Wine storage – especially that of my own wine – has been on my mind this past week. Firstly, I’ve been reminded by the coming of something approximating spring that, before it gets too warm, I need to empty and repack my increasingly incoherent wine fridges. When the slots are all individual, it’s pretty inevitable that an available one will need to be filled by a bottle that has little in common with its neighbours. It would take a degree of self-discipline unbelievably more rigorous than mine to keep perfect records.
The hurry to reconfigure is because my three main fridges are at the end of my garage; it gets hot in there in summer and when shifting them I’d rather not expose the bottles too much to that, after their coolly coddled existence. Incidentally, that heat also means, as I’ve realised, that my electricity bill is much higher in summer than winter; given that I have a woodstove in the house, my cooling expenses in warm weather are what counts most.
Second memory jogger, also on the cost side of things, is that I received my quarterly storage bill from Wine Cellar in Observatory. R2722.69 for 230 bottles for three months! That’s over ten grand for the year! It’s too much, and I must move out more of my wine, or otherwise get rid of some of it. Drinking it is a real option of course, and I do my best, but I must have about 750 bottles in various places, and it’s actually too much, given my drinking pattern and some emotional antipathy to storing stuff (I’m a chucker rather than a horder, to invoke one of the more useful differences that characterise humanity, in my experience). Wine Cellar’s storage and service is excellent, and I have nothing to complain about except that it does seem to me to be over-expensive. More expensive than I like, anyway.
Thirdly, I had lunch on Friday, with my regular lunching partner John. (We tore ourselves away from what is our current favourite, Table Seven in Salt River, and went to the perhaps even smaller Belly of the Beast on the gritty edge of central Cape Town: we much enjoyed the excellent but comparatively unrefined food and the style of the place, though I do think they could more exploit the joys of vegetables – despite their name.) My pal was telling me more about the spiral wine cellar he’s having sunk/built beneath his house, at a cost of something not hugely under half a mill – and that’s without air-conditioning, which he hopes will prove unnecessary.
That makes me envious, of course, but it’s so out of my league that, well, not too much. Anyway, I’ll have to continue with my messy, unfocused storage (and by no means mostly free – have you checked the cost of wine fridges recently?). Some bottles at home (not quite all of it in fridges); some in professional storage. I also keep some in the air-conditioned space of a hospitable Angela Lloyd; but having it there is also not entirely satisfactory.
It’s an expensive business, decent wine storage, depressingly so after one has already gone to the expense of buying the damn stuff in the first place, convinced that it’s going to repay the elevated premium by maturing beneficially for five or ten or twenty years – at further cost. Of course, with significantly expensive wines (decent burgundy and bordeaux for an obvious example, but also at the level of Sadie and Kanonkop), storage cost is a tiny part of the whole enterprise, and if one thinks in terms of “investment” it could be recovered – as has been being gleefully discovered by sellers on local wine auctions, which continue to blossom. Reputable auctioneers (like Strauss) want to be assured that storage has been good before they accept wine for sale.
Reducing the total number of bottles I worry about is a considerable possibility – and there are in fact quite a few that I think really need to be drunk up or sold: I have, for example, too many whites from Sadie and others that are over 10 years old and that I worry about, going by experience of them, and many others approaching that age (I still don’t drink nearly as much white wine as I buy).
And there’s another, pretty obvious, strategy. Cool, still, dark conditions are vital if one is wanting to properly mature wine for, say, 15 or 20 years (my oldest bottles, apart from a single GS 1966, are Paul Sauer and Welgemeend from the latter 1990s and Columella from the early 2000s, which I reckon are all still fine). But if you’re keeping wines for only five or so years after the vintage – even more when they’re pretty robust – then keeping them in a relatively cool cupboard is just fine. They’ll probably develop somewhat faster than if they were in the dungeon of a Scottish castle, but that’s probably an advantage anyway. So now to find some cupboard space. And stop acquiring.
Constantia property Eagles’ Nest was planted to vineyard by the Mylrea family after wildfires in 2000 destroyed the pine forests that previously stood there. A cellar was built in time for the 2008 harvest with Stuart Botha, now of Tokara, in charge.
