In my modest way, I do have a response to one of the wine industry’s big problems – a very simple solution that would also solve an irritation in my personal wine life. I’ll return to that idea, and you’ll see why, unfortunately, it just ain’t going to be realised.
The big problem is intimately connected (though not necessarily, in my opinion), with wine’s great glory: its infinite variety. This glory is of course a great nuisance to retailers, especially supermarkets. With washing powder, biscuits, yoghurt, beer and fizzy drinks they’re obliged to stock only a comparatively small number of brands and types to give us customers the feeling (sometimes the illusion) of choice. But with wine they have to devote an unreasonable amount of shelfspace and deal with a large number of producers and distributors. The big wine brands mollify them, but not enough. The supermarkets, a frightening power in modern life, must be itching at that complexity.
The problem I alluded to to is this: leaving aside the large volume of the stuff in boxes, much of wine’s multifariousness comes in a correspondingly wide range of glass bottles, resulting in a carbon footprint that the poor old world can ill afford. An article about bottle re-use last December in Wine Business Monthly quoted the California Wine Institute to the effect that “glass bottles account for approximately 29% of a winery’s carbon footprint”; and then cited another study, by an organisation dedicated to mitigating climate change, putting the total “closer to 50%-70%, when including the energy needed to melt glass and transportation outputs”.
That’s glass for you. I mention the variety of bottles (shapes, weights, sizes) as significant because that must seriously affect the potential for re-use, by complicating it immensely. I remember that 30 years ago I used to take my empty wine-bottles to a little kiosk behind the Drop-Inn in Claremont and they would give me five cents or whatever credit for each bottle – each standard bottle, that is; foreign or otherwise unusual bottles they wouldn’t accept, and those had to go to be crushed for recycling (which is vastly inferior in environment-friendly terms than re-use). No longer. It’s not only a question that the world has moved implacable to waste all resources and whenever possible turn to single-use plastic (another step that wine has fortunately resisted); I’m sure that an increased variety of available bottles, locally produced and imported, makes collection and re-use ever more impractical.
I don’t know where I would take even “standard” bottles for re-use now, though there must be a way, as there is clearly still a tiny amount of wine-bottle re-use happening in South Africa (I had a sub-garagiste friend that used them). And it happens with beer bottles. In fact I’m assured (in an admittedly 2018 article online) that “South Africa has one of the most efficient returnable bottle systems in the world” – certainly nothing to do with wine. Coincidentally, while I’ve been pondering all this recently, a friend took me on a tour offered by the historic Newlands Brewery in Cape Town. Comparatively little of my interest was in the fairly mundane process of industrial-scale beer production – though I did get to taste a tiny amount of hops, against the tour-giver’s advice, and it was probably the most persistent, and pretty horribly bitter, flavour I’ve every experienced.
The process of packaging big-brand beer, in bottle and can, is extraordinary, however. Millions of bottles move around on kilometres of automated tracks from one station to another (with scarcely a human worker in sight). And a lot of the process, prior to the bottling and sealing of the beer, involves sorting and cleaning and multiply-checking, by various high-tech means, previously used bottles. Apparently they can be cleaned, refilled and relabelled some 35 times. Huge truckloads of empties arrive in Newlands, huge truckloads of filled bottles depart, many times a day.
It’s a scenario that is not transferable to wine on a large scale. Wine is small stuff. I have a feeling that Distell did some bottle re-use for one of their bigger brands – perhaps Heineken still does: Heineken SA announced earlier this year that it was working towards 65% returnable glass for its beer portfolio in 2024. I must find out if they’re doing anything remotely as ambitious with wine, but I seriously doubt it.
All those different bottles that the infinite variety of wine revels in is, I presume, an insurmountable problem, even if retailers could be persuaded – or obliged – to take and sort returned empties. And observing the appalling lack of returnability of Coke etc plastic bottles, rational, environment-friendly legislation seems unlikely. Perhaps we could invoke help from those impoverished “scavengers” on our streets that allow returned aluminium cans to be such a South African success story.
