Page 211 – winemag

Quoin Rock in Stellenbosch is today owned by the Ukrainian Gaiduk family with Schalk Opperman, previously of Lammershoek, recently installed as a winemaker. It is a property that has had its ups and downs over a relatively short history having been set up by maverick businessman Dave King in the late 1990s with New Zealand winemaker Rod Easthope as consultant. 2003 was the first year that Carl van der Merwe was solely in charge of the cellar and his wines were soon much-acclaimed before he left for DeMorgenzon (and has now left South Africa to make wine in Canada).

The Syrah 2003, which was judged best in category at the Fairbairn Capital Trophy Wine Show (subsequently rebranded as the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show), is still drinking well now. Made predominantly from first-crop own fruit but including a small portion of bough it in from Devon Valley, it was matured for 18 months in French oak, 25% new. With an alcohol of 15.1%, it’s always been a hugely concentrated wine and this has helped it’s maturation – the nose currently shows dark fruit, earth, pepper and other spice, lavender, a touch of leather, liquorice and malt while the palate is rich and broad with a gently savoury finish. It still makes for hearty drinking but it has to be said that the category has moved on quite a bit since this first came out.

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This was a question I posed at the end of the short article on some trends in South African wine in the about-to-be-published 2021 Platter” South African Wine Guide. The words “salty” and (a touch more evasively) “saline” and “salinity” have been cropping up more and more in descriptions of wine – and not just in Platter’s, and not just locally.

By way of rough analysis, I made some counts in Platter’s over the last fifteen years. In the 2020 edition, variations of ‘salt’ or ‘saline’ were used to describe 110 wines (and I’d bet it’s more for the coming edition). Five years ago only 48 wines were, apparently, salty. And in 2005 – just the one (Allesverloren Port, of all highly unlikely possibilities).

I would imagine that this development is to the confusion of more than a few readers (especially those who don’t take wine descriptions without a pinch of, er, salt). It’s a descriptor I use rarely. The only time I can recall doing so recently was for Badenhorst’s delicious Sout van die Aarde, made from palomino grown close to the Atlantic coast in the northern Swartland. I can easily believe that sea-spray might even be the source of what seems to me to be undeniable justification for the wine’s name. Adi Badenhorst, as generally sceptical as I am about tasting saltiness in wine, says that he can lick actual salt off the leaves of these palomino vines at harvest time. But marine-side vineyards are clearly not necessary to evoke the description from less cautious (or more salt-sensitive) palates than mine. Increasingly so, as the tendency in Platter’s over the last 15 years reveals.

Disconcertingly, one must realise that it’s less likely to be the wines that have changed to that extent than fashions in writing tasting notes. Arguably, however, though no less disconcertingly, if there is something valid to the description, the proliferation of references to it might be accounted for by tasters becoming alerted to the possible quality of saltiness in wine… and then finding it all over the place.

Saltiness might even be used slightly metaphorically, I suppose (or am I clutching at straws?), like that other fashionable term that’s so difficult to pin down and seems to mean something rather different for most people – minerality. In fact, the two seem to often be connected and both are more often than not used in descriptions of dry, fairly acidic, non-oaky white wines with a good degree of finesse. There certainly are lots more Cape wines like that now than there were in 2005, I’m glad to say. Platter’s uses some version of “mineral” over 250 times in 2020, compared to 175 times in 2015 and a few over 80 times in 2005. So that trend is still on the rise.

If I tend to avoid “salinity” in my perceptions and my notes, and even seldom reach for “minerality”, that’s less true of another word that’s linked at least to the latter. When I trawl through Platter’s 2020 for “stony”, I find around 35 examples, and a disproportionate number of these notes were written by me (including mention of “stony minerality”, which tries to explain, I suppose, something of what I might try to convey by “minerality”).