Now the German family-owned Elleke Group, via their South African company Elleke Harvest & Hospitality, has acquired Eagles’ Nest. An active investor in South Africa for the past twenty years, the Elleke Group’s South African investments includes businesses in agriculture, thoroughbred horse stud farming and hospitality, as well as a property portfolio including commercial, industrial and high-end residential properties in Constantia.
Craig Barnard, formerly at Cavalli in Stellenbosch, joined as winemaker in January of this year.
Franco Lourens originally started his own label while working as assistant to Chris Alheit of Alheit Vineyards but since mid-2020 shares cellar space with Lukas van Loggerenberg in Paarl. His compatriots are, of course, highly acclaimed but his wines are now every much as good:
Lindi Carien White Blend 2021
Price: R285
35% Verdelho, 21% Chenin Blanc, 19% Colombar, 18% Grenache Blanc (five days skin contact) and 7% Palomino – sourced variously from Stellenbosch, Swartland and Piekenierskloof. Expressive aromatics of pear, peach and citrus plus floral perfume and hay while the palate has good fruit definition, well integrated acidity and a gently savoury finish, some light phenolic grip adding interest. Subtle and intricate.
CE’s rating: 94/100.
Skuinskap Steen Single Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2021
Price: R430
From a Piekenierskloof vineyard planted in 1977. Matured for 10 months in old 500-litre barrels. Complex aromatics of citrus, quince, peach, hay and dried herbs plus some leesy complexity. The palate is vivid and direct – super-concentrated fruit and punchy acidity, before a finish that is long and dry. Tightly wound and laser-like in its focus.
CE’s rating: 97/100.
Howard John Red Blend 2021
Price: R285
50% Grenache Noir (25% whole-bunch fermented), 30% Cinsault and 20% Syrah (100% whole-bunch fermented), all grapes sourced from the Swartland. Enticing aromatics of red berries, floral perfume, herbs and spice while the palate is wonderfully energetic – pure fruit, really bright acidity and powdery tannins, the finish having a saline quality. This is nicely weighted with an alcohol of 13% – not too slight but still elegant.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
Lua Ilse Grenache Noir 2021
Price: R330
Grapes from a Piekenierskloof approximately 20 years old. Matured for 10 months in older 500-litre barrels. Pomegranate, red and black berries, fynbos, earth and spice on the nose while the palate has a particular harmony about it with good depth of fruit (alcohol: 14%), fresh acidity and fine tannins.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
It has been a pretty momentous fortnight for South African wine. Not only has the wine cognoscenti of Cape Town and Johannesburg been entertained by the Tim Atkin South Africa Special Report 2022 release and his corresponding 95+ point tasting roadshow featuring 195 wines, but private clients and journalists alike have also been reflecting on the impressive array of red and white wine expressions presented on numerous Cape Winemakers Guild (CWG) events in South Africa and London. Of course, while the ongoing debate as to the real significance and relevance of the whole CWG project simmers among industry commentators, there can be no denying the quality and interest of the wines in this year’s 2022 auction line-up.
In the early days of the Cape Independent Winemakers Guild (CIWG), the wines were considered by many to be the holy grail of prestige quality wine in South Africa. In the late 1980s and early 1990s when international icon brands were simply not easily available in South Africa, bottles of CIWG auction wines would often be cast as the highlight of any wine evening hosted by a connoisseur or collector. Indeed, when I was studying my three-year wine diploma in the mid-1990s, I think I counted that I had only tasted three of four CIWG wines such was their rarity.
The CIWG was established in 1982 as a collective of some of South Africa’s greatest winemakers has since evolved into the CWG and consists of 42 winemakers who have been recognised as excelling at the craft by their peers within the Guild. Membership of the Guild is by invitation only and is extended to winemakers who have been responsible for the production of wines of excellence for a minimum of five years and who show promise of not only consistently exceeding industry standards, but also promoting the values of the Guild. Over the past 40 years, the Guild’s winemakers have demonstrated a commitment to developing the local wine industry, through innovative practices and the sharing of knowledge.
