Fernando Rueda of wine importer and distributor Rueda Wine Co. makes his own small-batch wines in collaboration with Angus Paul of Angus Paul Wines, the 2023 vintage newly released, the range now including a Verdelho for the first time. Tasting notes and ratings as follows (all wines R325 a bottle):

Torero and The Oxen of the Sun Verdelho 2023
From a Groenekloof vineyard that’s 0.3ha in size and was planted in 2001. Matured for 10 months in an old 300-litre barrel. The nose shows floral perfume, pear, peach and citrus while the palate has good fruit and is creamy in texture, the acidity well integrated, the finish savoury. Still very primary, a year in bottle should facilitate extra complexity. Alc: 13.29%.

CE’s rating: 91/100.

Torero and the Suit of Lights Carignan 2023
Grapes from Wellington. 100% whole-bunch fermentation (as opposed to 50% in the case of 2022) before maturation lasting 10 months in older 225-litre barrels. Red and black berries, fynbos and hints of pepper and other spice. The palate is juicy and round with a winning sweetness – alcohol is 14.5%. Acidity is nevertheless bright, the tannins crunchy.

CE’s rating: 91/100.

Torero and Pasiphaë Syrah 2023
Grapes from Polkadraai Hills property Karibib. 100% whole-bunch fermented before maturation lasting 10 months in 500-litre barrels, 30% new. Red berries, violets, cinnamon, white pepper and a trace of vanilla. The palate is light-bodied, even delicate with great energy and very fine, talc-like tannins. Pure, focussed and most accomplished.

CE’s rating: 96/100.

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Not all insights are original or earth-shattering, but this doesn’t mean that they are without value. For example, it’s widely recognised that cultivar serves the same purpose as brand for many wine-drinkers. People who order a sauvignon blanc or a chardonnay without specifying a preferred producer are expressing a kind of brand choice based on the attributes – or at least their perception of the attributes – of the variety. They either don’t know – or care to know – the names of the cellars which produce their bottle of choice. They are happy simply to have a glass of whatever sauvignon or chardonnay is on offer.

Once you accept that for many everyday wine drinkers cultivar is king, you have to ask yourself why some varieties always appear to be in demand, while others simply tick along. This in turn poses a further consideration – is the status of cultivars in some way set in stone and if so, what would have to be done to change position on the hierarchy.

Some of this is easily answered: in the early 1980s chardonnay was comfortably the most prestigious variety in South Africa – mainly on account of its rarity. Hamilton Russell Vineyards Chardonnay was sold on allocation for twice the price of Chateau Mouton Rothschild – a situation which prevailed until supplies increased (and the ABC – Anything But Chardonnay – campaign became entrenched in the 1990s). With chardonnay’s fortunes waning sauvignon blanc began its ascendancy.

Rarity may affect the status of the different varieties – but only for as long as demand massively outstrips supply (as in the case chardonnay forty years ago). Once there is roughly enough volume in the market it’s the stature of the cultivar’s “brand” status as well as it perceived attributes that drive image and demand.

Chardonnay dipped when consumers identified it with over-oaked (and therefore possibly over-oxidised) white wines. Consumers seeking freshness gravitated immediately to the variety which delivers tangy crispness in bucket loads. Ask sauvignon drinkers what they like about their chosen grape and words like “freshness” and “zestiness” are bound to dominate the discourse.

Descriptors like these are not always true – or even vaguely appropriate. I once ran a couple of workshops for winemakers when merlot was still a relative newcomer to the Cape. Everyone – producers and wine marketers – used descriptors like “plush” and “creamy” for the wines in the line-up – whether or not the wines were even merlot. It was clear they were tasting the reputation of the cultivar and not the wine itself.

So now we get to the key issues which define those cultivar-brands which are doing well, and those which are battling to get traction. Sauvignon is the big player on the white wine scene. Chardonnay is solid despite the ABC residue which still drives (mainly quite ignorant) consumers into the arms of sometimes quite aggressively herbal sauvignon blancs. Chenin has experienced a massive surge in popularity over the past twenty five years. Efforts to reward quality and shake off its old image as the workhorse grape of the Cape have paid handsome dividends. Its success is expressed both in generally higher pricing and in the premium paid for the old vine bottlings.

