“We’re bottling today,” explains cellar master Chris Williams over the din of a mobile bottling unit parked outside Meerlust’s cellar. He leads me past it and across an obstacle course of pipes laid across the cement floor. The noise slowly fades into a distant hum as we’re swallowed into the hushed interior of the cool, dark wine cellar. We pass a row of foudres, and just beyond this is the cellar tasting room. It’s an altar to wine, sealed off from the rest of the world, where intrusions like spreadsheets and deadlines lose their power. The walls are hung with retro wine art, portraits of Meerlust alumni, and there’s one of Chris’s predecessor, Giorgio Dalla Cia scowling darkly out at us from a far corner.

I get the sense that Meerlust isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is: South Africa’s oldest family-run winery (it’s been owned by Myburghs since 1756). It’s a beacon of heritage winemaking on the outskirts of Stellenbosch.

“It’s a place not a brand,” says Chris. “Continuity of style is important, we only use our own grapes, and we want to express the site. There’s a built-in intellectual property. Though we do of course evolve and the wines become more idiosyncratic every year.”

“We want our wines to be distinctive.” He pours us glasses of the Meerlust Chardonnay 2017, which recently scored 94-points in this site’s 2018 Prescient Chardonnay Report. “It is so typically a Meerlust chardonnay. That’s what I mean by distinctive.”

He elaborates: “The hallmarks are, most importantly it must be delicious – too often we forget that about wine. Then precision of flavour: it has to be identifiably chardonnay. Then it needs to be well oaked without obscuring the varietal character.

“We make maritime chardonnay – we’re five kilometres from the sea – the clue is in our name, ‘Meerlust’ meaning ‘love of the sea’.”

He continues: “Our chardonnay has an expressive core of ripe fruit, which is an indication of it belonging to the New World; but with an Old World restraint and elegance of the oaking regime.”

Born and raised in Illovo, Johannesburg, Chris shrugs his shoulders and says: “I never felt at home there.” So it was down to the Cape he came to do his tertiary education. “I went to UCT to study law, and immersed myself in the wine culture, from being a part of the Wine Culture Society to getting a job in the tasting room at Klein Constantia, Ross Gower was a great mentor to me.

“I realised very quickly law was not for me. I finished my BA and went to Elsenburg to study Oenology in 1992. I got my piece of paper, but my education really was tasting wines and asking myself the question: ‘This is special. Why?’.”

A trip to the Rhône in 1994 with his Elsenberg classmates, winemakers like Eben Sadie and Marc Kent, made a huge impression on not only him but on all of them.

“It was the dawn of democracy and the range of wines we had been exposed to so far had been small. The wines of the Rhône valley blew us all away. That trip had a massive impact on South African winemaking as a whole.”

He continued to broaden his horizons in France working for famous consultant Michel Rolland. And at some point he came home and landed the job as assistant winemaker at Meerlust from 1995 to 2000 under the tutelage of legendary winemaker, Giorgio Dalla Cia.

He left for a few years to work at some other estates as well as to start his own brand of wines, The Foundry Wine Collection (which continues to produce outstanding wines from adjoining vineyards at Meerlust as well as from co-owner James Reid’s vineyard in the Voor Paardeberg).

But as kismet would have it, in 2004, owner Hannes Myburgh called with the job offer of head winemaker. “I didn’t even let the phone hit the floor before I was in my car and on the way back. Having worked with Giorgio, I knew what needed to be done to bring Meerlust to its next evolution.

“I knew the character of the vines, but I had also started The Foundry so I didn’t feel the need to put an ego stamp on the wines. I knew Meerlust was bigger than me. It’s a balancing act: what can my abilities bring to this place and how do I keep it great?”

Pervading the room with its dark perfume is the Meerlust Pinot Noir 2016, the next wine in our tasting. “My real love is pinot,” Chris admits. It’s been a journey not something I started out with; all wine roads lead to Pinot, it’s a destination wine. I’m drawn to the purity of fruit, the precision of flavour – pinot is so much about the nose, the aromatics, the musk. It’s like a lens magnifying everything that it experiences good or bad in the vineyard, you can’t blend it away.

“It doesn’t play nicely with others, the structure of the wine sits so far away from other varietals. There’s something about it that’s untamed, untouchable.”

