Page 184 – winemag

It was on a trip to France that started in Chablis and finished in Sancerre in the early 2010s that I came to a particularly acute realisation that place is more important than grape variety when it comes to great terroir – tasting extensively, it was extraordinary how similar the white wines of the two regions presented in terms of their inherent sappiness even though they are constituted from different varieties, Chardonnay in Chablis and Sauvignon Blanc in Sancerre.

The quality of South African fine wine has tracked seemingly endlessly upward in the modern era, a phenomenon that has been delightful to follow but also difficult to explain. Perhaps, however, a consideration of varieties was less important than any of us imagined, and it all comes down to terroir.

On a basic level, we all buy into the idea that the best wines reflect the interplay of soil, climate and topography. There is also a human element that is crucial to the concept in that it is only by experimentation, decades if not centuries of trial and error, that wine starts to take on regional character rather than variety.

Get terroir right and place becomes paramount. The classical European model of wine is that it has an address. When it comes to Barolo or Montrachet or Paulliac, the grape varieties involved are almost immaterial.

It may well be time to re-introduce the concept of terroir into the local wine debate and it was an experience I had last week that helped crystallize this thought. I was tasting with Matt Day, winemaker at Klein Constantia, an array of wines made up of various examples of Sauvignon Blanc in front of us, and while the overall quality was undeniable, their success was not premised on being true to variety but rather to site. Less about pyrazines and thiols and more about a local flavour, a certain “South African-ness” if you will.

Klein Constantia, of course, has come a long way with Sauvignon Blanc, this being a key focus since the Joostes took over the property in the 1980s, the maiden vintage 1986 as made by the late Ross Gower very much steeped in legend. The property changed ownership in 2011 and the variety has only received more attention since then. Philosophically, however, everything that Day does is aimed at removing any winemaking imprint and letting the property’s identity come to the fore.

My moment of epiphany came when tasting the 2019 vintage of Block 382, this vinified in a second-fill 500-litre barrel but a wine that initially left Day so nonplussed that he transferred to a much older barrel and left if to mature for 20 months altogether, much longer than he would usually. Now, however, it stops you in your tracks.

On the nose, it has a note of fynbos to go with pear and lime plus a little flinty reduction and that fynbos, as opposed to an under-ripe green-ness, is starting to become a defining feature of SA’s very best wines, whether they be white or red. Does it have anything to do with growing vines in the Cape Floral Region, the smallest and relatively most diverse of the world’s six floral kingdoms? Apparently, something special is going on with these skies, slopes and soils…

The palate, meanwhile, has the same mouthwatering vinosity, the same weightless intensity that the very best examples of old-vine Chenin tend to show. Drink this Sauvignon Blanc next to Plat’bos 2019 from David & Nadia, say, or Huilkrans 2019 from Alheit and their respective varieties that the wines are made from becomes pretty much irrelevant relative to their country of origin. The sense of visceral excitement that these wines generate is the same. South Africa has long struggled to use place to sell its wine perhaps because there was no real overarching flavour or character. Until now, that is.

Help us out. If you’d like to show a little love for independent media, we’d greatly appreciate it. To make a financial contribution, click here. Invoice available upon request – contact info@winemag.co.za

If I return to the Cape winelands as an inquisitive ghost in, say, 30 years time, I shall be most curious to see what has happened to the brilliant generation of winemakers who led the transformation of the industry in the early decades of this century. Will all that excitement, have been consolidated into a continuing achievement likely to continue down the ages (or at least one age), like those enduring estates and domains of old Europe? Right now, I’m guessing that at least a few of the names will only appear in someone’s collection of tattered old books – copies of Platter’s perhaps; and if the owners of the names chose not to appear in Platter’s, scattered to the ethereal winds and untender mercies of digital reality.

I imagine and hope that names like those of the older brands and properties – from Groot Constantia and Vergelegen to Nederburg and far beyond – will still survive and thrive (including a few taken over recently by the new-style likes of Reenen Borman at Boschkloof). What, though, of those newer names which are now so full of glory but not attached to established properties? It’s partly a question of sustainability. After all, the sharpest point of modern Cape wine has been constituted by largely money-less young winemakers able to afford excellent quality grapes farmed by others, and with nothing more than a handshake to guarantee the future availability of those grapes. The potential of collapse in such a situation has been pointed out a few times.

