To many winelovers abroad and at home, the Paardeberg is the most famous Cape winelands mountain – even more so, perhaps, than Stellenbosch’s Helderberg or Simonsberg. It’s where the Swartland revolution really took off, crucial to the development of South Africa’s current reputation as one of the most exciting wine countries. It’s home to the wineries of some of Cape wine’s most illustrious names, including Badenhorst, David and Nadia, Lammershoek, Sadie …, while many others draw fruit from the sprawling granitic mountain’s vineyards.

The Paardeberg’s agricultural, rural integrity, with rutted gravel roads and long, empty vistas, is being threatened by sandmining.  Some farmers, feeling no duty as custodians of “their” land, are going for the short-term, quick-cash option of ripping up vines and fynbos, with huge excavators pulling out sand to be carted away by thundering trucks that scatter children dawdling on their way home from school, filling the air with dust.

Shockingly, despite preservationists fighting to have the sandmining stopped and the Paardeberg protected from this destructive and ugly activity, Swartland Municipality still supports the sandminers in defacing one of its best-known areas.

This is not new; many readers will know that the fight has been going on for some three years now. But a new stage has been reached. The Protect the Paardeberg Coalition has had no positive answer from its demand to the Swartland Municipality to reverse the grant of consent authorising Paardeberg sandmining. It is being forced to take the matter to the High Court. The hope is to persuade the court of the illogicality and unreasonableness of the municipality’s support for the sandminers and that the court should direct it to review that decision.

Law is an expensive business, unfortunately. Local farmers and wineries and their supporters have already spent huge amounts in their fight. The Protect the Paardeberg Coalition is now looking to raise R500 000 for the next stage and is looking for wider support. Their words:

“Please join us in this plight to see the case through in the highest court of the country, in order to hopefully stop this travesty from becoming an ongoing reality. The Paardeberg and the Swartland need the hands of those whom it has blessed in so many ways in the past.

“We demand that the Swartland Municipal Tribunal reverse its grant of consent use to authorise sand mining activities on the Paardeberg. Like Gandhi, we believe that ‘The earth has enough resources for our need, but not for our greed’.”

There’s more information on the Protect the Paardeberg Coalition website. It also tells you how to help by making a donation. They seem to record the count of donors and I’ve just become the third – I hope that by the time you get there the number will be much greater!

By the way, if you want to read a fascinating article about the huge international business that is sandmining, and the damage done by uncontrolled and rampant sandmining in a world that seems to be, bizarrely, running out of (suitable) sand, try this one published in the New Yorker last year.

• 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.

Tremayne Smith, of Fable Mountain Vineyards in Tulbagh, also makes wine under his own label called The Blacksmith, his latest release being The Flash Series. Tasting notes and ratings for two of the three wines as follows:

The Blacksmith The King’s Spirit 2017
Approximate retail price: R205
From Darling Chenin Blanc. A top note of honeysuckle before pear, white peach and a hint of lemon. Light bodied but intensely flavoured – good fruit concentration and fresh acidity before a savoury finish. Total production: 590 bottles. Alc: 12.5%.

Editor’s rating: 91/100.

The Blacksmith The Basilisk 2017
Approximate retail price: R205
From Paarl Durif. Dark fruit, dried herbs, earth and spice on the nose. Super-concentrated yet pure and fresh, the tannins particularly grippy, the finish savoury. Total production: 680 bottles. Alc: 13%.

Editor’s rating: 90/100.

The third wine, Bloodline 2017, a Méthode Ancestral from Cinsault, was not reviewed.

Find our South African wine ratings database here.

While the white wine under the entry-level Big Easy label from Ernie Els Wines has always been made from Chenin Blanc (maiden vintage being 2011), managing director Louis Strydom relates that the supermarkets initially advised that he should leave the varietal designation off the label and instead refer to it simply as “White” so as not to inhibit sales. More recently, however, they’ve backtracked on that and insisted that the wine be labelled as “Chenin Blanc” so quickly has the variety risen in popularity.

