Botmaskop, Delaire Graff Estate 2022
Mix any six bottles and you pay the Any 6+ price at checkout — no code needed.
£10 tracked UK delivery, however many bottles.
We pack and send twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, by Royal Mail Tracked 48.
Members pay £27.20 — £6.80 less on this bottle. Membership is £120 a year and carries the EDKA Promise. Membership terms
Why this wine
Botmaskop is the Bordeaux blend Delaire Graff builds its reds around — four varieties, four weeks of extended skin contact on the Cabernet Sauvignon and sixteen months in French oak, all from mountain vineyards above the Banghoek Valley. It is the classical Cape Cabernet blend done with restraint.
At a glance
- Grape
- Cabernet Sauvignon 54%, Cabernet Franc 27%, Petit Verdot 11%, Merlot 8%
- Region
- Stellenbosch, South Africa
- Alcohol
- 14.50%
- Body
- Medium
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- High
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Short (3-5 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Cheese, Barbecue
How it tastes
Cassis and spice on the nose, then liquorice and blackberry across a polished, structured palate. The tannins are fine-grained but plentiful and sixteen months in French oak has drawn them out long, with the acidity steady underneath. Cabernet Sauvignon 54%, Cabernet Franc 27%, Petit Verdot 11%, Merlot 8%.
The producer
Delaire Graff Estate sits high on the Helshoogte Pass in the historic Banghoek Valley of Stellenbosch, on a farm called Avontuur until the wine writer John Platter bought it in 1982 and renamed it Delaire, 'From the Sky', for the views; Laurence Graff OBE acquired it in 2003 and rebuilt it over six years, and Tim Atkin MW classed it a First Growth in 2022. Botmaskop draws on a selection of premium Stellenbosch vineyards, thirteen to twenty-two years old, trellised on a five-wire Perold system against the wind, on granite-derived Hutton leaf and Tukulu soils farmed sustainably under IPW certification and picked by hand in the cool early hours. The grapes were extensively sorted and destemmed, 30% crushed for body and structure, the remaining 70% fermented as whole berries at 24-26°C with gentle punch-downs; the Cabernet Sauvignon spent a further four weeks on its skins, and after basket pressing the wine matured sixteen months in 40% new French oak with partial malolactic conversion.
Food and drinking
Serve at 16-18°C and give it an hour in a decanter. It suits roast lamb, a dry-aged steak, slow-cooked oxtail or a hard aged cheese. Drink now or over the next three to five years. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.