Followers of the Guild and its wine releases will of course note the evolution of the organisation. Sitting with fellow members Gary Jordan, Samantha O’Keefe and the new CWG Chair, Gordon Newton-Johnson, we tasted the 2022 releases and discussed this fascinating evolution in detail. From the outside looking in, to me, the wines in the early days reflected the pinnacle of any winemaker’s production. Wines were often the very best one or two barrels that were pulled out and bottled separately to showcase the excellence of a specific winery. Encountering a line-up of CIWG wines at a tasting was always a real highlight for wine geeks as it supposedly represented the best of the best, and as such, acted as an intriguing barometer of South Africa’s prestige wine quality and the country’s current level of technical advancement.
The Guild’s evolution over the years has also involved becoming invested in the valuable role in driving and supporting the transformation of the South African wine industry through the CWG Development Trust and the CWG Protégé Programme, not only supporting but also raising up the next generation of diverse, innovative and exceptional South African winemakers and industry experts. Inevitably, the era of the young guns would lead to a number of them eventually being invited to join the Guild, and this is perhaps the starting point of what I term the second era of the Guild.
This second era for all intents and purposes, became more about experimentation, innovation and pushing the boundaries of winemaking, and probably no wine represented this shift in orientation more than the AA Badenhorst Family Wines CWG Adi Badenhorst ‘Geel-Kapel’ Swartland Muscat de Frontignan 2013 with its hazy and cloudy golden hue, its oxidative, stemmy, beer yeast notes, with nuances of orange peel, flowers, rose buds and musk on the nose and a high alcohol, lean, yeasty and nutty, tannic phenolic texture on the palate, making this an incredibly individual style, and of course, a highly controversial CWG wine at the time. It was sommelier Miguel Chan who commented at the time: “In my honest opinion, not worthy of being on the auction, considering the very high standards of sound winemaking that have generally prevailed over the last three decades. By offering a wine like this the CWG have potentially opened a back door for possible mediocrity in the future! Simply put, cloudy and unstable wine does not have its place at that level of precision.” Punchy, razor-sharp words indeed!
From what I tasted this week in London, the CWG has now definitely entered what I like to think is its third era, a golden era, and to quote from the new CWG Chair, Gordo’s auction foreword, “There is reason for optimism in 2022 as we reconnect and search for balance after the intrusion of the Covid pandemic in our lives.” This quest for balance is not just something we are seeing in the broader South African wine industry, it is a character in many of the new wines on the CWG 2022 auction line-up. Not just balance in terms of winemaking, but also balance in terms of philosophy and innate quality, where innovation becomes a segue to greater complexity and character, and not simply a ‘Geel-Kapel’ style rebelliousness – art and science in a more perfect, harmonious relationship.
The CWG 2022 Auction takes place on Friday 30 September from 17h00 to 20h00, and on Saturday 1 October from 09h00 to 15h00 at the Lord Charles Hotel, Somerset West, Cape Town.
The Highlights of my London CWG Tasting:
Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel Decade Pinot Meunier 2011 (Johan Malan) – 93/100
Silverthorn Big Dog VIII Méthode Cap Classique 2017 (John Loubser) – 94/100
De Grendel Wooded Sauvignon Blanc 2021 (Charles Hopkins) – 93/100
Beaumont Family Wines Hope Single Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2020 (Sebastian Beaumont) – 95+/100
Mullineux Trifecta Chenin Blanc 2020 (Andrea Mullineux) – 96/100
David & Nadia Veiling Chenin Blanc 2021 (David Sadie) – 96+/100
Raats Family Wines The Fountain Terroir Specific Chenin Blanc 2021 (Bruwer Raats) – 97/100
De Trafford Ou Kopland Chenin Blanc 2021 (David Trafford) – 95/100
Mullineux The Gris Sémillon 2021 (Andrea Mullineux) – 97+/100
Warwick The White Lady Auction Chardonnay 2020 (JD Pretorius) – 94/100