When it comes to reds however, things are not so clear. Merlot is the sauvignon blanc of the red wine trade: it enjoys a large following at a mid-market price point where consumers imagine (rather than taste) the soft creamy tannins. Cabernet’s long held position as the “king of red grapes” continues unassailed. Producers know they can charge more for a visibly wooded cab than for most reds.

Pinot noir, on a much smaller scale, enjoys great prestige. Its brand positioning was perfectly handled by Tim Hamilton Russell when it was launched into the South African market in the last decades of the 20^th century. It still achieves an average price (in bottle – rather than as bulk fruit for the fizz industry) that bears no resemblance to its potential tasting pleasure. Look at what well-branded slightly weedy Cape pinots sell for and ask yourself to what extent brand image – together with apparent shortage – drives the pricing.

Producers will tell you shiraz is a hard sell, despite there being more accessible (and often less overtly green) examples than merlot. Clearly it has a brand image problem. Cinsaut has staged a bit of a comeback amongst the geeky crew, but its (in my view) overly optimistic pricing is starting to look increasingly soggy as more and more stock begins to flood the market. The past five years have been a textbook case of shortage driving brand image, rather than inherent quality or intrinsic desirability..

Pinotage on the other hand continues to battle to achieve lift-off. It hasn’t shaken itself free of its baggage nor has it delivered a consistent message about what it offers: those who preach its pleasures find themselves on the back-foot because it doesn’t own its brand message space (read more here). It’s in the same no-mans-land that leaves shiraz a little directionless: there’s no agreement about what you can expect from a glass of it. Punters prefer the illusion of certainty to the certainty of doubt.

• Michael Fridjhon has over thirty-five years’ experience in the liquor industry. He is the founder of Winewizard.co.za and holds various positions including Visiting Professor of Wine Business at the University of Cape Town; founder and director of WineX – the largest consumer wine show in the Southern Hemisphere and chairman of The Trophy Wine Show.

 

Nuschka de Vos was winemaker at Reyneke Wines from 2015 until late-2021. The emergence of the Omicron variant of Cov-19 disrupted travel plans and instead she decided to forge ahead with her own label, maiden release being the rather good Vulpes Chama Chenin Blanc 2022 (see here).

Now she is launching her second vintage, the range having expanded to included not one, but two, examples of Chenin plus a Cabernet Sauvignon.

Whereas Chama (after the Cape Fox) is from two Paardeberg vineyards, the new Chenin called Velox (after the Swift Fox) is from a neglected Citrusdal Mountian vineyard that De Vos discovered along with viticulturist Rosa Kruger – a full review is pending but suffice to say for now is that both these wines are excellent.

The question that must be posed, however is does South Africa now produce too many examples of top-end Chenin Blanc (De Vos’s two wines will both sell for R385 a bottle)?

To some extent, the South Africa Chenin Blanc situation cannot be changed and must be accepted. It remains the country’s number one most planted variety, 16 192ha in the ground at the end of 2023, the equivalent of 18.4% if the national vineyard. South Africa has more Chenin Blanc vines planted than any other country. It’s what SA does. Nobody asks if New Zealand makes too much Sauvignon Blanc or Austria too much Grüner Veltliner…

Besides, over the past few decades, South Africa has been smashing it with Chenin. More and more wine critics and somms are inclined to view what’s coming out of this country as not just some of the best Chenin but some of the best white wine on the planet.

But is market demand really endless? Put differently, at what point does yet another deluxe Chenin Blanc become overkill? If South African producers flood the market with top-end Chenin Blanc, there could be issues with supply outpacing demand, leading to reduced pricing power or market saturation. How many people in the world are looking for a top-end Chenin Blanc experience? Probably not as many as local producers would like to think.

If too many premium-priced Chenin Blancs hit the market, consumers might gravitate back toward more familiar white wines like Chardonnay. In terms of sheer quality, there’s very little to choose between SA’s best Chenin and its best Chardonnay, while Chenin has never carried the same prestige as Chardonnay – just ask the producers of Savennières and Vouvray.

Price sensitivity is a related issue. If there’s too much expensive Chenin on the shelves, some consumers are going to realise that there are cheaper options out there – Sauvignon Blanc, at least those made with serious intent, as well as white blends, offer drinking pleasure without necessarily costing as much as the most ambitious examples of Chenin.  

Top-end Chenin Blanc has been hugely successful in the last two or three decades, but if it’s to continue then the industry is going to have to make a conscious effort to maintain demand and differentiate these wines in a crowded global market.

