Badenhorst is a name to reckon with in Cape wine. Probably its Adi representative, at the Swartland base he owns with cousin Hein, is the best known these days – but Constantia wine flows in his veins. Adi grew up in the 1980s at Buitenverwachting, where his dad, André, was general manager. André, in turn, had had his élévage at Groot Constantia, where his father was the farm manager – for 46 years, according to Adi, who rather irreverently mentions somewhere that his grandfather “also used to make a bit of wine at home from juice. It quickly turned into vinegar and was thrown into the salad”.
A decade or so back André teamed up with London-based and Irish-born Edwin Doran – it was an old friendship, involving a shared love of wine, rugby and food – who’d bought a large farm in the Voor-Paardeberg (now replete with animals ranging from cattle to caracals, as well as 55 hectares of vines). So André became a partner and CEO of Doran Vineyards, ensuring that all the new infrastructure was in place for the 2012 vintage. Edwin apparently sold a magnificent wine collection to finance the winery cellar, including 84 bottles of Château Lafite 2000 that paid for the array of steel tanks. He spends some three months of the year at Far Horizons farm, but it is André who is its public face.
And it was André with whom I’ve recently had renewed contact. First, he was wondering whether “production of wine stopped at all during the phylloxera crisis in the Cape” towards the end of the 19th century (to which the briefest possible answer is “no, largely because the authorities already knew from international experience that grafting new vines onto American rootstocks was the only answer”). Second, he offered to drop off bottles of the three new top-level Doran Vineyards wines for me to sample (to which the briefest possible answer was “yes please”).
The new wines (all 2018) are the Chenin Blanc Reserve, Grenache Blanc, and Roussanne – varieties which had previously been united in the L’Alliance and Arya. They were made by Martin Lamprecht – who’s since left to do his own thing, so there’ll be a new person in the cellar soon.
As to these three wines: frankly, I could simply invoke the word “delicious” (noting that the deliciousness in each case will cost around R180 per bottle, not unsurprising for this type and quality of wine, made in small quantities – about 1000 bottles of each) and stop there. If I don’t, I’ll start wondering if they are almost just too delicious and crowd-pleasing, and young wines like this should offer more of a challenge.
More can be said of course. All three are very ripe, flavourful and not without a touch of sweetness. So here are my jotted down notes for the Grenache, perhaps my favourite of the three: “Lovely fresh, ripe, quite floral aromas; generous. Delicious intensity of flavour but the details are subtle enough. Fresh and lively, despite the forceful richness. All in balance and held together by a good tight acidity. Immensely drinkable yet not merely pretty – a bit more substantial than that.” Much the same, mutatis mutandis, for the Chenin Blanc Reserve.
With the Roussanne, I got a touch more doubting, my scribbled notes suggest: “A bit spicier than the others; some lovely delicate nuances of aroma. But it takes the creaminess of texture to a new and almost excessive level. The first day or two almost unctuously rich, with a perceptible sweetness, though with decent acid backing. Impressively charming, but almost too much so. As the excess subsided over a few days, especially on the third, I enjoyed the wine more. Soft richness of texture, like velvet, but not quite integrated, so much is the focus on that richness.”
Strange to think that sometimes deliciousness can even become a touch excessive. But André Badenhorst and his team have built Doran into a significant winery over the last decade, and these three new monovarietal wines will do no harm to its reputation for admirable, very enjoyable and tasty wines.
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Whole-bunch fermentation (not separating grapes from the stems) is very much in fashion when it comes to Pinot Noir and Syrah and when it works well, it adds extra perfume plus tannins that are somehow light yet strong.
Safe and sound.
It is conceivable, however, that there are consumers out there who want a little more depth of fruit and creaminess of texture, and they will be well served by the Provenance Shiraz from Tulbagh property Saronsberg.
In this instance, 75% of the grapes were destemmed and crushed while 25% underwent whole-berry fermentation. The must was “dejuiced” by 8% before fermentation while maturation lasted 18 months in French oak, 30% new.
The nose is still rather primary with notes of red fruit, spice and a hint of vanilla while the palate displays plenty of juicy fruit and soft tannins – it’s a polished wine that carries its alcohol of 14.57% and residual sugar of 3.7g/l remarkably well. Approximate retail price: R115 a bottle.
CE’s rating: 89/100.
Find our South African wine ratings database here.
