Winemaking couple Julien and Sophie Schaal live in Alsace where they make Grand Cru Riesling but also long made a range of South African wines, Julien since 2005, Sophie joining in 2013 – the two first met while Sophie was working as an intern at Elgin cellar Paul Cluver. Tasting notes and ratings for the new releases as follows:
Sophie Schaal Born of Fire Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R205
Grapes from Voor Paardeberg. Partly matured in barrel. Pear, peach and floral perfume on the nose. The palate is fruit-led but not facile – pure, fresh and pithy. Alc: 13.5%.
CE’s rating: 90/100.
Born of Fire Syrah 2021, which rated 92 on release, still available at R205 a bottle.
Julien Schaal Mountain Vineyards Chardonnay 2023
Price: R195
From Elgin grapes, predominantly Paul Cluver but also Lothian. Two thirds matured in barrel, one-third in tank. Lemon, blossom, herbs, a touch of vanilla and a trace of struck-match reduction. The palate is nicely weighted, clean and poised – concentrated fruit matched by snappy acidity, the finish dry. Terrific quality relative to price.
CE’s rating: 92/100.
Julien Schaal Mountain Vineyards Pinot Noir 2023
Price: R195
Previously from Elgin, this vintage incorporates grapes from Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge as well as the wider Walker Bay area. Some 10 – 20% whole-bunch fermentation before maturation in 25% new oak. Black cherry, violets and spice on the nose while the palate is balanced – good fruit expression and bright acidity before some light tannic grip on the finish. Really well judged.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
In true wine trade form, the past couple of weeks have seen all the large importers in the UK roll out impressive fine wine displays for their annual portfolio tastings, mostly held across the London capital as well as further afield in northern satellite cities such as Birmingham and Manchester. Whether it’s the exorbitant cost of international travel these days or simply because many of these show piece tastings fall amidst the chaos of harvest time in the Cape, many South African winemakers and winery owners have been notable in their absence this year. It is perhaps understandable that many prefer to travel to northern climes in the European Autumn of September and October when the market often seems to have an extra spring in its step after a well-deserved summer break.
With the broader fine wine market continuing to drift somewhat aimlessly, is has been very reassuring to see how many traditionally focused, classical fine wine buyers have been actively attending new vintage launches for some of South Africa’s top wineries, the more notable of late being Boekenhoutskloof’s recent 2021 release tasting (with Marc Kent in attendance), Vilafonté’s new Series C and M 2021 release tastings, as well as many other exciting events highlighting new vintages from the likes of Richard Kershaw, Samantha O’Keefe of Lismore, Draaiboek Wines and Naudé Wines. If you are looking for fine wine excitement outside of a slightly lethargic Bordeaux and an overheating Burgundy marketplace, South Africa is definitely where you need to be hunting.
I will admit that my obsession with South Africa’s finest Cabernet Sauvignons and Cape Bordeaux Blends only intensifies as the latest 2021 releases from producers like Le Riche, Winshaw Vineyards, Thelema, Taaibosch and Kanonkop draw nearer, until that is, my less biased colleagues remind me of all the sublime new Syrah wines that continue to arrive on UK shores to seduce fine wine collectors and drinkers. These wines are categorically some of South Africa’s most iconic fine wines that, like their white Chenin Blanc counterparts, seem to have few real rivals in Europe outside of the Loire and the Northern Rhône.
Only just this week, the illustrious Telegraph newspaper wine writer Victoria Moore penned a notable piece in the Weekend Telegraph Magazine titled “South African Syrah is the Next Super-Wine”. She then proceeded to gush over the tantalising offerings from the likes of Chris and Andrea Mullineux, Reenen Borman with his Boschkloof Epilogue, Peter-Allan Finlayson and his superb Gabriëlskloof wines, and of course Eben Sadie, who recently produced a new pure Swartland Syrah 2022 vintage red exclusively for his UK importer Berry Brothers & Rudd.
Indeed, it was perhaps talk of this new Sadie Family 100% pure Syrah for BBR that started the discussion between me and a few wine trade collector friends and seeded the initial idea of hosting a Columella versus Côte Rôtie taste-off challenge. While Eben’s Columella once started off as primarily Syrah focused, with the maiden 2000 vintage consisting of 100% Syrah, it soon started to evolve into a Rhône blend featuring as much as 15% of Mourvedre in the second vintage 2001 release. By the time we move forward to the two candidates for our mega Syrah taste-off, the Columella 2006 already featured 80% Syrah and 20% Mourvedre, and the 2009 Columella a more intricate 75% Syrah, 23% Mourvedre and 2% Grenache.
