2025 Perruche Syrah by Sam Lambson, Minimalist Wines

Made exclusively for Flint by ‘wonder kid’ Sam Lambson of Minimalist Wines in his Cape Town cellar, Perruche draws on young-vine Syrah from Cape Agulhas at the southernmost tip of South Africa – the same source as Sam’s acclaimed Stars in the Dark. While the Minimalist wines contain a proportion of whole bunch and are raised primarily in concrete, the grapes for Perruche are de-stemmed and the wine raised in steel tanks. Sam describes 2025 as ‘a brilliant vintage across the Cape – cool, late, and dry toward the end of harvest. It is rare for us to achieve both quality and yield in these cooler micro-climates.’ The resulting wine is cool fruited with crunchy black raspberry and juicy cherry, along with lashings of sea spray and wet rock sensations. Perruche takes its name from the local term for flint in Touraine in the Loire – it’s a nod to this wine being a Flint-exclusive, rather than the soil type in Agulhas (which is clay and Koffieklip). That it also means parakeet in French is appropriate: Perruche is an aerial, lifted Syrah, which can be served lightly chilled for full refreshing effect.