In fact, there has been a notable consolidation over the last decade amongst at least a good handful of the avant-garde (many of them not exactly young anymore), with an establishment of their own wineries and a growing accumulation of their own vineyards. Though even here there remains a heavy reliance on those handshakes and vague contracts for bought-in grapes. Take the Swartland, perhaps the epicentre of the revolution, where a range of different models has given the older generation of revolutionaries substantial bases for their operations. Adi Badenhorst scraped together enough to buy, in partnership with a family member, a derelict Paardeberg farm, and has re-established it marvellously and extended it quite dramatically with purchases of adjacent land. Eben Sadie bought a small farm, planted vines and built splendid infrastructure, and is continuing to move onwards from that. Andrea and Chris Mullineux chose to go into partnership with big money to build a solid foundation for their work. David and Nadia Sadie have a complex (well, to me it is) arrangement with the farmer on whose land they farm and whose winery they have developed. Craig and Carla Hawkins bought a cheap but promising farm in a remote part of the Swartland on which to slowly develop vineyards as they can afford to, and a few others have followed that route. Chris and Suzaan Alheit now also own a Swartland farm, and I’m confident they will have more own vineyards soon. As the next generation gains some capital, there is no doubt that they too will gain bases on which to, hopefully, build a secure future.

I’m thinking, however, that all that stuff is not necessarily enough to ensure survival of a brand. Just think of the names of those wine businesses, and realise at least part of the problem: Sadie/Alheit/Badenhorst/Mullineux & Leeu with their “Family Wines”; David & Nadia, Catherine Marshall, Miles Mossop and many others with the names of a current generation. I wonder at the extent to which they too project their businesses into the future bearing names and familiness – and am even occasionally a touch aghast, though admiringly so, at the confidence about the future thus expressed.

Of course, we can see that the model can work extremely well, given the right, happy circumstances. Neil Ellis Vineyard Selection was born in the mid 1980s, as the Cape’s first négociant business attached to a single winemaker. Neil soon formed a partnership to acquire lands and capital and it became Neil Elis Wines in 1993. With he himself largely retired, it’s a firmly established family business, with a fine winery and some substantial vineyard holdings (as well as continuing to outsource grapes); there were children to take over the leadership roles, including the winemaking, and the transition was smoothly made with no diminution in reputation as Neil moved into the background.

That’s a process that’s still largely to happen with the splendid array of new wineries of the 21^st century. In many (most? virtually all?) cases, if the winemaker, around whom the reputation has been built, were to disappear (Bacchus et al forbid!), could the brand survive? If the charismatic and gifted Eben Sadie were suddenly there no more, what would happen to Sadie Family Wines? Despite the fact that there is a winemaker firmly established and confident in the cellar, would it go the way of, say, briefly illustrious Veenwouden after the death of Deon van der Walt (who played a very different role there, and the circumstances were admittedly not propitious)? There are two young Sadie sons who are already growing as winemakers. If and when they are in a position to take over in a decade or so, and maintain the tradition of excellence, then Sadie Family Wines would be well set to become fully established as a family winery and a going concern.

But few of the new wave of winemakers are yet in anything like that position of comparative comfort. What happens if their children show no interest in continuing? How likely to survive are those family or personal names, so bravely attached to a brand? Though, of course, it’s not just wineries with such names that are vulnerable. Most of the great young brands are, at this early stage, still inextricably publicly and intrinsically linked to the personalities and skills of individuals and couples.

It takes a bit of time for it to become otherwise, I suspect. Bouchard Finlayson, following a different path of development from Neil Ellis’s, survived a change of ownership and the gradual withdrawal of Peter Finlayson – I daresay few serious winelovers now know who owns the winery and farm or who makes the wine. That’s, of course, as it should be in a mature industry: it’s the land that matters most, and the tradition of fine winemaking. But the Bouchard Finlayson terroir has never been in doubt. It’s not the same for the young winemakers reliant for their consistency on handshakes and personal relationships with scattered farmers.

No doubt I would be overly pessimistic in fearing that much of the work of the new-wave generation, as exemplified by the Swartland revolutionaries, is unlikely to survive. I’m confident that most of it will. But it’s worth being cautiously aware of the vulnerabilities.

Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. He is a taster (and associate editor) for Platter’s. His book Wines of South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013

Paarl cellar Perdeberg is celebrating its 80th anniversary, and hence the release of Rex Equus Pioneer’s Blend 2019 – 1941 numbered bottles recognizing the year that the cellar was established and 80 magnums to celebrate every year of existence since then.