Needless to say, my two good tasting pals who joined me in the taste-off are both consummate Columella collectors as well as being passionate Guigal La Turque Côte Brune Syrah obsessives. So the Northern Rhône Côte Rôtie opposition pairing choice to challenge the Columella brace left little to the imagination. Plain and simple, La La’s versus the Sadie wunderkind! Wines were tasted sighted, not decanted, and drunk over several hours with a great deal of discussion and reflection. The scores and notes below are my own but are certainly representative of all three tasters’ general impressions of the wines.
Flight 1:
E Guigal Côte Rôtie La Turque 2006, 13.5% Abv.
Seductive, attractively floral yet savoury with full blown aromatics of smoky grilled meats, sweet lavender, sappy vanilla pod, Christmas herbs, soy and sweet oak spice. The palate is dense, plush but tight knit, very focused with a medium bodied fruit weight with hints of coffee bean, bramble berries, and a wild herby garrigue length. A fabulous wine that is super sleek, spicy, polished and eminently youthful.
(Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)
Sadie Family Wines Columella 2006, WO Swartland, 14.5% Abv.
The aromatics are dusty and mineral with pronounced notes of crushed granite, macerated spiced plums, Szechuan pepper, bonfire smoke, sweet grilled herbs, and a sweet quince top note. Full, plush, and super creamy on the entry with density, opulence and a superb amplitude. The aromatics are earthy, meaty, and dense with hints of dried blood before a cool, slightly wild, creamy bramble fruited palate packed full of savoury spices, pomegranate, wild herbs and sweet black berries. A very friendly, comforting wine to sip and savour.
(Score: 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW)
Notes from the Sadie Family website:
2006 – This vintage was quite calm and collected as a measure. We did not experience any of the normal drought or extreme heat conditions. Everything passed by in the most normal of Swartland conditions. It is a very classic vintage for the region. We started to pick and most vineyards ripen in perfect calculated order and the harvest just came in very controlled. For us the 2006 vintage resulted in a wine of great classic expression of the region. The fruit spectrum is darker than the normal with more of the riper black fruit definition on the wine. The unique parameter of this vintage, is the better defined silky tannins and possibly an even denser inner core. Aromatically it shows a bit more in the darker spectrum than the 2005 which had a more purple edge to it of spicey herbal flavours, which in the 2006 is rather more a black berry cassis aspect and dark olive of nature, the structural density of this vintage follows through in the long finish of the wine.
Flight 2:
E Guigal Cote Rotie La Turque 2009, 13% Abv.
A riper, deeper, more seductive earthy expression revealing aromatics of stewed black fruits, molasses, baked earth, sweet root veg, beef stock, and smoky tilled earth nuances. An altogether riper vintage that displays notes of stewed fruits, sweet mulberries, salty liquorice and a creamy milk chocolate nuance on the long, seductive finish. Very plush and harmonious, luxurious, and incredibly pleasurable to drink but will undoubtedly improve with further ageing.
(Score: 98+/100 Greg Sherwood MW) (100/100 Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate)
Sadie Family Wines Columella 2009, WO Swartland, 14.5% Abv.
A seductive Columella that reveals opulent aromatic notes of sweet meats, grilled herbs, green Thai peppercorns, iodine, wet fur, and black bramble berry fruits. Rich, dense and broad on the palate, there is a luxurious elegance but also a fine-tuned focus and balance, packed full of savoury black berry fruits. This wine suggests a big game indeed and when it comes to the showdown, it’s compellingly confident, plush, exotic and impressively long. A truly delicious expression delivered with grace and elegance.
(Score: 97/100 Greg Sherwood MW)
Notes from the Sadie Family website:
The 2009 vintage in the Swartland was of truly great stature; we actually had a little downpour of rain halfway through the vintage which helped a lot in terms of stress relief for the late ripening vineyards. This meant perfect levels of ripeness across the early and late varietals. The 2009 Columella shows very spicy and immense fresh red fruit flavours on the aromatics with some very delicate violet notes. On the palate the wine’s tannins are extremely well defined in terms of the same characteristics that one finds on the nose carrying through as well as a great all-round freshness and lingering aftertaste. The marginal cooler season also preserved more acidity and freshness, and this vintage should age extremely well over the next 20 years +. Enjoy! Average yield for vintage is 13 – 22 hl/Ha.
All in all, a truly fascinating tasting that would have made any Rhône ranger a little week at the knees, but also, a big thank you to my generous hosts for pulling the corks on these delicious bottles in the name of vinous experimentation and exploration. Of the three La La La’s from Guigal, La Mouline, La Landonne and La Turque, it is of course the La Turque from the Côte Brune that always seems to possess an extra dimension of depth, complexity and power, making it my perennial favourite of the three sites. As for the Columella vintages, they were both very, very impressive, leaving me somewhat surprised by how well they both stood up to the iconic Guigal giants of the fine wine world. South Africa’s finest wines offer so much to be proud of and this was yet another reason to celebrate the exceptional quality coming out of the Cape winelands.