Recycling glass, an expensive, fuel-costly business, is far from being the best answer to wine’s big problem with its bottles. Re-use is vital, and if we could only indulge in a bit of unfashionable command-economics, I have the answer. We must abandon all the variety in bottles, all those different versions (including the apallingly overweight ones) of the basic designs. There is one great bottle design suitable for all non-sparkling wine – what we call “the Bordeaux bottle” in its simplest form: no taper, no extra weight or height, no big punt. Anyone who has ever tried to stack wine bottles (or to fit them in most wine-fridge drawers) will know of the problems encountered with extra-heavy or extra-long bottles, with ghastly skittle-shapes, with traditional Burgundy bottles, worst of all with Germanic flutes….
So, a lightish-weight Bordeaux bottle. We could allow a few concessions, for example for screw-cap or cork versions, as well as different formats. Marketers could play with labels and capsules as much as they wish. I could stack the bottles efficiently, empty them happily, and take them to be reused 35 times. Is that sensible, or what? Meanwhile I’d settle for a genuine attempt to re-use the present excessive variety.
Vusi Dalicuba of Vergenoegd Löw .
Win a 10-pack of wine from the FedEx Next Generation Awards!
Featured wines:
Alinea Sauvignon Blanc 2021
Anco 2023
Benguela Cove Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2019
Cape Point Vineyards Isliedh 2022
Kleine Zalze Project Z Alvarinho 2022
Kleine Zalze Project Z Chenin Blanc 2022
Lemberg The Amphora Selection Hárslevelu 2023
Jordan The Long Fuse Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
Vergenoegd Löw Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
Welbedacht Chenin Blanc 2023
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Franschhoek cellar Le Lude is a specialist Cap Classique producer founded by Nic and Ferda Barrow, first bottling being 2012. Bubbly obsessive Paul Gerber was initially winemaker (before leaving for Colmant in 2019) and it was therefore he that put the newly released Madáme 2015 into a bottle.
Consisting of 95% Chardonnay and 5% Pinot Noir, 40% sourced from Franschhoek, 40% from Roberston and 20% from Bonnievale, a small component was fermented in older barrels and left on the lees for nine months.
Complex aromatics of citrus, flinty reduction, freshly baked bread and sea-breeze precede a palate that is lean with bracing acidity and a super-dry finish (alc: 12%). It’s remarkably precise being taut and intensely flavoured at the same time. Price: R790 a bottle.
CE’s rating: 96/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
De Wet Viljoen.
Bot River property has announced De Wet Viljoen as its new winemaker. Viljoen obtained B.Sc. in Microbiology at Stellenbosch University before specialising in Oenology and Viticulture completing his studies in 2000. He started at Neethlingshof in 2003 and worked there for over 20 years.
The South African 2009 vintage is much venerated but when retailer Wine Cellar hosted a tasting of Cape Bordeaux Red Blends from that recently there were relatively few highlights – see here. On a whim, I decided to look at two examples of straight Cabernet Sauvignon from the same vintage, tasting notes and ratings as follows:
Le Riche Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2009
Matured for 24 months in barrel, 70% new. Black berries, cigar box, undergrowth and an intense green pepper note on the nose. Dense fruit, punchy acidity and formidable tannins – angular and still extremely grippy. A dramatic but somewhat challenging wine. Alcohol: 14.5%.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Vergelegen V 2009
Matured for 22 months in barrel, 100% new. Red and black berries, dried flowers, mushroom and spice on the nose. The palate is balanced with succulent fruit and tannins that are resolving nicely – a wine that’s drinking well now but perhaps a bit short of detail and lacking the power necessary to last much longer. Alc: 14.28%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Over my almost 30 years working in the wine trade, I have had some incredible opportunities to travel to many of the world’s most beautiful wine regions including vineyards across Europe and the United States of America, both on the east coast and the west coast. But like many wine trade professionals, I still have a fairly long bucket list of countries and wine regions I would love to visit, and as my own palate and personal preferences have evolved over the years, the running order on that list has changed continuously. Coming close to the top is probably Patagonia in southern Argentina as well as Mendoza further north, followed closely by New Zealand’s north and south islands.
Coming in at third place, has always been Australia. Now, if you consider Australia is about the same size as the USA, one soon realises that getting a proper fulfilling experience of the various wine regions from east to west is quite a tall order for one or even multiple trips. But one must start somewhere and in early June, I was invited to judge at the International Wine and Spirits Competition (IWSC) in Margaret River, which is probably one of Australia’s most desirable wine competitions alongside The Wine Show of Western Australia and The Perth Royal Wine Awards.