A blend of 38% Malbec, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 10% Petit Verdot, it was matured for 18 months in 500-litre French oak barrels, 50% new. And nicely judged it is, too. Red and black berries, olive, herbs, a hint of reduction, vanilla and spice on the nose before a palate that’s medium bodied with good fruit purity, fresh acidity and fine tannins. It has a suppleness about it that already makes it quite accessible but it’s certainly not facile (alcohol: 14.16%). Price: R600 per bottle or R1 200 per magnum.

Doddie’5 Red Blend 2019 is a wine for rugby lovers to get behind. Made by former Springbok Schalk Burger Snr of Welbedacht in Wellington, its marketed through Sporting Wine Club, co-founded by ex-Englanhttps://sportingwineclub.com/d international Simon Halliday, all profits going to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation – Doddie Weir is a Scottish rugby legend (he earned 61 caps as a lock for the country and represented the British & Irish Lions on their successful tour to South Africa in 1997) who came to have Motor Neuron Disease and in turn dedicated himself to raising funds to find a cure. To complete the rugby connection, the front label is by former Saracens academy player Henry Fraser, who was left paralysed after an accident at the age of 17 and is now an accomplished mouth-painter.

The wine is a blend of five varieties, Weir having worn the No. 5 jersey, specifically Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and just before it becomes too predictable, some Mourvèdre. The nose shows red and black berries, a touch of herb and, no doubt thanks to that Mourvèdre, some meatiness and pepper. It has nice palate weight – lots of juicy fruit and bright acidity, the tannins not too grippy. Hearty and a little rustic, which is not inappropriate given that it’s named after a tight forward. Price is £119.70 per six-bottle case.

Is Shiraz the magic ingredient that ensures that Bellingham The Homestead Red Blend 2017 over-delivers when it comes to quality relative to price? Costing R99 a bottle, it’s a super-tasty drop that is certified as “Merlot-Cabernet Sauvignon” but makes use of the leeway permitted by Wine and Spirit Board allowing 15% of other varieties that do not have to be declared so that the blend is actually 62% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc and the rest Malbec, Petit Verdot and, yes, a tiny fraction of Shiraz. A Cape Bordeaux Red Blend with a little something extra.

Matured for some 12 months in French oak of which 10% was new, the nose shows red and black berries, some leafiness plus vanilla and spice while the palate is medium bodied with good freshness and fine tannins. It’s well balanced and rather charming drop that holds its own against much more expensive wines.

Cape Town restaurant La Colombe has been named the 13th Best Fine Dining Restaurant in the World (and the Best Restaurant in Africa) in this year’s Tripadvisor Traveller’s Choice Best of the Best Awards announced recently. The Old Stamp House Restaurant in Ambleside, United Kingdom placed best overall. Tripadvisor is the world’s largest travel guidance platform and was founded in 2000.

View Tripadvisor’s Tripadvisor’s Best Fine Dining Restaurants – Africa here.

The new releases from Trizanne Barnard of Trizanne Signature Wines are out and my overall impression is that they grow evermore in delicacy and subtlety. Tasting notes and ratings as follows:

TSW Reserve Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2019
Price: R225
W.O. Elim. 61% Semillon and 29% Sauvignon Blanc. Barrel fermented and matured for 10 months in French oak, 20% new. Blackcurrant, lime and white peach, a hint of vanilla, plus subtle notes of hay and dried herbs in the background. The palate is lean with a particular tension about it – pure fruit, cutting acidity and a saline finish. Will only benefit from time in bottle.

TSW Elim Semillon 2019
Price: R270
Barrel fermented and matured for 10 months, 20% new. Complex aromatics of hay, lime, pear and white peach plus vanilla and some leesy complexity. The palate has super-concentrated fruit and driving acidity before a finish that is pithy, even slightly grippy. Great purity and wonderfully harmonious.

TSW Sondagskloof White 2020
Price: R400
From Sauvignon Blanc, 50% undergoing skin contact for two and a half weeks. Matured for 10 months in oak, 50% new. Intense aromatics of black currant, white peach and perhaps some honeydew melon as well as a little leesy complexity. The palate has massive concentration – lovely weight and texture but equally driving acidity. Layers of flavour and extremely long on the finish.

TSW Onderduivenshokrivier Chardonnay 2020
Price: R400
From a vineyard situated in the area between Heidelberg, Riversdale and Vermaaklikheid. Matured for 10 months in oak, 20% new. Struck match, pear, lemon and a hint of vanilla on the nose. The palate shows pure fruit and bright acidity before a nicely dry finish. Classically styled, this currently comes across as youthful and quite understated.