There have always been fashions in wine notes, of course. Sometimes they tend to the national, like the long lists of often recherché aromatic and taste descriptors that form the larger part of most American notes – and are increasingly found elsewhere, too, including this website. Sometimes they’re quirkily individual. I’ve instanced my own penchant for “stony”, and I can remember one year – 2004 it was – when Michael Fridjhon described half a dozen red wines for Platter’s with comparisons to “prunelle” (a French liqueur distilled from plums), which must have left readers less experienced than Michael scratching their heads.

Tasting notes are notoriously problematical, frequently less useful than we writers of them like to think, as they tend to reflect our own idiosyncrasies as much as those of the wines. Today I’ve been tentatively exploring the possibility of using verse forms. The Japanese haiku might work for those with a taste for the abstruse. Something like this perhaps:

Or, at a less rarefied level, a good old crude Anglo-Saxon limerick might be useful:

There are mineral tannins it’s hard to resist
And spices galore and weird fruits on the list.
You could tune up your noses
To find stones, salt or roses –
But ignore the above if you’re just getting pissed.

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

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There’s much for a winery to consider when it comes to deciding on the right moment to release its wines – too soon and the danger is that they will be consumed while still excessively raw and unresolved; too late and the drinker misses out in a crucial early stage of development. Ryan Mostert of Terracura seems to have got it just right, his much-anticipated 2017s only coming to market now. Tasting notes and ratings as follows:

Terracura Syrah 2017
Price: R375
Grapes from four Swartland vineyards, predominantly situated on the schist soils of the Kasteelberg but one on granite soils on the Paardeberg. The nose shows red and black berries, potpourri, cured meat and white pepper while the palate is particularly vivid with pure fruit, bright acidity and fine tannins. This is already quite accessible which is not to imply simple – rather it’s wonderfully well balanced and elegant. Total production: 1 700 bottles.

Terracura Trinity Syrah 2017
Price: R530
From a single Kasteelberg vineyard planted on schist in 1995 selected on account of it being particularly distinctive. Potent aromatics of dark berries, a hint of olive, lily, fynbos, earth and spice. The palate has lovely fruit definition – it’s intense but not weighty, lemon-like acidity providing freshness while the tannins are fine but not too fine. More particular and more direct than its counterpart above. Total production: 360 bottles.

The fortified Muscat de Frontignan from Alvi’s Drift outside Worcester is something of category benchmark for me with the 2006 having rated 5 Stars in the July 2008 issue of Wine magazine. The current release is the 2014 vintage – grapes left on the skins for a week before being crushed and fortified and then matured for 18 months in French oak.

The nose is very expressive with notes of coffee, raisins, caramel, mint, fynbos and spice while the palate is hugely dense and viscous, bright acidity preventing it from becoming too cloying. Subtle? No. Deeply satisfying? Yes. Price: R165 per 375ml bottle.

Koen Roose, who has had previous careers as both an engineer and a sommelier, continues his quixotic activities on his Elgin property, his wines never pandering to mainstream tastes. Tasting notes and ratings for the new releases as follows:

Spioenkop 1900 Sauvignon Blanc 2017
Price: R170
Roose insists on holding his Sauvignon Blanc back and this certainly does not trade off obvious primary character. A complex and subtle nose – hints of floral perfume, citrus, peach, blackcurrant and just a little leesy complexity while the palate shows dense fruit and racy acidity before a savoury finish.

Aromatics of pear, peach, lime, green apple and some flinty reduction. The palate is tightly wound with punchy acidity and a very dry finish. As arresting as ever.

Spioenkop Queen Manthathisi 2016
Price: R170
Predominantly Sauvignon Blanc but includes a small portion of Sarah Raal Chenin Blanc. Peach, a definite herbal quality plus a slight smoky note. The palate is flavourful with tangy acidity and a savoury finish – a rather curious wine overall.

Spioenkop Sarah Raal Chenin Blanc 2019
Price: R305
From a vineyard on ferricrete. Hay, honeysuckle, peach and citrus on the nose while the palate shows pure fruit, bright acidity and a savoury finish. Well balanced and not too lean – alcohol is 13%.

