2021 David & Nadia Elpidios Red Swartland 750 ml

The United States is packed with world-class wine regions. But if you never look beyond them—or even beyond Europe—you’ll never find treasures like the 2021 David & Nadia Elpidios Red from Swartland, South Africa. 

A Grenache-dominant blend made from 17 lots harvested across 11 vineyards, this wine absolutely stunned the reviewers at Decanter and Wine Advocate, the latter of which gave it a whopping 96-point score. Grown in a collection of granite, shale, and clay soils, matured partially in concrete vessels, this wine nods to France’s celebrated Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 

Just for reference, the 2021 Chateauneufs that earned 96 points from Wine Advocate include wines like Clos St. Jean, Domaine de la Janasse, and Clos des Papes—all are icons, and all priced like it. 

We realize that South Africa’s Swartland region is off the beaten path for most US wine lovers, so we’ll begin at the beginning. Located about 40 miles north of Cape Town, the area was long known for growing wheat. Now it’s known for producing rich, succulent red wines like this one. 

Swartland, whose key feature is Paardeberg Mountain, boasts a combination of steep terrain and rolling hills. It’s hot and dry, which lowers disease pressure, and leads to outstanding ripening of fruit—perfect for reds like this one. 

The critics that fawned over this vintage of Elpidios note the departure this wine has taken from its original incarnation. It started as a blend heavy in Syrah and Carignan—a blend often associated with France’s sweltering Roussillon region—to its current incarnation as a Southern Rhône-style red heavy in silky, fruit-forward Grenache (54%). To that, they add about 31% Syrah, plus 13% Carignan and small doses of Pinotage and Cinsault. 

David & Nadia treat this wine to a long, gentle extraction, using about 40% whole bunches. The wine was matured in a combination of concrete and old 500-liter neutral French oak barrels. It spent 18 months in bottle before release, and now it is showing a beautiful softness from the subsequent years. What a discovery!