Perth, the capital of Western Australia, is synonymous for having one of the largest South African communities outside of South Africa itself. Indeed, the trend for Saffers’ to ‘Pack for Perth’ has been in the wider cultural vernacular of South Africans for many decades already. But it is only when you get there that you realise why South Africans have been so drawn to this incredibly beautiful and pristine oasis on the west coast of Australia with its unspoilt white sand beaches and wild scrubland bush interior.
For me as a wine professional, it also happens to be the home of the Margaret River Wine region, arguably one of, if not the most premium wine producing region within the whole of Australia. It is certainly one of the most pristine and geographically secluded coastal wine regions I have ever visited anywhere in the world. With its breathtaking ancient landforms, lush forests and distinct Ironstone gravel soils, it also happens to enjoy a textbook perfect growing conditions for vines and making fine wines with its consistent Mediterranean climate and intense maritime influence from both the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean.
If the above descriptive language resembles another beautiful wine region, you wouldn’t be wrong. Indeed, the similarities between the rugged beauty of the Cape and the Western Australia winelands is marked, and undoubtedly a significant factor that draws so many South African’s to this neck of the woods and makes them feel so instantaneously at home while still being so far away from the Cape.
Also, I do of course love Australian wines, so it has been with great interest over the past decades that I have read all the various wine competition results covering at first the Tri-Nations Wine Competition between South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and more latterly, the expanded blind international wine competitions that have emerged to include both South American and North American wines – see 2023 results here. So, after my recent week of judging in Western Australia, I have admittedly discovered annew degree of jealously for grandee Michael Fridjhon’s long term historical involvement in all these competitions over the past years.
Margaret River Wines may only represent 2% of the greater Australian grape crush, but their elegant and classical Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnay expressions are some of the most noteworthy in the world combining an elegant light touch approach with perfectly ripened fruit that displays not only a superb balance, refinement and structure, but all done so at normally respectably low alcohol levels thanks to the tempering coastal influences.
The similarities to the Cape winelands don’t end there. Like the Cape, with its fractured estate system that has led to a great amount of individual character between neighbouring wineries, Margaret River is awash with small artisanal and family-owned wineries that dominate the landscape, and their preference for handcrafted winemaking and respectful creativity certainly shines through compared to many other Australian wine regions on the east coast.
Like South Africa’s own premium wine making regions of Stellenbosch, Paarl, Elgin and Constantia for example, the Margaret River region and its 100+ cellar door operations have always tried to focus on premium quality at premium prices, complimenting their winery practices with a wide range of gourmet culinary experiences, stunning nature and a spirited arts and crafts scene that helps attract over 1.5 million overnight visitors per year. Being over three and a half hours or 300 kilometres south of Perth, this is quite an achievement when you consider that Stellenbosch is only a mere 45-minute drive from Cape Town city centre.
When I started selling wine in the UK in the early 2000s, Robert Parker was hitting his prime in terms of scoring and influence and he certainly did not turn a blind eye to the big, bold wine expressions coming out of South Eastern Australia. But as a wine merchant more akin to selling the restrained classical styles from South Africa, wines with old world structure and new world fruit, the more classical styles of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Chardonnay from Western Australia and Victoria certainly resonated with me greatly.
Within the UK fine wine trade, there would be a running joke that every time Robert Parker released his annual reviews on Australian wines, we would automatically seek out the 86-to-88/100-point wines, which more often than not, would come from cooler regional dispositions in Margaret River or perhaps some of the cooler sub-regions of Victoria. Parker, of course, had an obvious penchant for the big, rich, 15% to 16% percent alcohol old vine wines of the Barossa Valley, Clare Valley and McLaren Vale and perhaps influenced many of those regions’ wineries to pursue a more “Parkerised” style than they may have otherwise.
Ironically, the wineries of the Cape were not immune to Parker’s influence and many famous producers also found themselves pushing the hang times and picking ripeness often to the detriment of the final wine quality. I myself have been at countless blind tastings, many of them for the Nederburg Auction wine selection panel, where tasting alongside Winemag’s editor Christian Eedes, Wine Cellar’s Roland Peens and of course Michael Fridjhon, we were all a pains to point out that the wines made in the Cape from between 2000 to 2008 were some of the most disappointing and short lived wines produced in the recent, post-apartheid history of Cape winemaking.