Spioenkop Johanna Brandt Chenin Blanc 2018
Price: R265
From a vineyard on shale. Aromatics of peach, melon and a hint of honey. The palate is rich, full and creamy in texture, while tangy acidity provides verve, the finish suitably savoury (alcohol: 13.5%).

Dark berries, fresh herbs, earth and slightly wild, meaty note on the nose. The palate is lean and a bit angular – hardy acidity and very grippy tannins.

Spioenkop 1900 Pinotage 2018 (R265) rated 91 in the Prescient Pinotage Report 2020 – see here. By the winemaker’s own admission, however, it shows some “farmyard” character which will concern some…

Spioenkop Pinotage 2019
Price: R450
From own fruit, this is 20% whole-bunch fermented. Red and black cherries, floral perfume and some earthiness. The palate, meanwhile, has impressive structure coming across as intense but not weighty – dense fruit, bright acidity and fine tannins. Seamless but perhaps a little difficult to access right now and will benefit from a year or three in bottle.

The 2017 vintage is much celebrated and with good reason. Mike Ratcliffe of Vilafonté yesterday arranged a blind tasting involving both the Series C and Series M from this vintage plus 11 other leading examples of Cape Bordeaux Red Blends, all the respective winemakers in attendance in order to “compare and discuss”.

Here is the order of tasting with my ratings alongside (plus the original winemag.co.za rating where applicable):

Thelema Rabelais 2017 – 92 (vs 95 in August 2020)
Warwick Trilogy 2017 – 91 (Top 10 in the Prescient Cape Bordeaux Red Blend Report 2020)
Delaire Graff Botmaskop 2017 – 93 (90 in July 2019)
Kanonkop Paul Sauer 2017 – 95 (95 in July 2020)
Vilafonté Series M 2017 – 92
Ernie Els Signature 2017 – 96
Glenelly Lady May 2017 – 93 (see subsequent review here)
De Toren Fusion V 2017 – 90
Vilafonté Series C 2017 – 92
MR de Compostella 2017 – 93 (Top 10 in the Prescient Cape Bordeaux Red Blend Report 2020)
Kaapzicht Steytler Pentagon 2017 – 91 (Top 10 in the Prescient Cape Bordeaux Red Blend Report 2020)
Zorgvliet Richelle 2017 – 96 (Top 10 in the Prescient Cape Bordeaux Red Blend Report 2020)
Meerlust Rubicon 2017 – 91 (89 in the Prescient Cape Bordeaux Red Blend Report 2020)

Some general observations. The overall standard of quality is extraordinarily high although stylistic differences are wide. In the context of this tasting, wines such as Thelema Rabelais, Glenelly Lady May and MR de Compostella looked quite understated while Kanonkop Paul Sauer came across as massively powerful. I considered my two top wines namely Ernie Els Signature and Zorgvliet Richelle as being particularly statuesque – full but balanced.

A big talking point was tannin management and how “polished” a wine should appear. All these wines are aimed at the luxury end of the market and therefore particularly aggressive tannins might be seen to be problematic. Conversely, all agreed that in order to demand a price premium, then these wines need to be age-worthy and at least some firmness of tannin was necessary in order to ensure this.

It’s easy to knock the Platter’s South African Wine Guide, almost as easy as it would be to find a corrupt politician at an ANC legkotla. It errs on the side of generosity – and has for the past ten years; its five star ratings range from the sublime to the frankly embarrassing; its hybrid format means it’s neither a truly blind tasting, nor does it offer fully the benefits of recognising the value of terroir; the tasting competence of its panelists is uneven; the number of five star laureates rises every year at a rate which cannot be defended, even by arch exponents of score inflation. The list is endless, and mostly the criticism can be substantiated by more than a single example.