Newton Johnson Family Vineyards Sandford Chardonnay 2020 (Gordon Newton Johnson) – 95+/100
Paul Cluver Wines The Wagon Trail Chardonnay 2021 (Andries Burger) – 95/100
Lismore Estate Vineyards Valkyrie Chardonnay 2021 (Samantha O’Keefe) – 95/100
Gottfried Mocke Wine Projects Chardonnay 2021 (Gottfried Mocke) – 94/100
Ataraxia Under the Gavel Chardonnay 2021 (Kevin Grant) – 96/100
De Grendel Op Die Berg Pinot Noir 2019 (Charles Hopkins) – 94/100
Newton Johnson Family Vineyards Windansea Pinot Noir 2020 (Gordon Newton Johnson) – 93/100
Bouchard Finlayson Pinot Noir 2019 (Peter Finlayson) – 95/100
David & Nadia Veiling Grenache Noir 2021 (David Sadie) – 95/100
Luddite Oupa Mourvèdre 2019 (Niels Verburg) – 94/100
Lismore Estate Vineyards The Sheltering Sky Syrah 2020 (Samantha O’Keefe) – 96/100
Ernie Els Wines CWG 2019 (Louis Strydom) – 93/100
Saronsberg Inner Circle 2019 (Dewaldt Heyns) – 95/100
Boplaas Family Vineyards CWG Daniel’s Legacy 2020 (Carel Nel) – 92+/100
Kanonkop CWG Paul Sauer 2019 (Abrie Beeslaar) – 97+/100
De Trafford Perspective 2020 (David Trafford) – 93/100
Hartenberg Wine Estate CWG Amphora Merlot 2020 (Carl Schultz) – 92/100
Raats Family Wines Stella Nova Cabernet Franc 2018 (Bruwer Raats) – 95/100
Neil Ellis Wines Jonkershoek Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 (Warren Ellis) – 96+/100
Delaire Graff Estate Banghoek Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 (Morné Vrey) – 95/100
Miles Mossop Wines Maximilian 2019 (Miles Mossop) – 95/100
Boekenhoutskloof Syrah Auction Reserve 2020 (Marc Kent) – 96/100
Simonsig Heirloom Shiraz 2020 (Johan Malan) – 96+/100
Cederberg Teen Die Hoog Shiraz 2020 (David Nieuwoudt) – 95+/100
Hartenberg Wine Estate CWG Auction Shiraz 2020 (Carl Schultz) – 93/100
Kanonkop CWG Pinotage 2019 (Abrie Beeslaar) – 96/100
Boplaas Family Vineyards Cape Tawny Reserve 2005 (Carel Nel) – 95+/100
Sustainable wine production has increased worldwide alongside rising consumer awareness and their demand for organic and minimalistic wines. There are additional reasons why leading international wineries have chosen to follow natural principles in winemaking: The added value for their wines by using natural, certified organic supplements providing more native nutrient and enzymatic retention; a contribution to environmental protection by less pollution (e.g. microplastic-free); a higher quality end-product that meets customer needs and expectations (vegan, allergen-free, natural) and also ethical reasons, such as responsible farming practices.
What role do organic active yeasts and organic yeast products play here, and what advantages do they offer for winemakers? Today, organic products do not merely belong to a niche market but they are synonymous with quality in production and practices. Well-known wineries all over the world are looking for organic solutions as they no longer want to use synthetic fungicides and herbicides in the vineyard. This extends to the use of organic solutions during winemaking, where these wineries also wish to omit the use of conventional, synthetic products. Another trend in the wine industry is the use of less additives, and reduced interventions, contributing to the organic approach in winemaking.
It is to be expected that transparency and accountability are going to become more important in wine as consumer expectations evolve. Therefore it could be an advantage for winemakers to guarantee their customers full transparency with premium wine made with 100 % additives and raw materials of organic certified origin and allergen-free.
Minimal Intervention in Winemaking
Since inception, 2B FermControl South Africa’s mission is to help wine producers preserve and emphasize the intrinsic sensory properties of their grape varieties and the specific characteristics of their terroir. It achieves this through reduced use of natural additives and targeted harnessing of nature’s own tools.
As befits the company motto: “LESS IS MORE”, conventional additives can be reduced or eliminated by using organic active yeasts or other solutions in pure, natural form. This also results in less environmental pollution, by using eco-friendly alternatives for PVPP and microplastics. Additionally, the nutrients and yeasts are free of petrochemical elements or preservatives. Avoidance of metabolic engineering and hybridization techniques are also promoted.
