Wine Raats, “MR” de Compostella, 2021

Raats, “MR” de Compostella – an exquisite dry red wine made from Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec grapes grown in the company’s vineyards in the Stellenbosch region. The age of the vines ranges from 7 to 20 years. Soils are mainly granite. Wine “MR” de Compostella represents a significant meeting and long-standing friendship of two of the most powerful winemaking minds – oenologists Mzokon Mveemwe (M) and Bruver Raats (P). The second part of the name “de Compostella” means “the union of stars”, which emphasizes the enhanced radiance at the meeting of the two luminaries, as each shining star makes its exorbitant contribution to the creation of the galaxy. So is “MR” de Compostella guided not by style and not by diversity, but by its leading stellar component – quality. The joint creation of two titans expresses not so much the strength of each individual variety in this blend, but their premium quality in the final result, the greatness that different varieties combined into one mighty wine can create.

Magic “MR” is always in the process, as each vintage requires exquisite craftsmanship, skillful accuracy and endless patience. After each individual component is aged in separate barrels, the resulting wines undergo blind tasting. This is a long stage, in which Mzokona and Bruver evaluate each wine separately, and only those with more than 90 cuv points are included in the final composition . The winner of the blind tasting eventually becomes the leading component of the new vintage, the second is the second leading component, and so on. This special process is repeated for each vintage; accordingly, the percentage ratio changes every year, invariably one – the high quality of this Bordeaux blend.

Harvested by hand from each parcel separately with the optimum maturity of each variety from late February to mid-March. Berries undergo triple manual selection, crushing and cold maceration for 5 days. Fermentation takes place at a strictly controlled temperature of 28 C. Then follows a spin using a basket press and malolactic fermentation in steel tanks. Extract of each grade is carried out separately in French oak barrels for 12 months.

Vintage 2015 scored 94 points from “Livets Goda SA”, 96 from “Neal Martin”, 5 stars in the rating “John Platter”, 98 points from “Greg Sherwood, Master of Wines, 2017”, took 60th place in “Top 100 Cellar Selections, 2018, “was selected as one of the best in” SA TOP 10 Red Blends, 2018 “.