While wine has been produced on Stellenbosch’s historic Meerlust Estate for over 300 years, it was only in 1975 that the wines appeared commercially, under the Meerlust label.
The first release was a Cabernet Sauvignon, followed just five years later by Rubicon, South Africa’s first Bordeaux blend, which swiftly became a benchmark for the country’s fine-wine scene and remains the estate’s flagship wine.
While Cabernet and Cabernet blends are now established as the signature style of Stellenbosch, back in the late 70s, such wines were a rarity. Along with Kanonkop, Meerlust was one of the few producers of the variety, and certainly the pioneer of the South African Bordeaux blend that it established with the 1980 release of Rubicon. As a result, its Cabernet vines are among the country’s oldest, yielding wines in a style, it says, that seeks to blend ‘Old World sophistication with New World vibrancy’.