Our attention is now drawn to glasses of inky Meerlust Rubicon 2015. “Whereas with the Rubicon – and I love it for this – is much more masculine. You can know it.

“For us as an estate it all comes together with the Rubicon: it has that Cape feeling, a core of juicy fruit that puts it in the New World but with a slight austerity and classical styling.”

He points out the row of foudres behind us telling me as he does that they were recently purchased. The large barrels contain percentages of the Rubicon blending components from the last vintage. “Historically that’s how we used to make wines at Meerlust and I’m bringing them back. We vinify the components separately, and the foudre portions will make up a 20 per cent of the final Rubicon blend.

“Why am I doing this? The wines made in the foudres are still so alive 40 years later.” To demonstrate he pours us glasses of Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 1978. “The evolution of the wine is totally different in the foudres. It’s about preservation of fruit and perfume.

“To evolve we sometimes have to look back. What do they say? Wisdom is experience.”

It’s back out into the sunshine, and past the bottling unit that’s packaging living history and sending it into the world.

• Malu Lambert is a freelance food and wine journalist who has written for numerous titles including Food & Home, Good Taste and The Sunday Times. She has achieved Level 3 via WSET and won the title of Veritas Young Wine Writer 2015. She also owns story-telling agency, Fable, which works with high-end food, wine and hospitality brands, telling their unique stories in a variety of digital formats. Follow her on Twitter: @MaluLambert

winemag.co.za is pleased to present the third annual Cape White Blend Report – in order to be eligible, wines had to contain a significant Chenin Blanc component, specifically more than 15% and less than 85%.

38 entries from 32 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 points or higher on the 100-point quality scale were as follows:

94
Boplaas Gamka Branca Reserve 2017
Org de Rac Die Waghuis 2017
The Fledge & Co. Vagabond 2017
Van Wyk Family Wines Olivia Grace 2017

92
Lammershoek The Mysteries White Blend 2017
Painted Wolf Pictus VI 2017

91
Beaumont New Baby 2017
Cavalli Cremello 2016
Darling Lime Kilns 2017
Malanot Flower Pot White Blend 2014
Muratie Laurens Campher 2017
Springfontein Limestone Rocks Darkside of the Moon 2016

90
B Vintners Haarlem to Hope 2017
Chapoutier Belleruche Blanc 2016
Fairview Nurok 2017
Painted Wolf Pictus V 2016
Perdeberg The Dry Land Collection Rossouw’s Heritage 2017
Zevenwacht The Tin Mine 2017

To read the report in full, download the following: Cape White Blend Report 2018

The Cellars-Hohenort Hotel shares an atmosphere with The Imperial Hotel in Delhi, India. A lush, 250-year-old garden surrounds imposing, colonial-era buildings. At tea-time on a Sunday the air is tranquil, punctuated only by the sounds of water features, clinking teaspoons and shoes on plush carpet.

Like The Imperial Hotel, Cellars-Hohenhort is exclusive and expensive.

The high tea cakes and sandwiches are not served buffet-style. Instead, everyone gets their own three-tier stand. In addition to the stand, one is served a plate of cheeses, dips and meats and sosaties.

The range of teas is large, well-chosen and well-described.

In Cape Town’s ideological context, the very idea of high tea is awkward. The reality is no less so. My thought was: the cakes had better be worth it.

Sadly, the eats are – as an actual colonial-era Brit might say – “nothing to write home about”.

The walnut carrot cake is dense and over-spiced. The chocolate eclairs are miniscule – the actual size of young shrimps – and not chocolatey at all. The pecan pie, advertised as a pecan “wedge”, was too big and too sugary – although the garnish of a dot of cream, a half raspberry and a single mint leaf worked well to offset the treacly filling.

The “key lime pie” – indistinguishable from a lemon meringue pie – was also too large, with a pastry base that was not strong enough to contain the runny curd and too-high meringue. Speaking of meringues, the mini pavlova was teeny but good.

What else was good?

The cucumber sandwich was the star of the show: Thin slices of vegetable between slices of white bread with dill cream cheese and – here’s the good bit – a touch of wasabi.

In runner-up position was the ugly duckling of the stand: an unattractive, layered cube of – what? One had no idea. It was not listed on the menu. Only the curious and/or greedy would have ventured to eat it, but what a delight it was: the base was crumbly, there was a dark, dense, cakey section, a custardy bit and the topping had a jelly-ish texture. A cake-cum-trifle!