This “minimal intervention” approach has gained broad acceptance by well-known international wine estates, that are following the principles of biological vinification, both for ethical and premium quality reasons.
Beyond Just Quality – Why Production Methods Matter
As the wine industry grapples with the changing climate, which is putting more stress on our vineyards, wineries are taking a closer look at their sustainability measures and where they can make impacts on reduction, recycling and rethinking what has been the status quo. There is abundant proof that making the right decision environmentally makes also good business sense because of the direct correlation to wine quality.
To gain a better understanding regarding the differences in production processes, the illustration below gives winemakers (and wine consumers) the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes of conventional yeast production versus real organic yeast production.
For certified organic yeast production, only substrates from certified organic viticulture can be used. The absence of chemical stress and the cool drying process are gentler towards the yeast and its enzymatic functions. This results in multiple functional advantages for any winemaker using organic yeasts, as well as for the consumer, enjoying a pure and delicious product of high quality.
You Have The Choice
There are endless decisions to be made in winemaking to gain delicious wine. Which yeast, which nutrient, which fermentation style, which protocol – that all comes down to the decision of each individual winemaker. Sustainability plays a role too and knowing more about product origins gives the power and tools to make decisions that are right for each person’s wines and environmental ethos – and to satisfy your customers’ necessities.
The producer of the wine judged Best Overall in this year’s Prescient Chardonnay Report wins a 2BFermControl organic fermentation kit worth approximately R10 500.
The producer of the wine judged Best Overall in this year’s Prescient Cabernet Sauvignon Report wins a 2BFermControl organic fermentation kit worth approximately R11 000.
For all information around sustainable and minimal intervention winemaking, please contact Clayton Reabow at 2B FermControl South Africa: clayton@2bfermcontrol.com
The Constantia Wine Route recently held a tasting to showcase its red wines – whereas 43% of the 435ha of what’s planted in this ward is Sauvignon Blanc, the next two most widely occurring varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, together making up some 17%.
Constantia wants to leverage its “cool climate” credentials and you might think that this would facilitate the slow accumulation of sugars and therefore the ability to achieve phenolic ripeness at lower alcohol levels but the stand-out wine of the tasting was the currently-available Cabernet Franc 2014 from Buitenverwachting clocking in at 15.2% alcohol.
Matured for 26 months in French oak barrels, of which 100% was new, the nose is complex with notes of dark berries, potpourri, some leafiness, undergrowth, earth and pencil shavings while the palate is well proportioned with dense fruit, fresh acidity and fine tannins. It carries its alcohol well and comes across as still very youthful. Price: R380 a bottle.
CE’s rating: 94/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Last year on a road trip through the Agulhas Wine Triangle, I met winemaker Pierre Rabie. A childhood spent diving and fishing along this southernmost coastline inspired his label The Giant Periwinkle. We met at his cellar on a small farm just outside of Baardskeerdersbos, near Elim. Here, he siphoned a sample of the Blanc Fumé 2021 for us to taste.
“This may blow your head off,” he said with a smile, referring to the wine’s high acidity. Standing there in the cool sunshine, the scent of the sea not far off, it didn’t quite do that. Rather the crystalline wine lit the imagination, the acid acting as a structural component.
Rabie says it’s the combination of the high acids and low pHs of the Agulhas fruit that gives his white wines their distinctive flinty minerality and mouthfeel. Fast-forward to 2022 though and it’s this very distinctiveness that has seen the same wine rejected by South Africa’s sensory panel that decide certification, citing it “lacked sufficient cultivar characteristics”.
“I don’t mind chemical analysis, that’s objective,” Rabie stresses. “What I have an issue with is someone sitting out in Stellenbosch telling me what Agulhas sauvignon blanc should taste like.“What’s great about South Africa is our diverse terroir – we can’t produce one type of sauvignon blanc. There is no such thing.”
The majority of wines that are “failed” get appealed and in most cases are eventually approved. But at what cost? Time is a big one. The whole distribution chain is delayed.