The current-release Big Easy Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 in fact contains 15% Cinsault even though no reference is made to this on the label but my prediction is that this will change fairly soon, too.

The Cinsault adds cherry and candy floss notes to the cassis and fresh herb aromas that you’d expect from the Cabernet Sauvignon while the palate is juicy and fresh with soft tannins. It’s an uncomplicated and very appealing drop. Price: R85 a bottle.

Editor’s rating: 86/100.

Find our South African wine ratings database here.

“We’re making wines to age,” says Warren Ellis. Warren, the eldest son of Neil Ellis, teamed up with his dad several years ago to make the eponymous wines—and under his stewardship the legacy of quality winemaking continues unabated.

The Ellis genes are unmistakable. The enquiring tilt of the head, the same broad-shouldered, tall build. This is Neil Ellis’s son alright. Does the resemblance go beyond the physicality? Has a talent for winemaking been hardcoded into his DNA too? The short answer is an emphatic yes.

The proof is in the tasting. In the recent 10 Year Old Wine Awards (featuring wines from the 2008 vintage), the Neil Ellis Elgin Chardonnay 2008 scored 90, while the Neil Ellis Elgin Sauvignon Blanc 2008 and the Neil Ellis Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon both scored 91 on the 100-point quality scale.

We’ve met today at Neil Ellis Wines, located just on the first incline of the Helshoogte Pass. Looking out over the vineyards from the tasting room, Warren unspools the tale of the Ellis clan—a modern winemaking family. “Our wines are Old World in style with a contemporary winemaking approach.”

It’s a solid vision, born out of Neil Ellis’s four decades in the wine industry. Ellis senior began his career at KWV, followed by winemaker posts at both Groot Constantia and Zevenwacht.

Warren has hazy, vineyard-green tinged, memories leftover from exploring these estates as a kid. But his father’s dream was to make his wines under his own name, and he made this a reality in the ‘90s. In fact, he was a front-runner of what’s now quite common – making site-specific wines from vineyards tended by different growers.

Something Neil Ellis Wines continues to do today—even though they now have their own tract of vineyards under the sun. Warren, in an echo of his father, simply says: “It’s impossible to do the best of everything on a single estate.”

Warren isn’t the only Ellis involved in the family business. His younger brother Charl heads the finance department, and his sister Margot is the winery’s brand manager.

How come Warren got the gig of winemaker and not the others? “My mother says I was the only one of my friends who did not want to be a fireman, policeman or doctor,” laughs Warren. “I always wanted to be in the vineyard or cellar like my dad.”

From dogging his dad’s footsteps, he went on to making his own wine dreams a reality. After high school Warren achieved an MSc in Viticulture from the University of Stellenbosch. Followed by an education in wine appreciation. Warren spent a couple of months travelling through the Old World wine regions of France, Italy and Spain – simply tasting, tasting and tasting. “You need to taste a lot of wine to have a specific style of your own in mind,” he says.

“We strive for elegance, and yes, we’re making wines to age,” he says repeating an earlier statement. The popular opinion is that the South African market just wants to drink new releases. But Warren disagrees. “There is a market for older wines, especially in restaurants. Plus wines with some age are just so much better to drink, and the general consumer is realising this.”

Warren is now a father himself. His children, Alec (5) and Leah (3), he says, have changed the way he approaches life. “They’ve given it so much more meaning.”

It’ll be interesting to see who next takes up the winemaking baton. Long may the Ellis dynasty continue.

• 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

The top-of-the-range Cape Bordeaux red blend from Morgenster in Somerset West is a wine which really does seem to benefit from some bottle maturaton – the 2011, for instance, rated 89 in the category report of 2015 and then 93 when it is was re-tasted in 2017.  The 2003, meanwhile, was one of the top 10 wines when we ran the 10 Year Old Wine Awards in 2013 (see here) and I’m happy to report that it’s still in great nick five years later.

