Elevation 393 2005

The 2005 South African vintage produced wines of real depth and concentration from Stellenbosch’s best elevated Helderberg sites, combining the density of a warm year with the freshness of well-managed canopies at altitude. De Trafford Elevation 393’s 2005 earned 94/100 from James Molesworth of Wine Spectator, who praised its impressive combination of power, balance and elegance, and 90/100 from Neal Martin, who found it aging beautifully into a rounded secondary complexity, moving from its youthful fruit into more Bordeaux-like tertiary character. Elevation 393 is the flagship wine of De Trafford, produced from a single vineyard on the Mont Fleur farm 393 metres above sea level on the eastern Helderberg slopes, established in 1992 by former architect David Trafford. The blend for this vintage is Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz, aged in new French oak.