Another is innovation. “We’re still learning. You don’t want this panel to stifle freedom. We should be allowed to be more creative and we’ll do spectacular things,” says Rabie. “That’s what makes this country great. Trying to legislate and control everything just suffocates that spirit.”So, how does the sensory panel work? Craig Hawkins of Testalonga and one of the industry’s original disruptors, knows all too well how it operates. He had an almost permanent seat at the appeals’ committee with his range of alternative wines.
“You know it’s very easy to slam them,” he says, referring to the panel. “ But it’s important to understand the process. There are a lot of positives. It’s mostly a well-run system. But currently it’s broken in some places and it should be repaired so the machine can keep running.”Like Rabie, Hawkins thinks the lab analysis and the label assessment can stick around. “Both of those are completely objective. The sensory assessment though is just silly, we’ve moved on from those days where all wines tasted the same.”Hawkins with his first-hand knowledge explained the system as thus. The Wine & Spirit Board set the legislation, while SAWIS does the running of it. The sensorial tasters are volunteers, generally other winemakers. The panel consists of five tasters who sit in booths; they are given the wine with basic information as well as a checklist. After tasting they either hit the green, or the red button. The latter meaning: “Do not pass go”.
If the wine gets three reds out of five, then it goes to a second submission. If it fails again, then it goes to a third submission. If it fails yet again, then it’s escalated to the technical committee, which is made up esteemed producers. Neil Ellis, for example, is on it. It’s rare to fail at this point, though some still do.
The first vintage of Testalonga’s Skin (2009) was one. “In fairness there wasn’t yet a skin-macerated category,” shrugs Hawkins. “But they could have seen through that, instead they failed it for being oxidised…”.
“I took the wine to Wessel du Toit, a professor at University of Stellenbosch. I proved in fact it was actually reductive and fault-free.” Hawkins says that eventually, after some concerted campaigning, it passed.
This spurred on action to level the playing field. In 2012, five producers got together to get new categories added to the dreaded checklist. Along with Hawkins, they were Jurgen Gouws of Intellego, Adi Badenhorst, Eben Sadie, Callie Louw of Porseleinberg and the Mullineuxs.
The Swartland cohorts were successful. The new categories covered the basis of: skin-macerated, alternative red, rosé and white wines, méthode ancestrale, flor and solera techniques.“That really helped,” says Hawkins, “because the next year they had boxes to tick.”Though watching how things have evolved over the ten years since Hawkins laments that it’s the tasters who are now the issue. “It’s a conflict of interest; you can’t have winemakers judging other winemakers.“It’s kind of insulting to have your peers saying your wine isn’t good enough. That they know your market better than you.”
A sentiment Mick Craven agrees with. He and wife Jeanine run their own-label brand, Craven Wines.
“Imagine you got a group together of any other industry, let’s say oranges. And there was a panel of orange farmers who got together and tasted another farmer’s oranges to see if they are fit for sale?” Craven asks rhetorically. He in particular is currently feeling exasperated at the process.
The Craven Pinot Gris 2022 was recently failed by the panel for being ‘turbid and hazy’.
“In the nine years we’ve made this wine we have had to fight for it for seven times. The only times we didn’t have to was when the panel was disbanded during the pandemic, for obvious reasons. But here we are in 2022.
“We’ve got importers all over the world who want these wines. And suddenly, there’s a panel of five people who have deemed our wine is not good enough.”Craven thinks the period of the pandemic should be looked at as an opportunity to gather data. A time when exports only grew. “It’s the perfect two-year window to revaluate if the system works.
“The Wine of Origin scheme tracks and traces. SAWIS does great work. We have a word-class laboratory system. But as soon as it gets to any form of subjectivity, it’s completely irrelevant. There are always going to be tasters that hate the wine, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fit for sale.
“What’s the point of these tasting panels anymore?”
The Pinot Gris, after three anxious weeks for the Cravens, has finally been approved.
The whole process does seem arbitrary, and rather self-defeatist. The time and resources could go into something that rather uplifts the industry. We all have the same goal in the end, right? To promote South African wine on the world stage, not keep it in the wings.