TSW Darling Barbera 2019
Price: R225
Mature for 10 months in older oak. Some smoky reduction before red cherry and dried herbs on the nose. The palate is lean with high acidity and fine tannins. Alcohol is a mere 11.5% but the wine is somehow not too angular or severe – rather it offers great refreshment value.

TSW Reserve Syrah 2019
Price: R270
W.O. Elim. Grapes entirely destemmed, maturation lasting 10 months in oak, 20% new. A hint of reduction before red berries, a hint of floral perfume, fynbos and white pepper. The palate is light and energetic – great fruit definition and fresh acidity before a salty finish. A decidedly elegant rendition of the variety.

When it comes to those testing notes called ‘wine descriptions’ or ‘judges’ comments’ the great Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (in the English world given short-shrift as ‘Horace’) may well have had some advice. His instruction to writers in his famous Ars Poetica – the basis of all literary criticism – can be summed up as “Keep it simple and cut to the chase.”

Dear Horatius (65 – 8 BC) is also the instigator of that awesome, aggravating phrase “… professis purpureus …” (“professing to purple”). As in all Latin, the meaning meanders in translation but it more or less advises authors not to tip their prose pens into colourful ink and overdo it. Ever since Horatius’ gentle advice the label ‘purple prose’ has been a red flag for critical readers and judges.

In the heyday of formal literary criticism (I’m from the era, a few decades ago, when Wellek and Warren’s Theory of Literature reigned supreme) ‘purple prose’ was hunted high and low. A no-no: too many and outrageous adjectives, outlandish metaphors and trampoline turns of show-off phrases.

But now we are in the era of anything but thinking and ‘close-reading’ (another beloved phrase of that era). Instant messaging is what it is all about. So, hello, a great comeback for purple prose and its acquaintances. Let’s say today’s purple prose is a little like populist propaganda. And now I’m talking about wine words.

These operate, if that is the right word, on back labels and in wine judge and commentators’ notes for publication.

Michael Fridjhon, esteemed man of taste, recently in a Business Day column, threw out the philosophical question whether purple prose is perhaps not a distraction (to put it mildly) in promoting the virtues of a wine. In this argument, one suspects, he is a solid supporter of Dear Horatius, not to mention Wellek and Warren who argued that in great writing “the prime and chief function is fidelity to its own nature”.

Could purple prose in back-label copy and tasting notes be disloyal to or dishonest about the wine inside?

To a close-reading cynic like me the idea of a wine producer telling me what to taste, how to experience and what to make of his/her wine puts up a red flag. What, if a rather ordinary person who rather likes wine hadn’t tasted crème de cassis before when told that this is cabernet sauvignon’s raison d’être? A bit embarrassing, n’est pas? Customer demeaning?

“This wine cascades enigmatic tonal flashes of pastoral purple, bestowing to taste charged aromatics of sunny seasonal red, blue and black berries, autumnal cherries, heirloom violets, sharpened old-school pencil and a whiff of a treasured cigar box. There is a fresh, lively sea air quality in harmony with heady notes of All Sorts, star anise, fennel and a mélange of Eastern spice counter smells. The palate is round bodied, vigorous and malleable, but takes its time to unveil a foundation of juicy, soft pebbly tannins, with robust, unyielding flavour of the premium grape and an extended, appealingly dry grip, supported by blackcurrant comfit, black fruit mousse, cocktail cherries and a trace of crushed curry-leaf.”

Purple prose, meaning all those delightful coins of phrase and clunky metaphors in my ‘note’, are quite likeable in some quarters. Especially, as I indicated, in our super-fast communication marketing environment. Colourful can steal the show.

Not sure how a wine can ‘cascade’ or what ‘pastoral purple’ might look like or exactly what a ‘dry grip’ feels like, but, I suppose, it does draw attention. After all, Horace was also known to love what he called the dulce et utile in the art of poetry. Yes, the sweet and the useful. Why not?

Vines for the L’Ormarins Die Ou Bostok Chenin Blanc 2018 have a history in more ways than one. Originally planted on the Paardeberg in 1964, they were transplanted to the Franschhoek property in 2007 and 2008 to avoid uprooting.

Winemaking for the 2018 vintage involved fermentation and maturation lasting seven months in an old foudre, the nose shows lemon and peach plus some pronounced waxy character while the palate is rich and full with a creamy texture. For all that fruit density, there’s also lovely tangy acidity while the finish is nicely savoury. Price: R355 a bottle.

In October 2008, a most unusual wine event took place in London. It involved some of South Africa’s top winemakers, and also many of the UK’s leading press. It was tense. It was a bit weird. But it was fascinating.