A blend of 39% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Cabernet Franc and 30% Merlot, maturation lasted 13 months in French oak, 90% new. Dark red with an orange rim in colour, the nose is complex and enticing – red and black fruit but also subtle notes of pencil shavings, cigar box, earth and tar. The palate is medium bodied and beautifully composed – good fruit expression, fresh acidity and tannins that haven’t completely faded but continue to lend just the right amount of shape and form. The wine has a refreshing coolness about it (alcohol is 14.3%) and the finish is long and dry. Available from the farm at R525 a bottle.

Editor’s rating: 95/100.

Find our South African wine ratings database here.

Win a six-bottle mixed case of wine made up of some of the top performers from this year’s Prescient Cabernet Sauvignon Report.

Featured wines:

Delaire Graff Reserve 2015 – R750
Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection 2015 – R139
Neil Ellis Jonkershoek Valley Stellenbosch 2015 – 94/100
Strydom Rex 2015 – R265
Warwick The Blue Lady 2015 – R350
Zorgvliet 2016 – R140

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On Thursday last week, a Cape Winemakers Guild technical tasting presented by Sebastian Beaumont of Beaumont Family Wines in Bot River featuring Mourvèdre (or Monastrell as it is known in Spain or Mataró in Australia and California).

Beaumont has a fascination with the variety and makes his own single-variety version, the current-release 2014 selling for R270 a bottle. Mourvèdre is love-it-or-hate-it stuff, typically have a very strong gamey, almost animal scent combined with concentrated dark fruit and firm tannins posing the question as to how to go about selling such a niche variety? Beaumont suggested that it was beholden on the producer to foster an “emotional engagement” with the consumer and if you think what Bruwer Raats has done with Cabernet Franc by way of example, he’s probably not wrong.

Mourvèdre is the signature variety of Bandol in Provence and the Domain Tempier La Tourtine 2011 was widely admired by those in attendance. However, most observers consider Mourvèdre most useful as a blending component, adding weight and structure when combined with the likes of Grenache and Syrah. This prompted CWG honorary member and former L’Avenir winemaker Francois Naudé to observe that “couples are always more famous than individuals so why make single-variety Mourvèdre at all?” To which, Beaumont replied that Naudé, who originally qualified as a chemist, must surely concede that you have to understand individual elements before attempting to create a compound. It was that kind of evening.

So established is the Alheit name in the elite of modern South African wine that it’s jolting to realise that the inaugural vintage of Chris and Suzaan’s first wine, Cartology, was 2011. It’s a convincing reminder to me of just how fast has been the pace, and how extraordinary the progress of South African wine, that when I look up Alheit in my book on South African wine (published in 2013), there’s scarcely anything: a reference to this exciting new winery’s commitment to old vines, and a quotation from Chris about his “dead certain[ty] that the golden age of Cape wine is ahead of us”. If we’ve arrived in that golden age, the Alheit glitter and gleam is a marker of it.

My burst of enthusiasm is because this week I’ve tasted not only the second vintage of Cartology, but also the maiden vintages of the first two Alheit old-vine, single vineyard wines: Radio Lazarus 2012 and Magnetic North Mountain Makstok 2013. Incidentally, all three wines in their first vintages scored five stars in successive issues of the Platter guide (if not consistently since then), which says something about the guide’s openness to newcomers.

One can’t drink Radio Lazarus now without a poignant sense of loss, knowing that this year no wine could be made from the Bottelary vineyard (and just a little from the nearby vineyard which started contributing to the label a few years back), nor will it be made again – certainly not from those old Bottelary Hills vines, which the current drought finally pushed beyond resurrection (see my account of this here).

And what a loss to South African wine that is! This became even clearer to me this week, when I broached my case of Radio Lazarus 2012, and shared a bottle of it over dinner with Michael Fridjhon. We had no trouble agreeing that it was drinking superbly – and it inevitably prompted some discussion of wine prices and wine values, with Lazarus coming out if it all well (though it’s an expensive wine by local standards: over R600). How well the wine will develop further, I don’t know – I’d guess for at least five years, and will not be in a hurry to drink my other bottles – but it is in a superbly harmonious state, vibrant and intense, with a remarkable acidity that is perfectly integrated; altogether substantial but not weighty. It seems to me that it would be particularly silly to compare this with Loire chenins simply on the basis of a common variety: the variety at this stage is comparatively unimportant, and the Alheit wines are more about origin; structurally, a more useful comparison could be with fine white burgundy – and, frankly, there aren’t all that many of those that could best this wine.