Golfer Ernie Els is known as the “Big Easy” on account of his fluid golf swing but the 2020 Red Blend from the cellar that bears his name is also aptly named as it’s made in accessible style without being facile.
A blend of 60% Shiraz, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cinsault. 5% Grenache, 5% Mourvèdre and 5% Viognier, it was matured for 14 months in older oak. The nose shows red and black berries, some floral perfume, white pepper and spice while the palate is juicy and fresh with soft tannins. It’s luscious, flavourful and very more-ish. Price: R185 a bottle.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
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Check out our South African wine ratings database.
The theme for this year’s Cape Wine, the flagship business showcase of the South African wine industry presented by generic export body Wines of South Africa (WOSA) in October, is “Sustainability 360”, the three pillars of focus being “People, Place and Prosperity”, the idea being to demonstrate to delegates how a “brighter and better future” is being created for “those who are directly involved and invested in South African wine, surrounding communities, the fauna and flora that envelops it and the longer-term growth and upliftment of the industry”.
All very worthy but the industry’s major challenge is surely that it is still not regarded as a major player in the world of fine wine. In 2021, 51% of wine sales by volume were exports, and of that, some 60% was bulk. However, those bulk exports only accounted for about 25% of value.
When it comes to packaged wine, the country is still identified with its large brands which sell in the affordable rather in the deluxe price segments – easy-drinking Kumala as owned by Accolade Wines South Africa, for instance, remains massively powerful in the United Kingdom, which is the country’s most important export market.
South Africa’s immediate challenge is to persuade sophisticated consumers that its top wines are worth the kind of money that many are willing to shell out for French or Italian appellations.
To a large extent, the market is taking care of the problem of unbranded wine at the lower end of business. As has been noted many times, the national vineyard peaked at 102 146ha in 2006 and has declined every year since then – total plantings at the end of 2021 were 90 512ha.
When it comes to packaged wine, it’s difficult to see were SA’s next mega-brands are going to come from – the acquisition of producer-wholesaler Distell by Heineken still needs bedding down while DGB and KWV don’t look geared to produce a Yellow Tail (Australia) or Blossom Hill (USA) just yet.
It would seem that SA’s wine’s only hope is to convince the world of its fine wine credentials. What determines fine wine? Essentially, it’s two-pronged – terroir and the cult of winemaker personality. It can be debated what’s more important – site or charismatic creator – but after a point, it’s irrelevant as both are needed to capture the imagination of the highly involved wine consumer.
Readers of this website might be forgiven for thinking that the credentials of small-scale, independent wineries now go without saying. I suspect, however, that Alheit, Sadie and even Kanonkop are far less well known in Paris, Sydney or New York than some local stakeholders might presume.
When it comes to SA wine, small is beautiful. The country DOES have both the richness of terroir and winemaking personnel to win over the world – 224 of the 536 wineries in operation at the end of 2021 crushed 100 tons or less per year so that’s pretty much how the industry is structured in any event. A lot of these producers cannot supply supermarkets because they don’t have the necessary volumes, but equally do not want to, because they don’t have the inclination to get involved in the grubby world of promotion and discount.
It could be argued that if these small wineries were prepared to invest not just financially, but emotionally, in the local market then they would have no need to export – cellar door and direct sales through databases offer the highest margins and most control. It does seem, though, that small wineries like travelling to export markets regardless of the ultimate profitability – as a producer, checking on your listing at Copenhagen’s best restaurant probably makes 2am punch-downs less intolerable.
When everything is taken to consideration, specialty stores, wine bars and wine-committed restaurants remain the primary channels to reach the right consumer. The internet killed specialty music stores and the internet seems to be killing cinemas but when it comes to wine, consumers still seek information, variety and even, dare I say, the sort of communion that only face-to-face interaction can provide. Sustainability, whether it be social, environmental, or economic, is obviously vitally important but we must be relevant and attractive to the world in the first place.