The “classic Madagascan chocolate cake” was good too. It had all the rich taste of a brownie, with the comforting texture of a rich sponge. It was not over-iced – always a recommendation in my book.

The Cellars-Hohenort tea stand errs on the side of excess – not in variety, but in portion size. It would be ideal if all the cakes and sandwiches were a single mouthful.

The cheese, meats, dips, crisps and sosaties served alongside the stand are wholly unnecessary. Are they provided to appease Banters? Surely not. Banters forewent high tea when they gave up carbs. Are the proteins for men who consider mini cakes and sandwiches girly? For goodness sake, if you aren’t charmed to the point of shrieking by a selection of dolly-sized sweets and savouries, don’t order the high tea. Chaps: the tea menu, I notice, includes a selection of club sandwiches.

Whatever the reason for the additional plates, they hike up the cost of an already pricey tea, and overface the guest.

The little flavoured cupcakes were ordinary. Again, I loved the raspberry garnish, this time on the red velvet cake – usually such an uncompromisingly saccharine confection.

The smoked salmon served on a miniature blini was generous. The “goats cheese and roasted vegetable tart” was confusing: either we weren’t told that the vegetables had been replaced with mushrooms, or the vegetables were browned and dried out in the oven.

The coronation chicken and beef and rocket sandwiches were tasty, but not refined. In look and taste they were more akin to what my friend calls “cricket sandwiches”. Another note: soft, crusts-off bread is the right choice for a teatime “finger” sandwich, but perhaps the quality of the bread should rise above supermarket-sliced?

A note on seating: we were placed in a roomy lounge area, with giant couches. It meant the distances between us were so vast we were unable to converse as a group. There was not enough table room. Also, we were in a position to watch hotel residents having their high teas on the terrace, on chairs, at tables. Like the British class system itself, our seating arrangement was baffling.

The service was also, um, curious. We were ignored for a while, then bullied into accepting six entire “Classic High Teas”, since I had originally booked for six. We would have preferred fewer stands, and some teas with a single plate of scones, or a single slice of cake. This is offered on the menu. It was not to be. I left the hotel carrying two classic high teas in foil boxes. The “textures of chocolate” dessert was absent, as were the cheeses, dips, meats and sosaties.

At a cost of R245 per person, Sunday tea at The Cellars-Hohenort is an indulgent experience. The hotel’s architecture and gardens, the décor and tranquility, are a treat. The food and service is not as good as it could be, but the experience is pleasant overall.

The Cellars-Hohenort: 93 Brommersvlei Rd, Constantia Heights; 021 794-2137; www.thecellars-hohenorthotel.com

• Daisy Jones has been writing reviews of Cape Town restaurants for ten years. She won The Sunday Times Cookbook of the Year for Starfish in 2014. She was shortlisted for the same prize in 2015 for Real Food, Healthy, Happy Children. Daisy has been a professional writer since 1995, when she started work at The Star newspaper as a court reporter. She is currently completing a novel.

Stellenbosch property Keermont recently released new vintages of its single vineyard series, tasting notes and ratings as follows:

Keermont Riverside Chenin Blanc 2017
Wine Cellar price: R335
Grapes from a 1971 vineyard. Fermented and matured for 12 months in barrel, some new. The nose shows top notes of hay, fynbos and flowers before citrus and peach. The palate has a good core of fruit plus vibrant acidity before a savoury finish. Nicely proportioned – not too lean, not too fat. Alcohol: 13.5%.

Editor’s rating: 93/100.

Keermont Topside Syrah 2015
Approximate retail price: R425
Grapes from a west-facing vineyard. Matured for 20 months in older 500-litre barrels. Red fruit, fynbos and even a touch of fennel plus pepper on the nose. Pure fruit, lemon-like acidity and fine tannins – lovely structure. Alcohol: 13.5%.

Editor’s rating: 93/100.

Keermont Steepside Syrah 2015
Wine Cellar price: R445
From a north-facing vineyard. Matured for 20 months in older 225- and 500-litre barrels. A hint of reduction before black fruit, lavender, earth, pepper and spice. A full-bodied, assertive wine with sweet, dense fruit and fine tannins, a slight sense of heat to the finish. Not lacking in flavour but demanding to drink. Alcohol: 14.5%

Editor’s rating: 90/100.

