2024 Sweet Red Paarl, Fairview

• Style: Fortified Sweet Red
• Taste: Dark fruit, spice, dates, baked plums, berry sweetness
• Food: Hard & Aged Cheese, Dark Chocolate, Roasted Game
• Occasion: Weeknight; Sunday Lunch
• Serve: 18% ABV, slow sipping

In the Glass — Tasting Notes

Dark ruby and deeply concentrated, this fortified red delivers baked plums and dried dates on the nose, with baking spice and caramelized red fruit woven through. The palate balances raisined, spiced tones against a lingering berry sweetness that feels structured rather than cloying. At 18% alcohol with restrained acidity (5.5g/L), it's built for contemplative sipping—the kind of wine that reveals itself slowly, layer by layer.

The Winery — Fairview

Fairview has anchored Mount Paarl's lower slopes since 1699, and today spans 680 hectares across four South African regions. Owner Charles Back has devoted his career to pairing varieties with their ideal sites, earning decades of recognition for consistent innovation across both classic and unconventional styles. This 2024 blend—primarily Vinhao with Sousao—was hand-picked from decomposed-granite slopes in Paarl, fermented for four to five days with aggressive pump-overs to extract maximum colour and flavour, then fortified with pot-distilled spirit and aged in older French oak for ten to twelve months. A reserve element of seven-year barrel stock was blended in for added layered depth, creating a serious fortified expression refined by time and terroir.

At Your Table — Food Pairing & Serving

This is a wine for hard and aged cheese—particularly those with savoury, umami notes—as well as dark chocolate and roasted game birds where richness meets intensity. The concentrated sweetness (151g/L residual sugar) and warming alcohol make it equally at home on a weeknight as an indulgent nightcap, or at the table on a Sunday lunch where you can linger. Explore our Paarl selection to discover more from this legendary terroir, or browse our wider South Africa range for other innovative expressions. If fortified wines captivate you, our Sweet Wine collection offers remarkable discoveries from around the world.