How to get that market positioning right? That’s a complex question to answer but there does seem a tendency creeping into local wine circles to view wine as an investible asset rather than a product of curiosity.

Consumers with a more acquisitive bent, those more inclined to see wine as an asset class, can’t help but be preoccupied with value appreciation. Some buy wine with the intent of selling them at a higher price in the future. Others are still going to drink their holdings but a key motivation in acquiring any wine is that it should increase in value over time. A trophy hunting mentality is involved. Score inflation among critics, collectors trying to corner the market, and fanciful auction results are the unfortunate side-effects.

If top-end Chenin Blanc is going to survive and prosper, then it needs to be positioned as product of curiosity rather than as a category with a few rare and hard to obtain examples that become highly traded and a whole bunch of also-rans.

To some degree, wine needs to be sold as something other than wine. Wine tells the story of the land it comes from, the people who make it, and the history behind its production. Wine as cultural artefact, wine as transparent medium to convey not just site in narrow agricultural terms but also human society in broad terms.  

Ultimately, there’s no getting away from the fact that while wine is a physical object with lots of cultural connotations, it’s also a consumable product and those who engage with wine as a product of curiosity, meanwhile, are driven by a desire to have as many different sensory experiences as possible. Wine is about the nuances in aroma, flavor, texture, and it interacts with food or changes over time in the glass. Wine is not for selling again and again, it’s for drinking.

Returning to the two Vulpes wines, how lucky are we that as a winemaker as accomplished as De Vos has decided to make more than one example of Chenin, allowing us to contrast the Paardeberg with the Citrusdal Mountain, and providing two distinctly different drinking experiences, despite being made from the same variety. De Vos is a Dutch-language surname meaning “the fox” and hence the theme of foxes in the branding – members of the Vulpes genus are colloquially referred to true foxes, and there are apparently 12 existing species around the world, so maybe a few more site-specific Chenins to come.

Melanie van der Merwe, previously head winemaker of sparkling wine at what was Distell (now Heineken), also boasts experience at some of the top Champagne houses (Louis Roedere, Moët & Chandon, Pommery).

Her own label (named after her birthstone) dates from 2006, total production relatively small at 2,000 cases. Her current-releases Blanc de Blanc NV is from Robertson Chardonnay and spent 36 months on the lees. The nose shows some flinty reduction before citrus, peach and a little brioche-like character. The palate is linear and tightly wound – pure fruit, crisp acidity and a fine mousse, the finish lightly salty. Clean and precise. Price: R305 a bottle.

CE’s rating: 92/100.

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There are three fine estates at the crest of the Helshoogte Pass, just outside Stellenbosch town. As I turned on to Thelema’s gravel, I thought that the roadway itself symbolised the place. The other two properties up there, Delaire-Graff and Tokara, well paved and replete (to different degrees) with glitter, art and fine-dining, represent the visions and the investments of rich men; Thelema comes from the vision of a deeply wine-loving farmer.

The farm road, beautifully graded – unlike, say, the typical Swartland equivalent – runs alongside a vineyard on the other side of which is the line of eucaplytus trees that give the wine from those vines its characteristic ”minty” tang. It leads to a cluster of building – houses where the Webb families live, winery buildings and reception spaces. All is handsome but businesslike, homely and unpretentious. I hadn’t been to Thelema for over a decade (which is why I’d invited myself for this visit, having realised that the estate was so long a familiar part of my wine-life that I scarcely noticed it anymore), and there was a welcome new extension of the tasting facilities, including a broad deck overlooking vineyards, but they are unimposingly and elegantly simple.

I mentioned the vision of a farmer, but Gyles Webb was only just a farmer (though he’d studied viticulture and oenology since abandoning his career as an accountant) when his parents-in-law, the McLeans, bought this run-down fruit farm on the Simonsberg slopes in 1983. And he’s been at it ever since; now in his latter 70s he still (says Thomas, his son, who’s now pretty well in charge here) intimately knows and carefully manages every corner of the 50 hectares of vines: “My dad just loves farming”. As for the winemaking, he has over time pulled back from that, with Rudi Schultz, here for just about 25 years, responsible for the Thelema and Sutherland wines – Sutherland being the name of the Elgin farm the family bought at the turn of the century.

