Tim James: The solitary splendour of Keet First Verse

Chris Keet at the launch of First Verse 2021.

It’s rare in South Africa for a prestigious brand to produce just one wine in solitary splendour. Chris Keet, though, seems to be making a great success of it, since the maiden First Verse of 2009. He does supplement this wine with viticultural consulting, though this is now much reduced. It’s something which anyway feeds into his winemaking, as some of the vineyards he works with also provide grapes for First Verse. And he makes Cinq for Van Biljon – another single wine – but this again has a close relationship with his own wine, as he has been making both in the Van Biljon cellar on the Polkadraai Hills, just outside Stellenbosch, since 2011. 

Yesterday, Chris offered in Cape Town a rare vertical of seven older vintages of First Verse (almost randomly selected, he told me) to accompany the release of the most recent, 2021.

The first two vintages were made at what was then Romond Vineyards on the Helderberg, on the farm that is now Pink Valley (how very odd – Pink Valley Rosé is yet another, I realise, of the singularity wines that I said were so rare). That farm is just below Taaibosch, which had once been Cordoba, the farm where Chris Keet first came into prominence with the marvellous Crescendo, the wine based on then-fairly-rare cabernet franc. That famous name lives on for Taaibosch’s own cab franc-based blend (now I’m starting to think madly that any vague connection with Chris Keet results in a single wine for producers, as, to date Taaibosch have released just the one, although there has been talk of, for example, releasing a varietal cab franc.)

And cab franc is a connection between Chris Keet’s Crescendo (I think the last vintage made was 2004, though released under a makeshift sort of label) and his First Verse. But the latter has always been a blend of all five main Bordeaux red varieties – usually with either cab or cab franc as the larger component, (just pipped by merlot in 2014, for example), petit verdot and malbec invariably playing the minor role. Proportions have always varied, though, with Chris responding to what particular vintages turned up.

There are other elements of continuity, though Chris has clearly not tried to re-make the old Crescendo (which, it must be said, was not universally admired, though it had something of a cult following – including me). That was always a lighter-style, graceful and elegant wine, sometimes as low as 13% alcohol, with the marvellous 1997 going up to 13.7% (Chris says it continues to drink well). Inevitably, some people thought the old Crescendo tended to greenness on occasion – it never bothered me. With First Verse, Chris is closer to the established Stellenbosch mainstream, using riper grapes, and the wines measure at least 14.5% alcohol. But his use of oak has always been more restrained than that mainstream, only 10-15% new; the wines are pretty dry; the tannic structure is firm (mostly grape rather than oak tannins) but never massive; and there is, in short, always a degree of refinement controlling the sweet fruit, and a welcome balance and harmony.

As for the name…. I realised that I’d never enquired about it. I thought about it when I recalled that the producer name on the label of the very first vintage, the 2009, was in fact “Keets” (no apostrophe); the s was dropped from the 2010 and subsequently – Chris told me yesterday that he’d done so because people were assuming that his name was Chris Keets. But Keets echoed to me the name of the English Romantic poet, and I wondered if somehow this was a connection to First Verse. Chris confirmed that – adding that there is also the name of the Afrikaans poet A D Keet hovering in the background. The boxes that the wines are packed in furthers the connection, bearing the legend “Earth’s poetry” – which is surely a rather charming touch.

It was an impressive tasting yesterday, with the wines on the whole living up to the general description I gave above. The oldest we had was the second vintage, 2010. Still full of balanced vigour, quite big in effect, with plenty of sweet fruit. There was, in fact, an element of sweetness on the finish of most of the wines, though increasingly less so, it seemed to me. Already the 2011 was more savoury. As I was writing generally about the “lesser” 2018 vintage recently, I should mention the First Verse from that year: a most pleasing wine it is, but with less intensity than the others on show; no real hurry to drink up, but I doubt if it will benefit from further ageing.

There were certainly no duds on show. 2013, though with the highest proportion of cab (41%), perhaps more developed than 2011, quite big and juicy though, with grippy tannins. 2014 with merlot just in the lead seemed more notable for the leafy fragrance of cab franc; the most restrained and light-feeling, unfruity, of the earlier years. I found less complexity on the dry-year 2016, but the notes of savoury restraint showed through. Unquestionably the standout was 2017: intense and subtly dense, with depth, yet light-feeling and succulently drier; beautifully balanced. A great year for Keet, as for many in the Cape.
The current release, partly thanks to the producer’s generosity in holding it back for a few years compared with most, is, I’d suggest, on a par with the general best of the wines and perhaps not too far off that 2017. (See Christian Eedes’s review for more detail.) The single-wine maestro delivers again.

• Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. His book Wines of South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013.