Koueberg (Cold Mountain) sounds a good place to be growing grapes as temperatures inexorably rise. On its lower slopes, in the Sondagskloof ward of the Walker Bay region – just north of the district named Agulhas for the southernmost tip of Africa, and close enough to the Atlantic to get cooling benefits from its wind – is Cold Mountain Farm. It’s a large estate, 417 hectares that’s mostly covered with pristine fynbos (stretching to include flowers for the market), but there are cultivated figs and vegetables, and the vineyards that give grapes to Brunia Wines.
I visited Wade Sander, who makes the wines, some months ago, as winter approached. Just out of the pretty village of Stanford, you turn off from the route to Caledon and drive some 15 kilometres on a gravel road through open, beautiful and rather empty country, the mountains (not very high, really) making the horizons. Actually, if you’re not paying sufficient attention after passing Hermanuspietersfontein, the only other Sunday’s Glen winefarm, you might go about 10 kilometres further before realising your mistake and turning back to find the eminently visible sign for Brunia – though not regretting the extra distance and thinking that one day you’ll return to explore further….
Proper direction recovered, you go up the hill on the other side, past a vineyard and fig plantation or two and a large shed, and there’s the rather handsome house which the Sander family built after they bought the farm in 2016 – after a long search, it seems. It’s occupied primarily by Wade and Wade’s brother Brett and his family. Brett is the farm’s agriculturist, a deeply experienced and keen proponent of organics and agroecology: since 2016 he has undertaken the arduous conversion of the farm to organic and biodynamic practices, work “both challenging and exhilarating”.
The vines are nicely mature now – 12 to 15 years old: mostly sauvignon blanc (which doesn’t entirely suit all of Wade’s ambitions) but also pinot noir, chardonnay, semillon and syrah. One nice touch is that the trimmings from the flower operations are used as mulch – including the rare Brunia laevis (Silver Brunia) which gives its name to the wine brand.
Wade himself only committed fully to the farm in mid 2020 and gave up his work as winemaker for Leeu Passant. Six years with Andrea and Chris Mullineux, as well as other local and international experience (he seems to have found the old-fashioned, almost peasant, culture of the Jura region France particularly inspiring), have given him a fine grounding – I think one can sense the example of Andrea’s close attention to detail in the Brunia wines. And all of that experience, and the respect for the land he shares with his brother, have given him the ambition to express the truth of their patch of the Sondagskloof in his wines.
It’s no doubt too early to fully understand exactly what the terroir is bringing to the wines, apart, of course, from the effect of cooler temperatures and longer. The winemaking is generally unobtrusive, quite oxidative, designed to bring out subtler characters than just the fruit – though that is purely expressed. The wines are, in fact, distinctive, and I did start to sense some commonality of nuance beyond the cool-climate bright freshness.
The Sauvignon Blanc 2020 is one to encourage non-lovers of the variety – slightly perfumed, with yellow fruit and a savoury note, velvety soft but with a good acidity. I admired even more the White 2019 (something over R250), from cofermented sauvignon and semillon (the latter the minority partner but making a notable contribution to aroma, flavour and texture); rich and rounded, intense and textured, and again that fresh succulence. Single-vineyard semillon and chardonnay will also be available from the 2020 vintage.
As for the reds – the Pinot Noir 2019 is in lightish style, mildly perfumed, with cherry notes and a touch of undergrowth; more seductive than assertive, though with a decent tannic-acid grip. Pretty good, but it’s the Syrah 2019 that I enjoyed most. It seems to me a welcome and excellent addition to the Cape’s repertoire of fine syrah, characterful, expressive and exciting, with a real cool-origin element; a herbal-floral note on the aromas and flavour that is something I always love to find in syrah, the fynbos notes perhaps speaking directly of the terroir. At about R290 it is highly recommendable.
I can’t leave Cold Mountain without alluding to an important aspect of its future: collaborative work with another of the emerging generation of fine, ambitious winemakers. Natasha Williams has been the personal partner for some years of Wade Sander, during the time when she has been working as a winemaker – including developing her immensely promising young brand, Lelie van Saron, and now its offshoot, Jade, so far a platform for experimental work. (See here for my look last year at Lelie.) Two young people – both quiet but confident in their personalities and self-presentation, both equally subtle in their winemaking – in the early days of their very promising careers.
It’s going to be a formidable team. Watch this space, I’d say.
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