Mark Solms, 'director' of the Solms Delta estate on the eastern banks of the Dwars River more or less equidistant from Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, went to great pains to explain to the retailers and wine writers packing out the estate's Fyndraai restaurant that its latest release is not a port. This despite it being made from grapes and fortified with a grape spirit, as port - and port-styled wine - is.

Gemoedsrus (Peace of mind) he maintained is only a 'relative' of port because it is not made from Portuguese 'port' grapes, it is not made from conventionally ripened grapes, and it is not fortified with brandy. Instead, Gemoedsrus is made from shiraz, desiccated on the vine, and fortified with grappa made from the husks of shiraz grapes from the same vineyards.

'What is it, then?' someone asked, 'if it's not a port?' 'Perhaps a nie-poort?' suggested Mark, linking the Afrikaans for 'not' and 'port'. I don't think so; there's a venerable old 'proper' port family by that name (without the hypen) and while the current family member plying the wine trade - Dirk - would probably applaud Mark and winemaker Hilko Hegewisch's pioneering spirit, I doubt he'd let them trade on his family's heritage.

But a name's beside the port, I mean point. Gemoedsrus is different and a triumph. Yes, it's ripe and warming and fruit sweet, but there are savoury and herbal elements that lift it above the ordinary. With a glass or two of it in you, it's very easy to appreciate why the Solms Delta team is so excited about its future.

Also presented at the Gemoedsrus launch was a vertical tasting of the estate's Hiervandaan and Africana, both also made with desiccated shiraz. It was very interesting to taste the line-ups, especially of the latter as we'd recently had the 2008 vintage as part of one of our new releases tastings. While Hiervandaan is a Rhône inspired blend, shiraz flies solo in the Africana. Of the four wines we tasted, I really liked the 2005, which reflected the warmth of the vintage in its warming 15% alcohol and 4.6 g/l residual sugar. It was also, however, packed with interesting nuances like tea leaf, lemon, salt to its mainly red berried fruit.

The 2006, drier and less alcoholic than the 2005, was taut and unforgiving (but still good) and the 2007 an interesting concoction of tomato leaf and salty raisins. The 2008, the new release, had slight chemical tones to its orange peel, malt and spice nose, and was bursting with sweet fruit. At 13.5% alcohol, it was balanced ... so much so that its 10.6g/l residual sugar went largely unnoticed. These notes largely reflect what we'd found a few weeks before. Additional notes taken on that day included words like 'lip-smacking', 'pure', 'long' and 'interesting'. We scored it 16.