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At the end of last year, we were gratified when you, the readers of this site, insisted that we retain our hybrid model of both blind and sighted tastings. However, sighted tastings have historically been a loss-leading activity and we are only able to continue with these because you said you would pay for it.
We suggested an amount of R600 a year or R50 a month per individual with a view to achieving a total audience contribution of R300 000 per annum. This amounts to just 10% of our overall cost to run our business but, more importantly, it covers the cost of delivering the sighted tastings to you on a regular basis. The other 90% of expenses are covered by alternative revenue streams.
How does it cost R3 million to run a wine website? We upload content Monday to Friday sourced from some of the country’s leading wine and food writers. We convene multiple wine panel tastings and these involve venue and glassware hire plus payment of judges and a tasting coordinator. There are hosting, development and design fees associated with the website and we operate various social media platforms that also have costs attached. We have two permanent staff members while also relying on third parties to handle admin and accountancy. It all adds up.
To date, we’ve had some 130 people pledge their support. We are most appreciative, but we still have a long way to go to reach our above-mentioned target by the end of 2020.
To contribute, click here.
Which is the Cape’s most expensive wine range? I’m not sure, though I’ll take a stab later. The most expensive individual Cape wines – including or excluding the jokers and wannabes alongside the regular sellers – are fairly easy to determine, and there’s been quite a bit of discussion about the category in recent years, given the ever-increasing number of contenders. But the producer with the priciest range is altogether another question.
And it’s a bit more complicated to resolve. If you’re working on an average price per bottle across the range, which seems fair, do you include a producer whose most expensive wine is only offered occasionally (“in the best vintages” is a common plea)? Or a producer that only has one or two wines in the regular portfolio? Is there a minimum number that must be in the portfolio for it to count as a “range”? I’m not quite sure how De Toren, for example, should be considered. And of course, there’s the occasional mysterious candidate: 4G Wines would probably be a fore-runner in this little race, except I’m not quite sure of the extent to which (or how) it really exists, with the website listing a whole lot of names, one per vintage, which possibly refer to the one wine. Plus a second label (Echo of G) whose current vintage noted is 2012 (huh?). Although Christian Eedes recently tasted another 4G (also notably expensive) that’s not listed on the website and an Echo from 2011…
Many of the grander producer names with a reasonable number of wines also have an introductory range, which slightly dilutes the average price, even if the majority of the wines are pretty pricey. Larger-range wineries which don’t have an entry-level selection, even if their top wines don’t compete with the most expensive, would have a pretty high average: Sadie, De Trafford, Shannon. There must be quite a few, as of wineries whose “entry-level” is rather high – Tokara, Kanonkop … But I don’t think they’d have an overall winner amongst them.
A leading candidate in that group, and very possibly the leader overall, is the one that prompted me to wonder about this category: Delaire Graff. There are three levels within its offering, but seeing that the lowest level is called, per Platter at least, the “Luxury range”, you know not to expect to find those on the supermarket bottom shelf, and that the average price across the whole Delaire range is going to be considerable. That average has recently been bumped up by the addition of a blend called The Banghoek (at around R1800, it comes in a fancy box which probably itself costs as much as a bottle off that lower shelf). It already was a notably high average, however, given a slew of wines over R400, the Cab Reserve at around R700, and the Laurence Graff Reserve currently at R4000-ish.
The Banghoek 2016, a blend of about half cabernet franc with cab sauvignon, petit verdot and a touch of malbec, greatly impressed Christian Eedes when he sampled it in December. It impressed me too, if not quite so much, and a bit more ambiguously. I’d tasted it for Platter six months ago and noted the obviously intrusive oak character as well as the power – and “plenty of lurking fruit” – and a little sweetness on the finish partly thanks to the 14.7% alcohol. It’s settled a little since then, and, beautifully made, undoubtedly has depth and seriousness of structure; but it remains very much a stylistic choice: a more-is-more, highly polished Stellenbosch red designed for the international luxury market in style as well as price. It made me recall the description of Daisy’s voice in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: Nick describes it as “indiscreet”, but Gatsby is even more insightful in saying that her voice is “full of money”. Well, that’s what this wine is like, really.
