RED WINE

Buying red wine online is easy with Bosman Wines. Simply visit our online shop and find a wide range of red wines to choose from, along with notes on how they taste and what food would pair well with each of them.

-the easy-drinking, single-varietal Generation 8 wines

-the Bosman Adama is a red blend featuring Shiraz and a host of other interesting varietals that combine to create a delicious, rich and juicy wine

-Bosman Upper-Hemel-en-Aarde Pinot Noir is something special, don’t let it’s lightness fool you, it is a finely structured, fruit-packed, lightly spiced wine.

-Bosman Erfenis is our flagship: a rich, complex blend of old favourites Cabernet Sauvignon and Cinsaut and our one-of-a-kind newcomer Nero d’Avola.

The first red wines were made in Ancient Persia, but red wine came to South Africa via Europe when the French Huguenots brought their winemaking culture here in 1685. Wine has been made in the Western Cape ever since, following a rich tradition started by the first European settlers but continued by us today.

A Huguenot first established the Bosman farm in the Bovlei of Wellington in 1699, our ancient cellar being built shortly thereafter. The Bosman family first settled on the farm in 1810 and have been making wine in that same cellar ever since. Cinsaut has long been grown in and around Wellington, and the Cabernet Sauvignon grown there was always considered of excellent quality.

In 2001 the family purchased a farm in the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley near the coastal town of Hermanus in order to plant varietals that preferred a climate such as Pinot Noir. These days we have been experimenting with varietals originating from the Southern Mediterranean regions of Portugal, Spain and Italy.

Currently, we are the only producer in South Africa of Nero d’Avola, a heat-tolerant, a drought-resistant varietal from Sicily.

Ideally red wine should be stored in a cool, dark, quiet place so that the aromas and flavours can mature and develop in the bottle. A good red wine should improve with careful ageing.

Firstly, select a good glass. It might sound crazy, but wine really does taste different depending on the glass. You won’t be banished to wine purgatory if you drink your wine out of a coffee mug or even straight out of the bottle! But you will enjoy it more if it is sipped from the right-shaped glass, and this has been scientifically proven.

Apparently, the Japanese did studies to track the vapours lifting off the surface of the wine. It’s the vapours that carry the aromas, and it’s the aromas that produce the flavours, and of course, it is flavours that we’re after. So the researchers found that the shape of the glass determines the direction of the vapours, and we’d like them to head straight for our noses. So, you need space above the wine to collect the aromas, which means don’t fill any glass to the brim. Then, aim for a tulip-shaped glass so that the rim of the glass is narrower than the bowl, and therefore the aromas will swirl around inside rather than just shoot straight out past your expectant nose.

Having a stemmed glass means that the warmth of the hand holding the glass doesn’t heat up the wine past its enjoyment point. Folk can get quite technical about size and shape, but the above is all you need to know.

Then the tools you need to taste wine are all in-house: your senses of sight, smell, taste and touch.

Eyes: Assess the colour. It’s red, sure, but what kind of red? I garnet coloured wine tells you it has aged, whereas a purplish tinge belies it’s youth. Also look at the liquid’s viscosity and density. A dense colour should indicate a full-bodied, highly extracted wine, while a light colour could indicate a light-bodied wine.

Nose: The wine aromas are the most important part of wine tasting. When you smell the wine, try to think outside the box. Pretend it’s not wine, and ask yourself what you are smelling. Primary flavours come from the varietal, such as the peppery aromas of Shiraz or the strawberry aromas often found in Pinot Noir. The secondary flavours come from the winemaking process itself and often have to do with yeast, so think bread, brioche or beer-like flavours. Finally, the tertiary flavours result from the wood maturation of the wine and could produce aromas of nuts, spice, leather and buttery toast.

Taste: the taste of a wine is the result of the combination of acid, alcohol, tannin and sugar. Only small amounts of sugar should be present in the red wine, but the tastebuds should pick that up on the tip of your tongue. The acidity will give that tell-tale ‘sourness’ that should balance the sweet fruit and create a lingering aftertaste. 

Touch: High levels of alcohol in the wine can leave a tingling sensation on the cheeks (a bit like a mouthwash), while tannins will dry your mouth out. 

All these components combine to form the flavour of a wine. Again, there is no right and wrong, but the more you consider these components, the easier it is to find wines you love.

Traditionally, red wine is not sweet, but sweet red wines are ideal for the beginner. The Bosman Merlot is usually considered sweeter and more of an easy-drinking wine, yet its sugar levels are more or less the same as its cellar mates. It is rather how it is made that makes the difference in the flavour.