Thankfully, 2009 saw many of the premium producers of the Cape turn the corner and revert to a more classical, tempered styled of winemaking where elegance, minerality, and freshness once again returned to the fore. Indeed, one of the most notable features seen while judging hundreds of red and white wines from Margaret River was their attention to detail, classical purity, freshness and minerality, all facets of quality that would undoubtedly be lessened if not lost altogether if producers merely strived for ripeness over the region’s naturally occurring restraint.
For this reason, the region has been recognised and rewarded annually by the leading wine shows in Australia, with the famous Halliday Wine Companion 2023 results awarding Margaret River wineries more 5-Star ratings than any other region in Australia. Similarly, the Margaret River region has also received the most Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon trophies at the prestigious Australian Capital City and National Wine Shows.
I know many South African wine producers have an enduring fascination with the classical wine regions of Europe and Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône are much frequented. Of course, the close access and lack of time difference makes this an relatively easy and affordable pastime. However, if I owned a budding premium winery in the Cape, that was looking for inspiration and pointers to help up my game in terms of production quality, marketing expertise and winery cellar-door tourism, I would prioritise the beautiful Margaret River Wine Region to visit as the takeaway knowledge and expertise would be invaluable and easily reapplied within the South African context.
For more information, click here.
The Grapesmith is a range from Stellenbosch cellar Simonsig that sees the winemaking team working with unusual varieties (plantings of Bourboulenc as featured in the blend called Mediterraneo amounted to just 1.08ha in the entire country at the end of 2023) and a wide variety of winemaking techniques. Tasting notes and rating for the new releases as follows:
Die Kluisenaar 2020
Price: R320
58% Marsanne, 42% Roussanne. Fermented and matured for 11 months in mix of older oak and clay amphora. Malolactic fermentation deliberately avoided. Heady aromatics of pear, peach, citrus, fennel and other herbs plus oats, earth and lanolin. The palate is medium bodied yet intensely flavoured. No shortage of freshness and chalky in texture. Alc: 13.13%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Mediterraneo 2020
Price: R320
44% Roussanne, 35% Marsanne, 11% Grenache Blanc, 6% Verdelho and 4% Bourboulenc. Winemaking as above. The nose shows lemon, soft citrus and pineapple to go with plenty of intriguing secondary character. The palate has dense fruit and bright acidity before a finish that is lightly grippy in texture and deeply savoury. Alc: 13.1%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Maritimo 2021
Price: R320
39% Mourvèdre 39%, 26% Grenache Noir, 19% Marselan and 16% Syrah. Partial whole-bunch fermentation, matured for 15 months in mainly older oak before three months in concrete egg. Red cherry, raspberry, blackberry, fynbos, earth and spice on the nose. The palate is light-bodied with perky, lemon-like acidity and fine tannins. Lots to like. Alc: 12.45%.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Over the millenia of our recorded consumption of alcohol, wine has been written about more than any other drink. From the writings of Pliny the Elder (23 – 79 AD) to the modern day, it seems we’ve always recognized that wine is different to most alcoholic beverages and as such, invites more description, more exploration and of course, more story-telling. However, the rise of dedicated wine writing is very much a creation of the 20th century. What started off as the labour-of-love for a few wealthy, passionate wine lovers has become its own industry, with multiple, though waning, physical magazines and newspapers and countless online outlets. Increasingly, individuals specialize and either create reports or permit paid access to exclusive content through models such as substack or website subscriptions, whilst larger publications have sadly, but arguably inevitably, moved more towards an advertorial model.
The issue with this of course, is that easily accessible, genuine content is harder and harder to find. In a world awash with information, finding articles is easier than ever. Regrettably, knowing whether it’ s a paid advert disguised as an article is not. The business model of most publications doesn’t allow for a lot of free thought; typically, advertisers pay for a specific article to be written in a very specific way. I know this because I’ve written a good few of them, admittedly without my name attached to it, but contributing to the issue nonetheless. Even more experienced wine writers in a more stable financial position find themselves in this space at one point or another; trying to find the balance between paying your bills and writing genuinely and from the heart is one of the most difficult tight-ropes to walk.