Keermont Pondok Rug Cabernet Franc 2015
Approximate retail price: R385
Matured for 20 months in older oak. A pungent nose of dark fruit, crushed herbs, violets and earth. Rich and full with bright acidity and firm tannins. Hangs together pretty well given an alcohol of 14.5%, the finish admirably dry.

Editor’s rating: 91/100.

Find our South African wine ratings database here.

The reputation of the Family Vineyards Pinot Noir from Newton Johnson in the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley is well established, but I would proffer that the 2017 is the best to date.

Grapes from vineyards across the property, some whole-bunch fermentation is undertaken depending on the particular site while maturation lasted 11 months in French oak, 25% new before a further six months in tank.

Stick your nose in your glass and you will initially encounter very expressive, lifted aromatics of strawberry, cherry and musk but later some earthiness and spice also become discernible. The palate is very poised, very detailed. Medium bodied in structure, it comes across as seamless with no disconnect from entry through mid-palate to finish (alcohol: 13.4%). Pure, fresh and possessing wonderfully supple tannins, it moves really well in the mouth. Super-sexy! Approximate retail price: R365 a bottle.

Editor’s rating: 94/100.

Find our South African wine ratings database here.

Here are our five most highly rated wines of last month:

Sadie Family Wines The Old Vine Series ‘T Voetpad 2017 – 97/100 (read original review here)
Sadie Family Wines The Old Vine Series Mev. Kirsten 2017 – 96/100 (read original review here)
Sadie Family Wines The Old Vine Series Soldaat 2017 – 96/100 (read original review here)
L’Avenir Single Block Chenin Blanc 2017  – 95/100 (read original review here)
Testalonga El Bandito Cortez Chenin Blanc 2018 – 95/100 (read original review here)

Bosman Family Vineyards have taken a view that Nero d’Avola has a bright future locally on account of how similar weather conditions here are to the variety’s traditional home of Sicily. With a couple of more or less experimental vintages behind them, they’re upping the ante with the 2016 vintage, this vintage getting fancy packaging and demanding something of a premium, the wine set to sell for R300 a bottle.

Matured for 18 months in oak, of which 20% was new, the nose shows red cherry and plum, a hint of herbs and vanilla. The palate is medium bodied (alcohol: 14%) with sweet fruit, fresh acidity and soft tannins. It’s an unassuming wine which should have broad appeal but is perhaps a bit on the expensive side.

Editor’s rating: 89/100.

Find our South African wine ratings database here.

Believe me, a profound satisfaction in my growing old (older, oldish – fairly soon I turn 64) is the realisation that I am not actually an alcoholic. Such a relief! It means I continue drinking too much without excessive anxiety. I don’t think I’ve ever been flippant about the dreadfulness of a total and uncontrollable addiction to alcohol (I was a nicotine addict), and I’ve watched with a touch of alarm my increasing consumption of wine over the years. But by now I can see clearly that, the way things look now, my drinking will never be appallingly excessive, or quite out of control – however much my doctor might (and does!) consider that I drink too much. (And one soberly hears of winelovers who suddenly develop conditions in which any significant alcohol intake is fatal.)

It’s a bit like watching the disappearance of my waistline and finding that last summer’s white trousers can only be closed with a mighty tug and the prospect of a button embarrassingly flying off in public. At the present rate of increase (with occasional low-carb diets) I shall only be really obese when I’m 75, and at present I don’t care about that: chances are it’ll be the least of my problems. Twenty years ago, the number of nights a bottle lasted me was an indication of how good the wine was: a really nice wine wouldn’t suffice more than two nights; a less seductive one would last three. Now, even apart from my being so fussy that if I don’t much like a wine I abandon it and go and find another, it’s decidedly not rare for a good bottle to disappear completely in a night – unless I switch to brandy at a later stage.

I am, let it be said, not one of those who think that drinking by oneself is inherently problematic. Certainly, the majority of dinners in my adulthood have been consumed alone (even when I lived with someone, which I no longer do), and these are always accompanied with, and generally followed by, alcohol. I love the stuff. Alcohol, that is. Wine is a great accompaniment to food: that freshening acidity, that gulp of a different – hopefully complementary or confirmatory – complexity, and that added deliciousness in the sensual totality. But above all, I admit, it’s that added happy buzz…. Surely at least the vast majority of any readers who have forced themselves this far will know what I mean? And I’ve always found scoring a buzz a trifle problematic.