A few nights earlier I’d drunk the Cartology 2012, which is also an excellent wine that has developed well, even if it’s a touch less thrillingly poised, less expressively specific, than Radio Lazarus. But thrilling and expressively specific would be words I’d want to use again for Magnetic North Mountain Makstok 2013, from high-lying, ungrafted chenin vines in the area colloquially known as Skurfberg. I can still remember – the wine reminds me – how the hairs on my arm stood up when I first tried it four years ago, so electrifying, so different. It has a tantalising earthiness, along with subtle fruit and hot-dry-hillside notes, but seems much less ready for drinking than the year-older Lazarus, (with which it shares that unponderous, lifted intensity), because there is clearly still some development and harmonious integration of its balanced components to go; but, testifying to the wine’s future, the flavours linger forever.

If the Alheit project hadn’t existed it would have been necessary to invent it. Of course, ten years ago it didn’t exist; and the Cape landscape and old Cape vines and modern Cape wine culture did invent it. Fortunately, there was a winemaker with a rare magical touch to bring it into being. And, like the early wines in bottle, the project is developing splendidly.

• 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.

Listen to interviews with the local judges on their impressions of the various classes after officiating at this year’s Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show.

Narina Cloete, winemaker at Blaauwklippen, on Cabernet Sauvignon, Cape Bordeaux Red Blends and Pinotage:

Heidi Duminy, Meridian group marketing manager, on MCC and sweet wines:

Christian Eedes, winemag.co.za editor, on Chenin Blanc and Shiraz:

Alexandra MacFarlane, winemaker at Druk-My-Niet, on Chardonnay, Pinot Noir:

Nkulu Mkhwanazi,brand ambassador for Creation Wines, on unusual whites and reds and Sauvignon Blanc:

James Pietersen, of Wine Cellar fine wine merchants and winemag.co.za panel member, on Cabernet Sauvignon:

The Cape Wine Academy and Institute of Cape Wine Masters have announced that Harry Melck has graduated as a Cape Wine Master.

Melck, an eighth generation descendant of the well-known Cape wine family, brings the current number of Cape Wine Masters (CWMs) to attain this qualification since it was first instituted in 1984 to 101. Melck is a chartered accountant by profession.

His dissertation was titled ”Strategy, Vision and Business Transformation in the South African Wine Industry”.  This dissertation is based on the findings from interviews and in-depth discussions with some of the prominent players in the wine industry and a broader survey sent to all wine producers in the country.

It covers the challenges and opportunities facing wine producers, the merits of the different business models adopted, and the varying levels of commercial acumen among wine producers in terms of setting a vision, developing a strategy and measuring success.

Another aspect includes the need for strategic change and measuring how advanced wineries are in their respective abilities to adapt to these changes to remain viable – and to take advantage of the opportunities presented.

An important element of the dissertation was an analysis of whether the initiatives and objectives set out for the industry and wine producers by the Wine Industry Strategic Exercise (WISE) to strive towards an adaptable, robust, globally competitive and profitable wine and brandy industry by 2025 are attainable from both perspectives. This WISE approach can be seen as a one-size-fits-all approach which might not meet the direct needs of the varying business models adopted in South Africa.

Finally there is a summary of what these findings mean for the future of wine production in South Africa, including the anticipated trends across producer types. Read it in full here.

Rosa Kruger, well-known viticulturist, now the driving force behind the Old Vines Project was designated Wine Personality of the Year. She receives it for her dedication to training in the field of viticulture and her passion for the old vines in South Africa, a project that she has nurtured since 2002.