We don’t help ourselves, of course. There are some ingrained issues in wine writing that we don’t address, even if they’ re blatantly obvious, whilst making a big noise about other, less relevant problems. It’ s not uncommon to see an established wine writer make a big song and dance about natural wine, for example. “It’s not really natural because it doesn’t make itself, hur hur hur”. What wonderful insight. Or long-winded discussions about whether terroir is an important consideration in wine or not. For the record, anyone who actually drinks wine on a regular basis with some thought, knows that it is, but it makes for good column inches if you’re struggling to find something to write about.
One of the biggest repetitive red-flags that wine writers and critics are constantly involved in is the Bordeaux En Primeur campaign. Of late, articles are finally starting to be written explaining why buying Bordeaux EP is no longer a good financial decision, with so many mature back-vintages available for much less and laughably ambitious release prices for new vintages. However, this is far from the biggest problem. The main issue is that the judging and scoring of Bordeaux EP is, frankly, a scam.
This is not to say that anyone who judges and scores Bordeaux EP is doing anything intentionally nefarious, but that the system itself is absolutely nonsense. Every year, at the end of March and the beginning of April, critics from the major publications from around the world, and some individuals, descend on Bordeaux to taste barrel samples from the previous vintage. They move from Chateau to Chateau, spending sometimes as little as 20 minutes in each, tasting, evaluating and judging. They taste barrel samples that are not even an exact reflection of the finished wine. Some of these samples have barely finished MLF, yet they’ re being judged in this maniacal fashion so that the critics can advise their readers on which wines to buy, with speculated drinking windows that often stretch 30-40 years into the future. I taste barrel samples hundreds of times throughout a year; I would never, ever publish a score for one.
What an utter farce. Yet with the exception of a few sniggers within the industry, this is something we simply accept on a year-by-year basis. Some of the critics involved are financially well off and don’ t need any associated pay cheques from this work, but there is a real and genuine FOMO. If you don’t write about Bordeaux En Primeur, your readers will go somewhere else to someone who does. Wine writing has been hijacked by the Bordeaux EP circus to give credibility to something that isn’t truly real. We are the Credit Ratings Agency of this particular financial institution; unable to extricate ourselves and seemingly unable to be transparent about the realities of it. I once received advice from someone I respect highly to get involved in the EP Campaigns because “There´s no quicker boost to your writing career”. As I said, ingrained issues.
There isn’t a simple solution, but I’ve still yet to even see a disclaimer on EP scores explaining that the samples tasted are not the finished wine and should be taken with a pinch of salt. There are many stories of critics who have the courage to score famous wineries poorly in certain vintages, being excluded from future tastings, not to mention the lavish dinners and lunches that punctuate the EP campaign, yet I don’ t believe I’ve ever seen one published. Would we accept this is a newer wine region? I suspect not. If Andrew Jefford was told he couldn’t visit an estate in Spain again because he wasn’t scoring the wines highly enough, there would be outrage.
There are other large issues in wine writing; the lamentable lack of investigative journalism for one. The fact that we never talk about the reliance of the wine industry on cheap labour from other countries; the power dynamics of large distribution networks and their impact on the wines we’ re actually able to drink; the greenwashing campaigns of wineries who are not practicing what they preach. The list goes on. However, until we’ re able to knock something on the head as blatantly egregious to integrity in our industry as the EP Campaigns, I don’ t believe we’ll ever come close to getting here.
Results of the inaugural Next Generation Awards sponsored by FedEx Express and convened by Winemag.co.za are live. The aim of this new competition is to identify South Africa’s emerging winemaking talent. A condition of entry was that entrants should be under 35 years of age at the time of the awards ceremony on 11 June.
There were 62 wines from 37 entrants (all wine categories were permitted) and these were tasted blind (labels out of sight) by a three-person panel, scoring done according to the 100-point quality scale.
Alinea Sauvignon Blanc 2021
Price: R180
Vergenoegd Löw
Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
Price: R280
Anco 2023
Price: R295
Benguela Cove Estate
Cabernet Sauvignon 2019
Price: R370
Cape Point Vineyards Isliedh 2022
Price: R474
Kleine Zalze Project Z
Alvarinho 2022
Price: R280
Kleine Zalze Project Z
Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R460
Lemberg The Amphora Selection Hárslevelü 2023
Price: R350
Jordan The Long Fuse
Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
Price: R275
Welbedacht Chenin Blanc 2023
Price: R200
For more about the Top 10 plus a list of all wines to rate 90-plus, download the following: FedEx Next Generation Awards 2024
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