Every so often something comes across our tasting bench that gets us really excited. Wines with personality and quality that offer something different - and that is what we found with Minimalist Wines.
Sam Lambson is a young winemaker even by South African standards. He started Minimalist while in his early 20s, inspired by a bottle of Jamet Côte-Rôtie 1998. His first vintage was 2018, and in the years since he has racked up experience producing cool climate, unforced Syrahs, carving his own path rather than simply trying to make a copy of something else.
Last week we tasted three wines, starting with 2022 Connect The Dots. The fruit here comes from Elgin, Agulhas and Polkadraai Hills - the latter supplies other new wave winemakers such as Duncan Savage, Reenen Borman and Lukas Von Loggerenberg. 2022 was cool and late, harvested at the coldest part of morning and refrigerated overnight to keep all the wild, gamey fruit aromas preserved through to bottling. The grapes are pressed by foot and whole-bunches are used where desired - mostly in the Polkadraai fruit. Maturation is all in small old oak barrels. This opening to Minimalist Wines is wild, spicy and peaty, it comes in at just £90 per 6 in bond. A "haunting beauty" says Tamlyn Currin, writing for jancisrobinson.com.
2023 No Place Like Home is likely going to be the sweet spot for a lot of drinkers looking for something a bit different with familiar tones to the northern Rhône. It comes from three hectares of fruit in Elgin chosen by drone and soil analysis, seeing the same winemaking with 12 months maturation in small old oak. The fruit shows a strong amaro quality, bursting with blood orange and a spiced, dried herb character. Blue fruit and white pepper spill from the glass with air, promising even more to come. Currin calls this "soaring and glorious. A triumph." This is £135 per 6 in bond.
2023 Stars In The Dark is a wine for real lovers of knife-edge whole-bunch Syrah. The fruit comes from Cape Agulhas, on a four hectare plot of 25 year old vines planted on iron-rich clay eight kilometres from the sea. 2023 was an early vintage, picked in a race against the rain, creating a racy, herbal and deeply savoury wine that gives notes of dashi and salted red fruits. Currin says "the wine seems to float", "capturing the intricacy and intimacy and power of colour and light in the most transparent, light-touch way possible." Also £135 per 6 in bond.
Sam is forging his own style at Minimalist Wines and picking up critical acclaim along the way - the 2022 vintages of No Place Like Home and Stars In The Dark received 94 and 96 points from Neal Martin in Vinous respectively. Neal puts Sam in his list of "Young Guns" to watch in South Africa. If this tasting is anything to go by, he's unquestionably right.
The wines will be available for delivery end of March 2025.