As such, of course, it fits well into the glittering splendour of the Delaire Graff Estate, perched appropriately high above Stellenbosch. In fact, it seems to me that Morné Vrey’s range of wines has been quietly evolving over the last decade to suit its immediate environment, with opulent luxury being a kind of terroir. I see that when I wrote about the Delaire wines in a 2011 article (which I’m now pleased to be reminded I called “Delaires and graces”) I suggested that even “beyond the quality claims, they share a character of restraint and finesse”. The quality of the fruit and winemaking remains unquestioned and Morné’s attention to detail is impeccable – Delaire Graff was deservedly included (in the lower reaches) in Winemag’s polled Top 20 producer list in 2018. I would, though, seldom feel impelled to reach for words like restraint and finesse. But full of money, yes.
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Both the 2017 and 2018 vintages of Grenache Blanc under KWV’s top-end The Mentors label are available at R130 a bottle from the company’s Wine Emporium in Paarl.
Ostensibly, they appear quite similar but I ultimately preferred the 2018. Whereas 66% of grapes for the 2017 came from Stellenbosch, 16% Paarl, 11% Wellington and 7% Robertson, the 2018 comes equally from Paarl and Wellington. The 2017 is higher in alcohol at 14.12% compared to the 2018 at 13.35% while both wines have extraordinarily low pH levels, the 2017 measuring 2.93 and the 2018 2.97.
That lower alcohol serves the 2018 well, a slight waxy note to go with citrus and herbs on the nose while the palate is medium bodied and well balanced – good fruit definition matched by tangy acidity, the finish nicely pithy.
CE’s rating: 92/100.
The 2017 is an altogether bigger wine – stone fruit and pineapple plus spice on the nose, the palate rich and broad, the finish gently savoury. For me, it doesn’t have the same clarity and drive as the subsequent vintage.
CE’s rating: 89/100.
Find our South African wine ratings database here.
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Bottega Prosecco Brut – R239 a bottle from Makro.
Prosecco’s successful invasion of some of Champagne’s major export markets is in full swing, causing no small amount of consternation to the marketing teams of the big houses whose brands dominate the glitzy fizz trade. The boom which even saw the French contemplate an increase in the demarcated area of the appellation is certainly over – at least for now. This is a situation which most people in the region could never have been predicted, just as whisk(e)y producers fifty years ago laughed off the possible risk of competition from vodka. (“It has no taste – why would anyone buy it?”) If you are so besotted with the “uniqueness” of what you are hawking you are at risk of never understanding what the market is actually buying.
The French assumed that consumers who bought Champagne (as opposed to any other sparkling wine) also bought the hype around its origin, its soils, its climate and its method of production. Secure in this misplaced belief they presumed that there was no real competition in the sparkling wine market: anything else would necessarily be inferior and would be selling on price, not on intrinsic appeal.
This assumption largely proved true when it came to other traditional (ie champagne) method sparkling wines. The hand-crafted nature meant that they could never really be cheap without tasting inferior. Once you’re halfway to the price of a bottle of branded champagne, consumers tend to buy “the real thing.” Cava positioned itself at not much more than the price of carbonated fizz – a premium slot in a much cheaper category, so it never threatened Champagne’s supremacy. Based on this experience, the Champenoises assumed that Prosecco – which generally isn’t even bottle-fermented – would never appear in the same space as Champagne.
It was a bad miscalculation. The mandarins of the Champagne business under-estimated the way millennials have broken with tradition, the value of Italian “sexiness’ versus French upper-class stodginess, and mostly, the sheer appeal of the new. Prosecco sounded youthful, it wasn’t dry, it wasn’t hide-bound by vinous tradition, and it caught Italy’s image as a friendly fashion capital, rather than the perceived prison of French formality. They probably also failed to realise that most people can’t taste the “champagneness” of Champagne: if it’s being consumed as an aperitif, anything fresh, fragrant and fizzy will do fine: biscuity, bready, and creamy might be positive attributes if your focus is yeast autolysis, but if you’re drinking frivolously, freshness, fragrance and finesse trumps the work of time.
The Cap Classique market in South Africa has enjoyed an extraordinary run. It has been booming alongside an ever-growing Champagne market. It has pretty much followed the same pattern, and the same trajectory: a few big brands account for 75% of the sales, and innumerable smaller brands make up the balance.