So why do we still cling to it? Is it nostalgia, is it the absence of an alternative, are we like shipwreck survivors who prefer the wreckage to the deep blue sea? Is it just possibly so much better than the sum of its flawed parts that its value exceeds its defects?

This year, more than ever before, these are questions which need to be asked, and which need to be answered. Five Star wines have now crossed the 200 mark: last year there were a “mere” 125 or so wines. So this year we have pretty much double the number of these vinous rarities. The 2010 edition recorded fewer than 40. True, the vintages up for consideration included the 2017 and 2019 – both very good – but it’s not as if in every previous year the tasters were forced to confront climatic catastrophes. We know our wines are getting better: we also know we need to raise the bar if only to take account of the improvement in standards. If we raise the bar too high and too fast it discourages the winemakers, and does no service to consumers; if we raise it too slowly we open the floodgates. You can decide if the gatekeepers have done the job required of them.

Part of the problem is that the Guide is increasingly more sighted than blind. The primary taster obviously sees what he/she is judging. The Five Star judge now sees the actual score given by the primary taster. The reason for this is that the Guide’s editorial team seek greater and greater coherence between tasters and between editions. For them discrepancy and error are different sides of the same coin. It’s as if they think that there is an objective reality and a scientific basis for assessing it. Instead of celebrating difference they keep trying to panel-beat it into sameness. When I was a taster I was enjoined not to change the score of a wine by more than half a point. If I did, a second taster was called in to corroborate that opinion. The effect of this was impose order and sameness. Ten years ago there were too many Four Star wines. Now there are too many Five Star wines, too many Four and a Half Star wines and too many Four Star wines.

It is easy to offer a counter-argument to this position: Tim Atkin’s South African Special Report reviews some nearly 1 400 wines of which over 1 100 score 90 points or more. Compared with this Platter’s may seem meaner than a Scotsman in a pub on Hogmanay. But, for Atkin, a gold medal is actually 95 points – and he compares his 95+ wines to Platter’s Five Star awards. This year’s Atkin Report has 25% fewer Five Star equivalents compared with Platter’s – and Atkin is tasting sighted. If you hang out in the Platter’s Five Star Factory you can do all the rationalising in the world about why better wines and better vintages make over 200 Five Star wines in the 2021 guide seem reasonable, but you’re only fooling yourself. Everyone else knows that you’ve turned the currency from US dollars to Zim dollars in just over a decade.

This is not the only moan about this year’s Guide. The asset has been owned by Diners Club for more than a decade, and while it was originally a good branding exercise (and in this sense it has paid for itself handsomely over the years) it is now clearly costing its owners money. Sales of the print copies of the Guide have plummeted over time and are now at about 20% of what they were at their peak. Online sales have picked up some of the slack. But with diminishing advertising revenues and rising costs, Diners has been trying to squeeze the stones till they squeak. Amongst the owner’s ill-thought out strategies to get sign-ups and income has been the decision to release the results in dribs and drabs – unless you’re so interested that you to choose to become a subscriber to get the full picture in one hit. Perhaps this will work; perhaps there will be a surge of new subscribers. I hope so – because, to judge from social media, it’s making a lot of folk mightily pissed off. And with the brand and its credibility in decline, I would guess that over-estimating how far people will go to obtain information which will ultimately be in the public domain, could prove counter-productive.

So I guess the question is: “Has Platter’s finally run out of steam?” Forty years is a good innings in the modern world and it’s gone from being the only resource of its kind to one of many databases of Cape wines – whether or not they’re any good. John Platter based the format on Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Guide – which I think pretty much ran out of runway years ago, so it would come as no surprise if an instantly-out-of-date, review-by-committee behemoth turned out to be a dinosaur. And the corollary is, would it matter?