Back then, some 12 years ago, things were very different for South African wines in the UK. Compared to now, when many of the top wine journalists are advocates of the exciting wines coming from the Western Cape, the scene then was decidedly sceptical, at least with many of the national newspaper columnists at the time.

What was the issue? There was a distinctive taste that was exhibited by many South African red wines that marked them out as South African. This was an actual thing: I remember it at the time, and I was pro-South African wine. Jane McQuitty, the influential wine critic of The Times, was particularly vocal about it. Tim Atkin, who is now one of the strongest advocates of Cape Wines, was also outspoken on the issue. “The characters that I and most UK wine writers dislike so strongly in certain Cape reds seem to be enjoyed by many of our colleagues in South Africa,” he wrote in The Observer newspaper at the time, noting that at a recent tasting of 70 South African reds he’d found the character in a third of the wines. “Is it a case of what Australians call “cellar palate”, where a winemaker gets so used to tasting his own creations that he becomes blind to their limitations? Or is it just a difference of taste?”

Marketing body WOSA showed some initiative, and rather than deflect attention away from the issue, WOSA UK’s Jo Wehring helped pull together an event to discuss it, with help from Richard Kelley, an importer with strong ties to South Africa. The event was called “The Great Cape Wine Debate”. It involved a group of UK journalists and a select band of South African winemakers to discuss several current topics, focusing in particular on the “Burnt Rubber” issue. Kelley gathered together a star list of winemakers.

Marc Kent (Boekenhoutskloof)
Roelf & Michelle du Preez (Bon Cap)
Gottfried Mocke (Cape Chamonix)
Bruce Jack (Constellation)
Chris Williams (Meerlust/The Foundry)
Niels Verburg (Luddite)
Carl van der Merwe (Quoin Rock)
Eben Sadie (Sadie Family Wines)
Callie Louw (TMV)
Mike Ratcliffe (Warwick and Vilafonté)

Wehring had already got together a group of these critical journalists and presented them with a number of South African reds (as well as a few ringers) blind. They reached more-or-less a consensus on which reds showed the burnt rubber character, and these were sent to wine science researchers in South Africa for analysis to see if any offending characters could be identified. The goal was to then analyse the offending wines and try to identify chemical markers of this characteristic, with a view to eliminating it.

The London tasting was slightly odd, in that the group convened represented some of South Africa’s top winemaking talent. We tasted their wines, and none showed any hints of burnt rubber. And the samples that had already been sent back to the wine scientists in the Cape for analysis that had shown signs of this trait, but they didn’t yield any useful clues as to what was causing it. So all this work was somewhat in vain, other than to get people together to speculate as to the cause.

One suspicion was that the character was a result of the wine fault known as reduction. The idea is that if ferments are done and then the wine is stored in large tanks with little access to oxygen, volatile sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, disulfides and mercaptans can develop that give the wine a rubbery, dirty edge. Another suggestion was that vines that are suffering from virus can struggle to finish ripening red grapes such that affected vineyards might produce wines that have over-ripe components as well as under-ripeness side by side.

I’d forgotten about the whole burnt rubber episode. I taste a lot of wines every year. Many are fancy high-end wines, but I also have a newspaper column for which I’m regularly tasting through supermarket wines, and I’m co-chair for the International Wine Challenge, so in that capacity I’m exposed to wines across all price points. I don’t think I’ve used the “burnt rubber” descriptor for many years. But the issue raised its head again when I visited Chris Mullineux in the Swartland in November 2019, and he came up with the most convincing explanation for it that I’ve heard. “We have two fundamental principles,” he explained. “We don’t work with any vineyards affected by virus, and we don’t work with any vineyards with tar poles. There two types of trellising pole in South Africa. The ones we use in our vineyard are called Tanapoles, and they are slightly green when they are young. The old school way is they dipped the poles in tar, and we think this gives an aromatic flavour. In my opinion that is the “South African” taste.” He adds, “obviously, there are many opinions.”

“We had a bush vine Syrah vineyard that was super-vigorous, so we decided to trellis it. It was a 20 year old vineyard. We bought the poles and planted the vineyard. The next vintage the wine suddenly had the most hectic South African character, and it had never been there before. We thought it might be the barrels or something. But that winter we were in the vineyard pruning and it was a warm winter’s day. Andrea said, what’s that smell? I smell that flavour that was in the wine. We realized that it was the poles.”

It would be interesting if, indeed, the explanation for “South African” burnt rubber character in red wines turned out to be the way that trellising poles used to be treated.

Is SA fine wine finally getting beyond variety?

Login to Account

Create your account