Accordingly, the Cap Classique producers would be wise to consider the impact of Prosecco on the British fizz market and start paying attention to their own turf. For a start – Cap Classique sounds French, and therefore runs the risk of Gallic tarnish rather than Italian shine. Secondly, while some MCC drinkers care for the nuances of bottle-fermented bubbly, I would suspect the vast majority respond to its fashion appeal. If that is correct, then as a category it is susceptible to assault from Prosecco. The Italian fizz sits comfortably in the right price bracket, comes with the appeal of an imported beverage, satisfies a broader organoleptic spectrum, and is internationally very much a la mode.
The success of Krone – which has sky-rocketed into one of the top slots in the local market on the strength of its high volume offerings (some of which are not dry and none of which show strong evidence of yeastiness) – should deliver an added warning. Guests who attended the annual VinPro Day symposium would have discovered – courtesy of Brandon de Kock’s excellent presentation on the evolution of the wine market – the extent to which the growth of the middle class in the past five years will begin to transform the profile of the country’s wine drinkers. There is a new consumer, free of legacy baggage around brand or origin (more on this here). If these newcomers react – as Britain’s wine drinkers did – to the appeal of Prosecco, the growth in Cap Classique sales will slow down and the fizz market will hybridise. Champagne volumes may also suffer, but it is more likely to be Cap Classique that takes the body blows. It shares a common price point with Prosecco. For many of these new-generation consumers, the Cape is alien territory. In the midst of the turmoil and churn in the composition of the market, I wouldn’t bet on Cap Classique weathering the Prosecco storm unscathed.
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The seventh annual Cape Wine Auction, sponsored by Nedbank Private Wealth, took place on Saturday at Boschendal outside Franschhoek, raising just over R17 millon compared to R14.6 million last year. All proceeds are allocated to Cape Wineland’s education and the wine charity auction has now amassed a R105 million since its 2014 inception.
Top individual lots were a VIP experience in California’s Napa Valley Wine Country, courtesy Vilafonté, which was sold for R1,1 million; a seven-day expedition with Meridian Adventure SAIL for eight in Indonesia, which also sold for R1,1 million and three pieces of work from internationally acclaimed South African sculptor Anton Smit’s Agapé Effervescent series which went to the highest bidder – again for R1,1 million.
winemag.co.za is pleased to present the 10-Year-Old Wine Report 2020 – featuring wines from the 2010 vintage.
74 entries from 33 producers were received and these were tasted blind (labels out of sight) by the three-person panel, scoring done according to the 100-point quality scale.
Wines to rate 90 or higher on the 100-point quality scale were as follows:
CHARDONNAY
Neil Ellis Elgin 2010 – 91
Tokara Reserve Collection Stellenbosch 2010 – 91
Tokara Zondernaam 2010 – 91
SAUVIGNON BLANC
Iona 2010 – 91
Delaire Graff Coastal Cuvée 2010 – 90
WHITE BLENDS
Highlands Road Sine Cera 2010 – 91
Tokara Director’s Reserve White 2010 – 91
CABERNET SAUVIGNON
Le Riche Reserve 2010 – 92
Nederburg Private Bin R163 2010 – 92
Nederburg Two Centuries 2010 – 91
Neil Ellis Vineyard Selection 2010 – 90
Plaisir De Merle 2010 – 90
GRENACHE
Neil Ellis Vineyard Selection 2010 – 90
MERLOT
De Grendel 2010 – 90
RED BLENDS
Ernie Els Signature 2010 – 92
Nederburg The Brew Master 2010 – 92
Nederburg Ingenuity Red Italian Blend 2010 – 91
Durbanville Hills Caapmans Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2010 – 90
Grangehurst Daylea Red 2010 – 90
Pro Amico Merlot Shiraz 2010 – 90
Tokara Director’s Reserve Red 2010 – 90
Zonnebloem Lauréat 2010 – 90
Zonnebloem Shiraz Mourvedre Viognier 2010 – 90
SHIRAZ
Raka Biography 2010 – 90
NOBLE LATE HARVEST
Nederburg Private Bin Eminence 2010 – 92
Nederburg The Winemaster’s 2010 – 91
Nederburg Private Bin Edelkeur 2010 – 90
FORTIFIED
Delaire Graff Cape Vintage 2010 – 93
Boplaas Cape Vintage Reserve Port 2010 – 92
Delaire Graff Cape Vintage 2010.
Delaire Graff, as the producer of the highest-scoring wine overall, received a bottle of GS Cabernet 1966 worth approximately R30 000 from Amorim Cork.