The short answer to that second question is “yes.” I think it is important that we have the guide – despite its shortcomings, its failures of intent and of execution, its parsimonious owners, its tawdry revenue-raising. It’s like nothing else we have, and like very little else of the kind that other wine industries rely upon. A one-stop bundle of reviews, pretty much complete, brilliantly edited, so that it is largely error-free and perfectly readable. It is indisputably honest: despite the cheap attempts by its current owners to scrape income from the awards announcements, it is fiercely independent and thoughtfully assembled. There is no other show or reviewing system which demands of its tasters that they give the wine time in the glass, and give the open bottle time in the fridge (or on the tasting bench). The Platter’s editor doesn’t want a quick impression and a score, one of fifty or more in a morning’s work. He wants a considered opinion, unhurried, reflective, wine judged as performance art and as the work of time. This isn’t a carefully selected top 200 producers, or a top 1 500 wines. It’s the whole damn industry FFS, and it costs time and money to achieve this. When the Guide sold 50 000 or 60 000 copies it was easy to justify the effort. Now it’s losing money hand over glass-clutching fist.

Nothing of quality is free. “Free news” cost the newspaper industry real journalists and real newsrooms, and opened the door to fake news, and social media sound-bytes instead of proper research. If you want your wine info to be as useless as Facebook and as reliable as a tweet from Donald Trump, begrudge Platter’s the income it needs to survive. Then one day, when you are flailing around for information, click on Vivino and hope for the best.

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We’re offering you the chance to win a set of two tickets (valued at R 1 400 each) to the Somerset Fresh Fine Wine Dinner 2020.

The event takes place at Cavalli Restaurant, Stellenbosch at 18h30 on 11 December. Dinner consists of four courses plus canapé and petits fours. Wines will be included, leading examples from the area plus a few international benchmarks presented by sommelier and co-owner of Fresh events, Higgo Jacobs – see the menu here.

To enter, all you have to do is 1) sign up for our free newsletter and 2) like our Facebook page.

Competition not open to those under 18 years of age and closes at 17h00 on Friday 27 November. The Prize does not include transport or accommodation. The winner will be chosen by lucky draw and notified by email. Existing subscribers are also eligible.

Just one block from the fishing boats, on Harbour Road in Kalk Bay, is a big old corner house with millionaire views across False Bay.

This house has long been a landmark. For at least five years it was Theresa’s Restaurant, painted pink, with a mermaid facing the busy road. Café Soul took over for a few years, and JJ’s opened, with Shireen Ramdayal at the helm, a year ago.

Ramdayal is breathing new life into the corner. Her curry portions are huge, and priced low. She has business-smarts – offering family specials, Christmas buffets and private party specials – but I think it’s the lamb curry.

What a beautiful thing this is. Glossy and chocolate-coloured, the first thing you notice is the chunkiness: fresh curry leaves, whole spices, chunks of cinnamon, half potatoes and great wodges of lamb on the bone. It’s as oily, earthy and spicy as it should be – it tastes like what it is: a family recipe perfected by three generations of very good cooks – but the amount of meat, and the tenderness of it, is remarkable. I have no idea how Ramdayal affords to sell what is essentially a double portion of curry – and arguably a triple portion of meat – for under R100.

The chicken curry is just as good. These Durban-style meat curries are essentially big mouthfuls of meat and potato in a thinnish spicy gravy. They work very well with a roti in one hand, or in a half loaf, as a bunny chow. Even though the sign on the wall says “Indian Cuisine” JJs is not in the business of serving korma-type curries with neat strips of meat in a thick beige sauce. No. This is hearty, robust South African food. Ramdayal’s lime pickle is as chunky as her curries, with wedges of hot, sour lime in red-tinged oil.

I’m a fan of her moong dal. I’ve had it three times as a main course. It’s made with green legumes – specifically, Indian mung beans – as well as literal handfuls of fresh thyme, fresh mint and fresh coriander. I really like the mini carrot salad she serves with all her curries. It’s bright, fresh and tangy.

