This is a love story beginning when Johnny Nel was at university in Cape Town. His love for all things wine turned out to be an expensive affair and, also quite a tiring one. Johnny found himself spending almost his entire allowance on his absorbing passion, leaving scant funds for mundane things like petrol, which meant that he had to walk wherever he needed to go. Not that he begrudged it. He was bewitched and becoming more and more intrigued. This was not some raffish school boy crush - on the contrary - it was an intellectual leap, a revelation of the depths and tastes and complications of wine. The mystery behind it. He was hooked for life.
And while at university he also met Gael - and fell in love again. And he is still hooked on both of them.
It did not take long, incidentally, for Gael, a supremely talented gourmet cook, to share John's wine absorption. They married and settled down to urban business life and parenthood, with two sons, Mark and Tim.
Then, one mad day they bought a plum orchard high in the Helshoogte Pass, in the Stellenbosch region. Just a couple of hectares in one of the loveliest corners of the world. Mountain slopes and sky fill it, along with thickets of forest, battered peaks of rock, falls of vineyards and orchards. Lingering winter rains, caps of snow, honeyed layers of sunshine, the shout of spring and ever-changing colours and light, make you have to reach out and touch just to make sure that it is real.
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2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot
The 2001 vintage is a delicious blend of 79% Cabernet Sauvignon and 21% Merlot, and is acknowledged by John, the winemaker, as our best wine to date. The 2001 was aged for 14 months in 60% new barriques - 75% French oak, 15% Russian oak, and 10% American oak and is packaged in the elegant trademark 500ml Camberley bottle, as well as the 750ml bottle.
The wine offers youthful fragrances of lavender, smokey plums and cassis, backed by the characteristic dark berries and minty chocolate of Camberley. It is supported by fine tannins which provide enough structure for extended ageing. It was awarded a 'superlative' four and a half stars in John Platter Wine Guide 2002 .
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