OVERVIEW
2010 was a testing vintage due to the constant fluctuations in weather conditions throughout – a cool, wet spring caused uneven budding in many regions while summer months were exceptionally dry and windy, the heatwave at the beginning of March 2010 which lasted longer than a week going down in the annals.
Those “dry and windy” conditions in the lead-up to harvest seem to have taken their toll on the resulting wines. While the white wines generally showed well enough, they didn’t have quite the clarity and brightness that a collector might hope for. The reds, meanwhile, tended to present as very ripe and full bodied. The more successful wines have a sturdiness about them rather than finesse or charm while the less successful wines appeared unduly advanced and, in some cases, oxidised.
Of the top four reds, which together rated 92 points, alcohols range from 14.72% in the case of Nederburg The Brew Master 2010 to 15.06% in the case of Ernie Els Signature 2010 – whatever else you might say about them, these are not shy wines!
To read the report in full, including key findings, tasting notes for the top wines and scores on the 100-point quality scale for all wines entered, download the following: 10-Year-Old Wine Report 2020
To view a gallery of images from yesterday’s announcement function, click here.
Early last year I was commissioned by the KWV to research the history of Roodeberg ahead of the once-iconic brand’s 70th birthday. It was a fun project but also a fairly frustrating one because nobody at KWV headquarters in Paarl seemed able to find any of the old records.
For over half a century, of course, the wine itself had eluded most South Africans. In its heyday it accounted for one in every five bottles of wine exported, but locally it was virtually unobtainable, except by the lucky few who had a KWV quota (in exchange for supplying the giant co-operative with grapes or base wine). Oh, and those who believed Douglas Green’s St Augustine to be exactly the same red blend…
On account of its scarcity, Roodeberg acquired cult status. An article in the January 1986 issue of Wynboer magazine claimed: ‘For its lucky owner a bottle of Roodeberg can procure test tickets, biltong, the use of a beach cottage…name it!’ For South Africans abroad, the article said: ‘A glass of the precious liquid is like a hug from home.’
Roodeberg never pretended to be South Africa’s best red wine (a title generally agreed to have belonged to Alto Rouge) but it certainly became South Africa’s best-known wine, which is why the apparent lack of records was so frustrating, rather than adding to the brand’s mysterious allure.
Professor Charl Theron, who joined the KWV’s team of ‘wine scientists’ in 1970, was helpful, as was Niel van Staden, who later headed up KWV International’s marketing department. But I felt I’d finally struck gold (albeit just a small nugget) when KWV brand manager Carli Jordaan chanced upon the transcript of an interview with the founder of Roodeberg, Dr Charles Niehaus.
Dr Charles Niehaus, founder of Roodeberg.
Appointed by the KWV in 1937 with the primary aim of making sherry, Niehaus took over as the KWV’s chief wine scientist in 1941 following the death of Dr Abraham Izak Perold, now famous for having invented Pinotage but then better known for his full-bodied ‘Paarl Burgundy’ (not made from Pinot Noir, not as you might expect, but rather from the dark-fleshed teinturier grape, Pontac).
By the end of World War II, the KWV’s so-called ‘Goeiewyn’ (good wine) department was producing two reds, simply known as Paarl Light Bodied Dry Red (based on Cabernet Sauvignon) and Paarl Full Bodied Dry Red (mainly Pontac).
‘At the beginning I just carried on with Pontac,’ recalled Niehaus. ‘Later I saw that Pontac has colour but doesn’t get any better with age as a table wine.’ (Some of his contemporaries had a different view, as we’ve already seen here.)
When good-quality Shiraz became more available (courtesy of Meerendal Estate in Durbanville), Niehaus decided that this variety rather than Pontac should be the key component of his full-bodied blend. ‘I was the man who introduced Shiraz. Koos Starke produced Shiraz at Meerendal and he basically laid the foundation for Roodeberg in the beginning. We bought every drop that he made. That was the turning point.’
Niehaus was then asked by the KWV directors to rename the two red wines. ‘Sitting at my desk, looking out to the Paarl Valley and reflecting on the past, I noticed an incredible sunset cast on the mountains, and from an instant of timeless beauty, Roodeberg was born.’
By all accounts the sight of the ‘red mountain’ had brought back personal memories of Rothenberg, the ‘First Growth’ vineyard near Geisenheim where he had studied. ‘The memory was somewhere at the back of my mind when I had to come up with names for our wines.’
