Luddite Shiraz Niels Verburg 2019

Luddite Shiraz, natural wine, rich, spicy, leathery Shiraz with great structure and generous fruit. Luddite Shiraz is a Natural wine from South Africa at its best, a wine of immense flavour, depth but still very easy drinking. This has all you want from a big red wine, dark fruits stewing away with structured yet soft tannins. A lovely mouth feel and a finish that keeps on going and going. For those winter evenings by the fire with a plate of hotpot, this is the perfect red wine.

In Jancis Robinson’s words: ‘this wine is a triumph of flavour over alcohol. No added water here – with real backbone as well as tons of spicy fruit. More leathery than the average New World Syrah but nothing like a northern Rhône wine.’ Four stars also in Decanter: ‘Bags of ripe, fleshy, generous fruit on the nose – juicy and fresh. Mouth watering. Doesn’t disappoint on the palate, offering ripe blackberry, cherry fruit, a lovely weight and a lingering finish.’ We wholeheartedly agree.

Niels Verburg founded Luddite wines in 1999 with the express intention of making world class Shiraz.

The grapes for this wine have been previously bought in from un-irrigated vineyards in the warmish regions of Malmesbury and Bottelary in Stellenbosch. Niels has developed his production and his own vineyards in Bot River just South East of Elgin where he now grows Shiraz for the Luddite wine.

Grapes for Shiraz are cooled overnight in a cold store, crushed and de-stalked the next day into open cement fermentation tanks. Allowed to cold macerate for three days the must ferments with natural yeast and then aged in barrels. His wines undergo light filtration to remove sediment but preserve character.

The Chenin is sourced from his own vines at Bot River and has what Niels believes is becoming its own unique style which represents Bot River Chenin. Niels owns other vines and buys fruit from other growers in SA to make his Saboteur range but it is in Bot River where he is aiming for the stars and is starting to produce wine of amazing depth and complexity with drinkability in spades.

It was a pleasure to meet Niels, a huge man with a very big smile and warmth. Wines often reflect the personality of the producer, and Luddite does that, the wines are big, powerful but also intelligent, very friendly and in no way prosaic, just like their creator.