Let me be fully confessional, to give the context to these admittedly not entirely sober ramblings. I felt excused to celebrate a little tonight: to defrost the fatted calf, as it were. I’d learnt today that the wallet which was lost had been found. Lost, it turns out, and found a week later, in the depths of the University of Cape Town Library, where, in an automated, close-packed shelving system, I’d been earnestly seeking to consult late 19^th century issues of the Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Journal. (If such is the sad context of one’s life, is it surprising that one needs the buzz?)

So. Not having a fatted calf in my freezer I defrosted some duck-quarters to help my rejoicing. I am good at cooking them – not a great achievement, admittedly; a fatted calf would be much more of a challenge (and unlikely to fit in my freezer, unless it was a real baby). While I was doing so I even assembled some shelves for my garage from a kit, so blasé was I, but also, more importantly, went in search of something vaguely celebratory to accompany what I knew was to be a delicious dinner (ok, the potatoes fried in duckfat were not expected to be irrelevant to the pleasure).

Something local and cabbish, I thought. I considered my last bottle of Morgenster 2000 (the maiden and sadly the best yet), but decided that that should be shared. Then noticed a Vergelegen V 2004, which I thought should go well with my rather rustic ducklegs in red wine sauce (lots of garlic and rosemary too). And it did. To the extent that only the last dregs are in the glass as I type.

Vergelegen V; just a little merlot and cab franc in the mix. Powerful, but not without refinement, I thought; a marvellous bouquet showing some real complexity; a palate still packed with fruit, and the tannins not fully resolved – quite assertive in fact, but exciting. The 100% new oak was never intrusive, and it still works well in fully-meshed support. A wine with time to go yet, and possibly to improve further. It proved very easily to be a one-night bottle, and an inspiring one: even if all it evidentially inspired was these words. Which I’d better check in the morning, I realise.

• 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.

Matthew Copeland of Vondeling in the Voor-Paardeberg is nothing if not meticulous in his approach to winemaking. The newest wine in the range is a top-end Cape Bordeaux Red Blend called Philosophie, the 2015 launched yesterday after the maiden vintage 2014 .

The wine consists of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 6% Merlot and 2% Malbec – the Cab Sauv component from a much-prized block planted in 1999. Cold soaking occurred for five days before spontaneous fermentation was allowed to take place. Maturation occurred in new 300-litre barrels, components kept separate for 14 months before being blended and returned to barrel for a further eight months.

The nose shows red and black fruit, some leafiness and attractive oak character. It’s full bodied but nicely balanced – good fruit concentration, fresh acidity and fine tannins, the finish long and savoury. True to type, it shows that the versatility of the Voor-Paardeberg and surrounds, an area not exactly well known for producing high quality Cape Bordeaux. Total production is a mere five barrels and the wine costs R720 a bottle. Cape Bordeaux Red Blend Report score: 90/100.

Also on show was the 2017 vintage of the property’s renowned Cape White Blend by the name of Babiana, this a blend of 64% Chenin Blanc, 19% Viognier plus equal parts Grenache and Roussanne (price: R190 a bottle). The nose shows a pronounced leesy/waxy note plus citrus and stone fruit while the palate is very flavourful with a greasy texture but equally vibrant acidity. Editor’s rating: 90/100.

Monsonia 2015, meanwhile, is a red blend from Rhône varieties, previously known as Erica. Consisting of 85% Syrah, 6% Mourvèdre, 5% Carignan and 4% Grenache, this has a brooding nose of black fruit, fynbos, vanilla and a hint of reduction. The palate is big and bold with dense fruit and smooth tannins, the finish long and savoury (price: R215 a bottle). Signature Red Blend Report rating: 90/100.

Grapes for the Waterkloof Seriously Cool Cinsault 2017 come from Helderberg vineyards more than 40 years of age. Fermentation involved some carbonic maceration and maturation took place in second- and third-fill 600-litre barrels lasting nine months.

The nose shows flowers, dried herbs, cherry and spice while the palate is light-bodied with fresh acidity and fine tannins. It’s elegant and understated to the point of ephemeral (alcohol is 12.5%). Price: R129 a bottle.

Editor’s rating: 91/100.

Find our South African wine ratings database here.