Driving around the farm with Thomas, I was struck by what an innovative, as well as effective, farmer Gyles was from the start. The beauty of the high-lying farm is not just in the magnificent views but because of the feeling you get of the meticulously tended vines having somehow settled happily amongst the almost-dominant fynbos. The highest slopes are wild, of course (Cape leopards are just the most glamorous of the animal life that makes its presence felt), but there’s also a ravine running through the farm, and there are corridors of fynbos interspersed. This integration of nature with viniculture was far from being the rule back when Gyles started out. There was later some experimentation with strict organic farming, but it proved impracticable; the approach now, says Thomas, remains “commonsense and best interest”.

Some 40 of the farm’s 50 hectares of vines have been replanted in the past few decades – necessitated partly by the not-always-satisfactory plant material that had been all that was available in the 1980s and ‘90s. And, again thanks to Gyles’s early awareness of the problem and a vigorous response, virus is remarkably under control here.

In the wines as well as the farm, there’s been only “quiet evolution”, says Thomas, over the Webb decades at Thelema. Well, perhaps, but the range has grown greatly over the years; I counted (I think) 17 under the Thelema label and 12 from Sutherland. Gyles’s early winemaking was innovative too, from the first few 1987s – Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling; the famous Cabernet Sauvignon saw its debut the following year and was most expressive of the difference happening here. The aim was freshness and pure fruit uncluttered by oak and effort: less classic, perhaps, more “New World”; certainly among the earliest of “modern” winemaking efforts in the Cape, and already hugely successful and prestigious in the 1990s.

Nowadays, the Cabernet seems rather more classic, but that’s probably the shift of the world. The 2020 is both serious and easily approachable, vibrant but deep. It’s ripe, but not too ripe, not heavily oaked, and it’s properly dry – altogether unshowy and immensely likeable. At about R360, excellent value.

Given the large range of wines, and my laziness, I’d asked Thomas to show me just a representative selection of the wines from both farms, so I’ll report briefly on some of those. The Bordeaux red varieties all do well on the Stellenbosch estate. The Mint Cab 2022 is a touch richer and more polished than the other (and R200 more), while the Merlot and Merlot Reserve 2021 are undoubtedly amongst the small handful of excellent local wines from this grape. Plenty of obvious fruit on the Merlot, easily approachable but with a welcome lean edge. That’s R250, but if you can splash out on the Reserve at R550, you get more gorgeousness and intensity, perfume and velvet, with some suave elegance too. The Rabelais 2021 – cab with a little petit verdot – is undoubtedly rather beautiful, impressively complex, rich and balanced, but inching in the direction of plush sweetness.

As for the Sutherland reds, the two Reserve wines I tasted, The Sarah Red 2018 (also cab with a little PV) and the Emily Petit Verdot 2022, have pretty well arrived at intense, impressive plush sweetness. I do wonder why Thelema needed to go to cooler Elgin to make the kind of reds that are already only too common back in Stellenbosch (though not at the home estate). They’re R500 each, and I very much preferred the Sutherland Syrah 2021 at R200 – a really attractive drink, just slightly rustic, unpretentious, well-structured and delicious: a better justification, I’d say, for growing reds other than pinot in Elgin.

The Sutherland whites I had were also particularly good, revelling in the acidity that the cooler climate gives them, and well priced. There’s a charming, just-off-dry Riesling 2024 (R160) and an elegant and interesting Viognier-Roussanne 2023 (R230) that is lovely, with its green-tinged succulently acid freshness. The Chardonnay 2021 is also drinking beautifully now (with room to grow), from subtle aroma to fantailing finish, both delicate and deep. It was interesting to taste it alongside the Thelema Chrdonnay 2022, a little lean in its greater youth but with an inherent richness and intensity that is soon going to blossom forth and give enormous satisfaction.

I must also mention Thelema’s newest wine, the Grenache 2022. It’s a wine that they’ve been working towards for some time, and became possible after a fynbos fire in 2016 exposed a very rocky area on the farm that seemed dead right for grenache – so they planted it the following year. The maiden 2022 (R280) comes mostly from that young vineyard, with a component from 2007 vines. It’s not in the vein of some of the very light grenaches that are fashionable now. It has the characteristic lovely aromas, but is ripe, sweetly fruited, dense and intense, with youthful vigour and power. We also tasted from a bottle that had been open a few days, and that wine had broadened and deepened – a good sign for bottle maturability. This is a serious wine, worthy of a place in the Thelema line-up.