Having deliberately decided to spell the name with two Os (to make it a distinctly South African brand name as opposed to the German place name), Niehaus was furious when he returned from a five-month marketing trip to South America, Canada and the West Indies in 1949, only to discover that the labels for the maiden 1946 vintage of Roodeberg had been printed with one O. The wines were named Rodeberg No 1 (sub-text: ligte, droë, rooi tafelwyn) and Rodeberg No 2 (sub-text: vol, droë, rooi tafelwyn).
‘Apparently a certain Professor Kempton at Stellenbosch University had told the directors I’d spelled the name wrong,’ said Niehaus. ‘I said I knew all along that one O was correct for the place name but our brand name needed two! I immediately gave the instruction that the name must be printed with two Os from now on.’
In the early 1950s, the KWV directors realised the numbers 1 and 2 might give the impression that one wine was superior to the other. ‘So we kept “Roodeberg” for the full-bodied wine and named the lighter wine “Cabernet”. That was a good decision, if I may say so,’ said Niehaus.
A bigger challenge was the fact that the KWV bought wine (not grapes) from the farmers. ‘And the wine farmers didn’t have winemaking knowledge like today. I wrote a whole pamphlet for them and I gave them a bottle of yeast with instructions. How to use it. How to make the wine. Later we stopped doing that but in the early days we literally wrote it out for them.’
Transporting and storing the base wines also proved problematic: ‘They were pumped in, pumped out, pumped over and then stored in warm vats in our warm climate…’
After travelling overseas in 1955 to learn about the latest innovations in table wine production, Niehaus returned with one request: a temperature-controlled storage cellar. Only four years later was his request finally granted; his new cellar was ready in time for the 1962 harvest, by which time he had appointed a new German winemaker, Willi Hacker. ‘He could only speak German when he came but he was a very good choice. That’s when we began to make good table wines.’
By 1971, when Niehaus retired, Roodeberg was exported to 26 countries. ‘It cost 35c a bottle,’ said Charl Theron. ‘It was quite expensive!’
According to Theron, working for the KWV was the highest honour for a winemaker. ‘It was very formal, very traditional. You went to work in a suit and tie! As a winemaker you were part of the management staff because the wine was still made by the primary producers under our supervision.’
When the wines were ready, they were brought back to the KWV storage cellar for maturation and blending. ‘That system only changed after our own red wine production cellar was built in the late 1990s. The blending was never done by one person but by a panel. The aim was to create a consistent wine from one vintage to the next, not to reflect vintage variation. Roodeberg was quite full-bodied but not in today’s sense because no small barrels were used, only large 12,000-14,000 litre stukvate.’
Interestingly, Niehaus felt compelled to come out of retirement in 1974 when his long-time Shiraz supplier, Kosie Starke of Meerendal, announced that he could no longer supply the KWV because he’d received a better offer from Distillers Corporation. Recalled Niehaus: ‘I took him for tea and said, let me tell you, when we started buying your wine, you knew nothing about winemaking, we taught you everything. He acknowledged this, said he always told people that he learnt to make wine from Dr Niehaus. We spoke nicely and he promised that he would stay with the KWV. But a little later he said, sorry, Distillers had come with an even better offer…’
For a while after that, the Roodeberg blend was mostly low-yield Cinsaut with varying amounts of Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage and Tinta Barocca, matured in large vats for three years. A low point was the 1977 vintage (a poor vintage across the board in the Cape), resulting in a very ‘lean’ wine according to the first (1980) edition of John Platter’s wine guide. But the 1978 Roodeberg was described as ‘bigger, heavier, more traditional’ in subsequent editions of the guide, and both the 1979 and 1980 vintages received 4 Star ratings: ‘Excellent harmony of fruit, body, alcohol and acidity. Smooth texture leaves impression of generous wine. Just under 13% alcohol.’
A lot has happened since then: economic sanctions, the end of Apartheid, the transformation of the KWV from regulatory body to wine producer, the introduction of smaller (300-litre) oak barrels, some Ruby Cabernet and Merlot added to the mix (replacing Cinsaut, not to mention Tinta Barocca), the upward creep of alcohol levels…
Suffice it to say that in 1998, Dave Hughes wrote in Wynboer about the way in which Roodeberg was being ‘steadily repositioned among KWV’s elite, higher-priced products’ even as he insisted that it remained ‘a fundamentally sound, honest, very drinkable and satisfying wine’…
By and large, that second part remains true, and it’s no mean feat considering current production of just under three million litres. As far as ‘elite, higher-priced products’ go, however, the KWV launched a new ‘premium’ Roodeberg wine some years ago, named entirely appropriately in honour of Dr Charles Niehaus.
