelf regular rather than a special occasion splurge, and a smart, no-risk way to introduce someone to South African Syrah. We ship it across the UK, usually within a few days.
Food Pairing
This is a wine built for hearty, everyday cooking. Pour it alongside a sticky barbecue rack of pork ribs, a beef and ale pie with a thick crust, or a Sunday roast of beef with all the trimmings. The soft tannins and ripe fruit also handle a spiced lamb tagine or a midweek bowl of sausage and bean casserole with ease.
- —Barbecue pork ribs with a sticky glaze
- —Beef and ale pie
- —Roast beef Sunday dinner with horseradish
- —Spiced lamb tagine with apricots
- —Sausage and butter bean casserole
How to Serve
Decanting
No need for a long decant. Open the bottle or pour into a decanter 20 to 30 minutes ahead, just enough to let the spicy fruit and vanilla aromatics unfurl.
Behind the Wine
Swartland summers run hot and dry, the kind of Mediterranean heat that ripens Syrah to deep, punchy fruit. What saves these wines from going jammy is the cool air sweeping in off the Atlantic, slowing things down and stretching out the hang time on the vine. Those long, gentle finishes to the season concentrate colour and flavour while keeping a peppery freshness intact. You taste it directly: generous dark berry up front, spice underneath, and tannins that stay soft rather than aggressive.
Ageing Potential
This is built for drinking now and over the next three to five years. The fruit is generous and the tannins already soft, so there is little to gain from long cellaring. Expect the bright berry edge to mellow gradually into rounder, more savoury dried-fruit character.
The Land
The fruit here comes from low-yielding bush vines, free-standing and unsupported, planted across the hills around Malmesbury. These old-style vines naturally restrict their crop, pushing flavour into small, intense berries. The pull of Atlantic breezes and the proximity of mountain ranges shape a mosaic of microclimates and soils, lending the grapes a fuller, more savoury character than the heat alone would suggest.
The Winemaking
This is unfussy winemaking done well. Fermentation runs in open tanks at a steady 25 degrees, with the cap punched down by hand every day to draw out colour and gentle structure. After around ten days on the skins the wine is pressed softly, then put through malolactic in stainless steel to round off the edges. Maturation is a year in French oak, a quarter of it new and the rest seasoned barrels. That balance is deliberate: enough oak for a whisper of vanilla and spice, never so much that it smothers the fruit.
The Swartland Region
Swartland, 'the black land' in Afrikaans, named for the renosterbos that darkens after rain, rolls out north of Cape Town across the hills around Malmesbury and Riebeek-Kasteel. It's hot, dry, and stubbornly characterful: a place of old bush vines, granite and koffieklip soils, and a community of growers who've made it the most quietly thrilling corner of South African wine. Concentration, freshness, and a wild streak you don't find elsewhere, that's Swartland in a glass.
About the Producer
Swartland Winery
Swartland Winery has been a quiet workhorse of the Western Cape for over seventy years. It started life as a cooperative cellar, farmers pooling their fruit, sharing the work, building something bigger than any single grower could manage alone. That cooperative spirit still runs through the place, even after it restructured into a private wine company with three business units under one roof. Today, from its base just outside Malmesbury, the winery turns out around fifty-one different styles across red, white, sparkling and fortified. The Founders range sits at the everyday end of the lineup: lifestyle wines designed for the dinner table, not the cellar, but made with the same attention as the single-vineyard bottlings further up the range.