When a customer places an order at JJ’s, the smell of fresh garlic hits the air. Ramdayal’s curries are good not only because she’s generous – and because she uses and adapts her grandmother and grandmother’s recipes – but because she doesn’t skimp on fresh ingredients. A curry without freshness tastes musty. Using old spices from the cupboard, and dried herbs instead of fresh, produces an amateur-tasting curry. Ramdayal would no sooner use stale spices or sprouting garlic as she would serve you a three-day old roti.

Alongside Ramdayal’s kitchen and dining room, with its own door onto Harbour Road, is a well-stocked neighbourhood tuckshop. This is where children from the fishermens’ flats come to buy sweets and where the guys who sit on the corner buy single smokes. JJ’s is spitting distance from popular restaurants Harbour House and Live Bait in one direction, and Salt and The Olympia Café in the other, but JJ’s is not here for the flat-white-and-pastry crowd. JJ’s clientele generally consists of Kalk Bay residents who don’t live in “the village” – that cottagey, cobbledy bit that officially ends on the other side of Clairvaux Road.

Personally I don’t love Ramdayal’s breyanis – I find them too dense – and her butter chicken is so pale and creamy it reminded me of macaroni cheese. Her rice portions are regular-size and the rice itself is nothing special. Her roti is good but not brilliant. Children like her bunny chows, but they’re not for me.

My advice is simple: get the lamb curry. Get six and freeze them. Invite people over and serve it. Have it with buttered toast if you must – I have, when I ran out of rice – but don’t miss it. The JJ’s lamb curry (for two) is R98 well spent.

To mark the launch of the 2017 vintage of the top-end Cape Bordeaux Red Blend from Constantia Glen, a 10-year vertical was proposed by winemaker Justin van Wyk. At my suggestion, we decided to 1) taste blind in random order so as to remove prejudice regarding the relative merits of any particular vintage; and 2) include a few vintages of Gourveneurs Reserve, the equivalent offering from nearby Groot Constantia, wines of the same vintage to be poured as a pair:

Here is the order of tasting with my ratings alongside (plus the original winemag.co.za rating where applicable):

Some general observations: Taken as a whole, the wines in the line-up seemed to have a coolness and perhaps even an austerity by virtue of being from Constantia that you don’t get from Stellenbosch.

It was initially difficult to discern the “house style” of either property (they are some two kilometres apart with the Constantia Glen vineyards around 100m higher than those of Groot Constantia) but upon discussion with Van Wyk and Boela Gerber, his counterpart from Groot Constantia, we agreed that the Constantia Glen wines tended to have relatively more opulence of fruit and those of Groot Constantia were more tannic.

Regarding the less successful wines, it was fascinating to note that there was always some kind of explanation as to why this was the case. The Constantia Glen 2009, which seemed relatively imprecise, was the only vintage to Petit Verdot driven, this variety making up 40% of the blend; the Groot Constantia 2010, which presented as relatively lean and tart, had an unusually large component of Cabernet Franc at 37%; the Constantia Glen 2014 was an unusually wet vintage…

In line with conventional wisdom, both sets of wines from the 2015 and 2017 vintages showed magnificently. Tasting notes and ratings for the two 2017s as follows:

Constantia Glen Five 2017
Price: R490
32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 17% Cabernet Franc, 17% Petit Verdot and 10% Malbec. Matured for 18 months in French oak, 75% new. The nose is currently rather shy with dark berries and a little reduction in evidence. The palate is powerful with dense fruit, fresh acidity and firm tannins – comes across as extremely youthful and should probably not be opened until at least 2022. Alcohol: 14.5%.

Groot Constantia Gouverneurs Reserve 2017
Price: R494
38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Cabernet Franc, 24% Merlot 24% and 6% Petit Verdot. Matured for 15 months in French oak, 75% new. A perfumed top note before red and black berries. Relatively medium bodied with pure fruit, fresh acidity and fine tannins, the finish very long – particularly elegant. Alcohol: 13.88%.

Quoin Rock Syrah 2003

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