Bruwer Raats is a very engaging gentleman who will charm you with his fine wines and love of family — wife Janice, the financial brains behind the operations, three sons and an array of canines.
Thaddeus tasted four of the family’s wines: two chenin blancs, a cab franc and a high-ended blended wine Raats calls MR.
His chenin blancs differ with oak treatments. The original chenin blanc is what you would expect: a very bright, clean, crisp, easy-drinking wine we all enjoy on a hot summer night.
Oak-barrel treatment, rested on lees, or the sediment of yeast, is what brings out the characteristics of butterscotch and orange peel on the Family chenin blanc.
The cabernet franc, also called Family, is the best Thaddeus tasted while touring South Africa. It’s a ruby-colored wine with a herbaceousness that tingles the palate with hints of clove, nutmeg and a tannin finish that can only be described as silky.
The MR is by far the Raats family’s flagship wine, a complex menage of fruit, acidity and tannin that is deep ruby in color and exhibits red fruit, black currants/tobacco/cassis, well integrated into a well-rounded finish. Thaddeus tagged it “outstanding.”