So much of the hamster wheel of modern life is about aspiration, desire and striving towards something out of reach — but believing it can be attained.
Tokara’s team decided to stick their chests out and adopt a Greek word that counters all this modern angst: telos. Philosopher Aristotle (so Google assures us …) used it to describe the end goal or ultimate purpose of striving. The oft-cited example is that the telos of an acorn is to become an oak tree.
Twenty-one years after banker GT Ferreira bought a grape farm on the brow of the Helshoogte Pass, on the Simonsberg outside Stellenbosch, Tokara launched its flagship, Telos. For Tokara, not an operation to rush things, this was a wine decades in the making.
Paying tribute to neighbour and initial consultant Gyles Webb of Thelema, Ferreira said: “His knowledge and the mistakes he’d made allowed us to not repeat them and set us up for success. Telos is not simply our flagship; it’s a statement of what we are and aspire to be.”
So what is Telos? For Tokara, it’s “the highest expression of cabernet sauvignon from the Simonsberg”. A recent maiden vertical tasting of the inaugural 2015 vintage through to 2019 was an opportunity to “haal uit en wys [take out and show]”.
Tokara doesn’t do braggadocio. It does understated elegance, refinement and calm confidence. There’s no need to prove anything. And that’s what the wines displayed.
In 2018, it was a ballsy move by Tokara GM Karl Lambour to launch Telos 2015 at 67 Pall Mall, London’s exclusive wine club, before selected international critics — and pit this unknown wine against five Robert Parker 100-pointers.
Bolder still was pricing each of the 1,000 individually numbered bottles at R4,200, making it South Africa’s second-most expensive wine at the time. The figure was modelled, Lambour asserted, on Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything.
That nobody now clutches their pearls at the R5,600 price of the current 2019 release speaks volumes, not just about inflation but about the wine itself. My tasting notes repeatedly used “classic”, “refined”, “understated”, “elegant” and “harmonious”. But two words say even more: “seamless” and “effortless”. The latter is a misnomer. It may be effortless to drink, but a heap of work goes into this silky wine.
That’s the side that winemaker Stuart Botha was at pains to explain during the vertical tasting. It seems easy to enjoy because the Tokara team have gone to extraordinary lengths to identify the best cabernet sauvignon vineyard (a cool, south-facing slope of the Simonsberg at about 400m above sea level). They monitor it and harvest two separate portions at the right stage of ripeness, which varies between portion A and B because of the different soil makeup.
That’s why the blends vary. The 2015 is 92% cabernet sauvignon, with 5% malbec and 3% merlot fleshing out the palate. The drought year of 2016 has 93% cabernet, 5% petit verdot and 2% cabernet franc. In 2017, cabernet again dominates at 92%, with petit verdot making up the rest. The 2018 includes a 3% dab of malbec alongside 7% petit verdot, while the current 2019 release returns to a simpler 90:10 ratio of cabernet and petit verdot.
Botha described the thrill and privilege of shepherding each vintage to bottle. “We’re blessed with exquisite terroir and a number of excellent cabernet sauvignon blocks. The cooler, south-facing slopes of the Simonsberg make for longer ripening of cabernet sauvignon and give us great acidity, which in turn contributes to the ultimate longevity of the wine.”
The wines share the broad fingerprint of one patch of soil, yet each differs subtly. Perhaps more exotically perfumed here, more savoury and muscular in a drier year, but all achingly beautiful to drink. Yes, the expected cassis, rich fruitcake and spice notes are there, supported by polished, superbly integrated oak, but that doesn’t adequately describe them.
Really, it’s like trying to describe the look in Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes, gossamer-veiled yet heavy with sensuous intent. Or picturing Fred Astaire in top hat and tails, gliding across a stage in a dance move that took hundreds of hours of sweat, preparation and toil to appear effortless. That’s Telos.
