South-Africa does not have a formal ranking of wine farms. Should be grape farms really. A wheat farm is not called a bread farm. If, however, this country did have a classification similar to that of Bordeaux, then Meerlust will be a first growth. And the Bordeaux blend Rubicon is their flagship. Drank some tonight at my favourite restaurant, Froggy’s in Langebaan.
I bought tonight’s bottle at The Grey Goose, near Newcastle upon Ncandu, which is roughly 6600 furlongs from where it is made. The work sent us for a course to Newcastle. On the room service menu of the place they had Meerlust Rubicon 2000 for R250. Which I thought was quite a good price. But I have never tasted it and it is quite a bit of money to spend on something ephemeral in your mouth. Still, it was a good price.
After several days my curiosity triumphed over my lower middle class parsimony and I bought a bottle with dinner. No the work did not pay for it. But I sold a few glasses to my colleagues at a profit. It is indeed a good wine and they kept it well. A happy experience all round.
Several months later we returned for the rest of the course. First thing I did was check if they still had the Rubicon. Yup! And so I made haste to the restaurant and enquired as to the remaining stock level of the Rubicon. All right, I asked “How many of these Rubicons do you still have?” Much less pompous than enquiring about stock levels.
They had 6 bottles. (Some people will refer to this as a case. In my world it is a half case.) “I will take all 6”, I informed them. And that is how the wine started the return journey to the Cape of Good Hope and/or Storms. The baggage handling thieves at both airports missed it, so tonight I drank the second last one. The last of the Rubicons will stay with me for another year or two and then I am out of some of the best wine I ever owned.
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