Is it any good?
The Dr Charles Niehaus 2016 achieved a 89-point rating on this platform (see here) with Christian Eedes not entirely convinced by the blend of 38% Shiraz, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot and 10% Malbec, sourced from Stellenbosch, Paarl and Darling, and matured in 100% new oak barrels (85% French, 15% American) with 14.29% alcohol by volume.
Commenting on Christian’s review, Kwispedoor pondered: ‘How about losing the Bordeaux cultivars (apart from the cab) and getting stuff like cinsaut and tinta in there? Chuck the new wood and let the wine naturally stabilise for 2-3 years in old oak? Harvest certain of the cultivars a touch earlier?
‘In this case,’ wrote Kwispedoor (and I can’t help agreeing), ‘innovation might just partially require a journey back to the roots.’
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I hate writing negative restaurant reviews. Especially bad reviews of new restaurants. I know that opening an eatery is extremely anxiety-inducing, exhausting and expensive. I recognize that the first few weeks of any new venture are almost always riddled with unexpected complications.
Wherever possible I try not to review such spaces too soon, so as, to give them time to settle in and smooth out the culinary creases. Even then, most of the time I adopt a policy of, say nothing if there is nothing nice to say – if only because there is inevitably fall out from less than complimentary comments. Well-mannered chefs, owners and PR people ask for further thoughts. Badly behaved brethren (and in my experience, it is always the brethren – female food industry players take criticism with greater grace) rant, storm and blaspheme in awful emails.
However, there are certain epicurean ‘event’ openings, for which considerable claims have been made in the pre-publicity. These are time sensitive, news happenings – like significant theatre openings – and must be reported upon right away. So here goes…
Aurum restaurant, at the recently completed, über-exclusive Leonardo building, Sandton, is just such a spot. The restaurant had been open for 12 days when my friend and I visited but media releases announcing the imminent arrival of “the new gold standard in hospitality” had been glittering up my email inbox for at least six months prior to launch.
What follows is not an anti-elitist stance. Johannesburg is Africa’s richest city. I like it that way and I am unapologetically keen for there to be more high-end dining destinations therein. The recent spate of emigrations and deaths amongst Gauteng’s old guard gourmet grandees has Egoli due to some new posh-nosh palaces. A peek at the Aurum menu online suggested that the holy trinity of truffles, caviar and Champagne were well represented so I had high hopes for an evening of wallowing in lovely luxury.
Décor calls to mind those cavernous, late-19th-century train stations where cathedral-esque high ceilings and infinite arches meet faith in the unstoppable progress of modernity. There is a lot of marble and gold twiddly bits float from the super-high ceilings. All of the above match the mood of Johannesburg which was founded on similar sentiments.
There are promising signs and glimpses of the potential for glory at Aurum. Sommelier Lisa de Beer has assembled a superb local and international wine list which provides a platform for younger generation producers of innovative excellence. Mark ups are at the reasonable end of average and there is something to intrigue and educate even the most encyclopedic of wine buyers. De Beer presents her selection in a charming and insightful manner. Her considerable wine knowledge is balanced by a well-judged mélange of enthusiasm and gravitas. Our waist-coated waiter was similarly skilled – informed, amiable, attentive and mostly unobtrusive. So far, so good. After that? Not so much.
For all its high ceilings, the main body of the restaurant is set within a long, thin space with somewhat cell-block-like dimensions. During my dinner the oddly oppressive mood was accentuated by a grey-haired man in a short-sleeved shirt who filed up and down all evening. Not just sometimes. Literally all evening. When he had walked all the way in one direction he turned around and marched back. His vibe combined looming and lurking. My friend and I couldn’t decide if he was more 1970s plain clothes security policeman or lonely zoo tiger, driven mad by solitude, pacing back and forth behind the bars of a tiny cage. Since neither seemed likely I eventually asked our attendant if the pacer was the owner’s extremely anxious dad looking to check up on his investment. The poor waiter had to explain that the patrolling person was the floor manager. Since the service staff all seemed to be doing a pretty good job, his presence was at best unhelpful. This may seem like a lot of words to waste on a single employee but he was deeply disconcerting.