But Thelema does also have a pair of more modest, screwcapped and lower-priced wines – Mountain Red and Mountain White, with the estate name downplayed on the labels. We didn’t taste them that day, but as I was leaving, as an afterthought, I asked Thomas if I could take home a bottle of each to try there. The aromatic 2023 White (R110) is mostly sauvignon blanc, with a little viognier to add weight and interest. Very pleasant, but I think the Red even better value (at R125). An idiosyncratic but successful blend of shiraz, petit verdot and grenache, with those useful few years on it to give harmony and easy approachability: there’s plenty of delicious fruit, and a savoury spicy edge, with enough structure to give it heft. Not easy to find all that at the price.

But, then, it’s not easy to find a parallel to Thelema itself. It played a significant role in the modernisation of Cape wine and then held its reputation for quality and value, and – what’s more – kept its soul as a fine family estate, ambitious but inherently modest in the best sense of the word.

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

A bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon 1988 from Jonkershoek property Oude Nektar drunk recently still had its Wine of the Month Club neck tag that was affixed to it in 1990 announcing it as Best Joint Selection 1988 – 1989 (Out of 14), and it read as follows: “A very good example of New World style Cabernet bursting with freshness, ripe fruit and sweet spicy oak… (t)uck away until 1992 and it should give great pleasure to around 1998/2000.”

According to Platter’s 1991, the Jonkershoek property Oude Nektar was “in the throes of a massive face-lift” – businessman Hans-Pieter Schröder had returned from Japan to acquire the property from the Peck family, Peter Peck the winemaker of the 1988. The guide’s rating for the 1988 was 4 Stars – “In a New World style, a major quality leap from previous softer, less complex vintages.” Today, Oude Nektar is home to Stark-Condé, run by American José Conde and his wife, Marie, daughter of Schröder.

Matured for 11 months in French and some American oak, the 1988 is today immaculate and suggests once again that Jonkershoek is a special site for Cabernet Sauvignon in the local context. Crimson with a transparent rim in colour, the nose shows cassis, violets, potpourri, oak spice and pencil shavings, a little bit of leafy character but no overt herbal/tomato leaf character as some wines of that era can show. The palate is medium bodied but the fruit is intact, the tannins still in place, fine and intricate. Pure, balanced and showing everything you want from a mature wine rather than any decay or decrepitude. Well balanced and altogether rather lovely.

CE’s rating: 97/100.

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Staanspoor is a collaboration between Pierre Puren and Pieter Vermaak, two Jeffreys Bay wine enthusiasts, and winemaker Angus Paul. Their maiden release is a Syrah 2022 from a vineyard on Polkadraai Hills property Karibib (price: R350 a bottle).

Winemaking involved 50% whole-bunch fermentation before maturation lasting 16 months in 225-litre barrels, 25% new.  The nose shows red and black berries, floral perfume and cracked black pepper. The palate is none too scrawny and nicely structured – succulent fruit, bright acidity and crunchy tannins, the finish long and dry. Alc: 14.2%.

CE’s rating: 93/100.

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Chenin Blanc, as is well documented, makes for wines in a very wide variety of styles. The Legacy Calcareo Wooded 2024 is the top-end current release from Nuy, the cellar situated between Worcester and Robertson, and the winemaking team have resisted the temptation to make a very rich wine instead opting for something honest, unadorned and quite elegant.

Calcareo is the Latin word for the chalky soils in which the vines for this wine are grown. Fermentation, meanwhile, took place in a combination of French oak barrels and stainless-steel tanks with French oak chips and alcohol is 12.5%.

Guava, pear, peach, lime, a hint of herbs and a just a brush of vanilla on the nose while the palate is pure and zippy with a lightly pithy finish. Lean and pleasantly so. Price: R165 a bottle.

CE’s rating: 90/100.

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The 2020 vintage of GPS Series Cape South Coast Sauvignon Blanc Semillon from Richard Kershaw placed best in category with a score of 95 in the relevant Prescient Report of 2022. What of the follow-up 2021 (R395 a bottle)?

A blend of 56% Sauvignon Blanc from Elgin and 44% Semillon from Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge (including some Semillon Gris, the former was fermented in tank and the latter in barrel, maturation lasting four months.

The nose shows top notes of lime, peach, soft citrus and a touch of blackcurrant plus dried herbs and white pepper while the palate is intense and sharply delineated – dense fruit and punchy acidity before a super-savoury finish. Alc: 12.42%.

CE’s rating: 93/100.

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