The only area in which our actual waiter was less than perfect was his apparent neediness. He followed the collection of each plate with “Did you enjoy that?”. He was not alone in this. The pacer did it too as did the sommelier. I know a lot of restaurants instruct their staff to do this but my view is that it constitutes inappropriate, intrusive and unhelpful touting for compliments. If diners have a problem they will let service staff know. If they want to pass complements to the chef they should be free to choose their moment. The question “Did you enjoy that?” is right up there with “How are you?” when meeting a casual acquaintance in the street. The only answers that will allow both parties to move on are “Good/fine. Thank you”. These are non-optional social conventions carrying well-mannered half-truth. Every time I issued such a non-committal but polite pleasantry the waiter’s stock response was “Thank you. I will tell the kitchen.” Which made me complicit in a deception that was not of my making. Had I told the whole truth then and there, the evening would have descended into drama. I was still formulating my thoughts and not yet ready to express my reservations. Fortunately, the kitchen seemed to spend a lot of the evening dropping heavy objects. I couldn’t see the kitchen from where I was sitting but it sounded like metal baking trays hitting tiled floors. Perhaps this crashing cacophony drowned out my non-commital cordiality.
Chef Darren O’Donovan describes his food as: “modern European interpretations with a twist of local ingredients”. Maybe that means oddly unbalanced. My starter of tuna tartare was accompanied by avocado, pickled red onion, a popped sorghum tuile and what the menu listed as “aerated mayo” (R130). Tuna plus avocado plus mayonnaise = fat3. The indefatigable sommelier did what she could to raise the experience with a pleasant pairing of Domaine du Margalleau Vouvray 2018 but such a significant fat-cubed offering requires more acid, spice and salt to lift flavour and texture than the wine could provide. Perhaps the pickled onion was intended to provide tart taste contrast but it was too mild to have that effect. Sorghum seemed like it might be a nice nod to heritage ingredients but, in the absence of sour, the sweet just hung over all that fat like Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal. All mayonnaise is whipped and hence aerated but I imagine the idea here was to pass it through a siphon for super aeration. The actual outcome was a thin, flat, salad cream-like substance which left my starter tasting like the filling for a petrol-station-forecourt tinned tuna sandwich. Anyone in any doubt as to the non-U nature of the afore mentioned condiment should refer to the infamous Fawlty Towers salad cream scene.
Then came a punishingly salty duck ragu (R135) with what was described on the menu as duck and juniper jus. The aim with sauce reduction is to concentrate flavour but here the process seemed to have gone on so long that the thick, flat, Bovril-like substance presented had lost all delicacy. Again, the sommelier did what she could with a well-chosen Crystallum Peter Max Pinot Noir 2018.
The Karoo springbok loin (R250) was a beautiful and well-cooked piece of meat. As she poured me a glass of David and Nadia Topography Pinotage 2017, de Beer described the process by which the meat’s accompanying black garlic had been made in-house. All the black garlic I have ever had before has had a mellow, soft sweetness but at Aurum it was bizarrely bitter and induced instant, intense heartburn such as I had only previously experienced when very pregnant. The springbok also had a sprinkling of hazelnut dukkha which seemed burnt but maybe that was the heartburn talking.
I could go on and on but I won’t except to say that the highlight of the evening was a really lovely scoop of brown butter gelato – nicely nutty, creamy, simple abundance done really, really well. The brown butter bliss was accompanied by a second scoop of (almost as excellent) subtle, smooth, floral rose geranium gelato (R55).
So, given most of the above, why write about Aurum at all? Because, like Everest, it is there and laying claim to the top spot. The golden city deserves a glamour gourmet dining destination. Right now, Aurum is not it. I am not without sympathy. Running any restaurant is very, very hard. Opening an eatery that is aiming for iconic status is even more difficult. Doing so in this economic climate is beyond heroic. Criticizing when said restaurant is less than perfect is a much easier exercise. I do know that almost anyone can identify faults but that it takes great skill, perseverance and energy to sort them out. I hope that they persevere.
Aurum: 087 536 0100; Level 7, The Leonardo, 75 Maude St. Sandton, Johannesburg; www.aurumrestaurant.co.za
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