What went into Roodeberg in the 1970s? Older editions of Platter’s note that the wine “usually contain[ed] Pinotage and Tinta Barocca and Shiraz… also featured”.
A 1974 tasted in May 2022 was outstanding, a three-bottle lot going for R17,558 (equivalent to R5,863 a bottle) on a Strauss & Co auction later that year. A 1972 drunk recently was again something rather special, tasting notes as follows:
Complex aromatics of cranberry and cassis but also more developed notes of prune, earth, malt and nuttiness. The palate is rich and deeply flavoured, the tannins mellow but not entirely soft. A wine with a comforting weight about it – at full maturity but maintaining very satisfactorily.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Winemaker Reenen Borman plus business partners Henk Kotze and Fritz Schoon have enjoyed great success with their Patatsfontein (including a Chenin Blanc and a white blend) and Sons of Sugarland (Syrah and Barbera) labels for some time now but realised that their offering needed to be consolidated and hence the new umbrella brand called “Saga Vineyards” with hot air balloon motif.
Tasting notes and ratings for the new releases as follows:
Patatsfontein Steen 2023
Price: R420
Grapes from a Montagu vineyard of Chenin Blanc planted in 1984. Borman describes 2023 as a “classic” vintage in the sense of no rain pressure and it shows. Complex aromatics of pear, peach, lime, hay, herbs and floral perfume precede a palate of awesome clarity – great fruit concentration and driving acidity, the finish long and deeply savoury. Linear but not aggressively so, just wonderfully focused and composed.
CE’s rating: 97/100.
Sons of Sugarland Syrah 2023
Price: R420
Grapes from Jozua Joubert’s Karibib farm in the Polkadraai Hills. As ever, 100% whole-bunch fermented and matured in concrete. Red berries, rose, buchu, cured meat and white pepper on the nose. The palate is pure and energetic with powdery tannins. Light bodied (alcohol is 13.5%) but still remarkably flavourful. A particularly elegant and refined vintage.
CE’s rating: 96/100.
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Recently writing of my especial pleasure in pinotage amongst varieties called on in the modern quest for genuinely light red wines, I didn’t consider cabernet franc alongside “grenache and pinot noir, occasionally syrah and carignan and a rare gamay” as well as cinsault and pinotage.
I don’t actually know any cab francs that are actually what I’d consider low-alcohol (sub-12.5%ish), And in fact I get the impression that most of the few lighter cab francs have, if anything, put on some weight in recent years. That’s true of the important Van Loggerenberg Breton, which remains fairly light-feeling, but has added a percent of alcohol since the maiden 2016’s modest 12.5%. Weather Report, the specialist cab franc producer, has also gained – undoubtedly to its benefit and seriousness. On the other hand, Hogan Mirror of the Sun 2022 has come down from an earlier 14+% to a declared 13.5%, which suits Jocelyn Hogan-Wilson’s style much better.
These and a few others fit into what is generally discussed here as the Loire model. That’s as opposed to the Bordeaux model that is dominant for varietal cab francs in the Cape (and obviously for most classic blends). The latter tend to have sometimes riper and richer wines – though there’s something like a convergence in the middle, around 13.5%, for both styles – but usually have greater extraction and more emphatic oaking, aiming at maturity rather than just immediate pleasure. The Loire-oriented ones are generally matured in old oak or concrete.
A more recent entrant on the Loire side. And characteristically lighter than most, comes from Radford Dale, in the range off the organically certified vineyards they bought in Elgin a few years back (as I reported in 2022). I visited that pretty farm, with its exuberantly rolling hills, last week and tasted the two vintages thus far of the portentously named Higher Purpose Cabernet Franc, as well as of the other estate wines.
Radford Dale, with its winemaker Jacques de Klerk, is not always given the credit it deserves as an early and keen advocate of light, fresh, minimal-interventionist winemaking in the Cape. Frankenstein Pinotage, for example, taking it’s pinot noir heritage as seriously as one might expect from prime mover Alex Dale, emerged light and perfumey as far back as 2011, a real pioneer. Some of the later wines in the range have tended to be rather too light and, frankly, acidic for my own tastes but seem to have met with some success locally and internationally.
I unreservedly enjoyed the Higher Purpose, however, which declares 13% alcohol on the label and comes off vines planted in 2017. There’s none of the feared greenness, though some autumn-leaf fragrance is a pleasure, and Jacques’s favoured whole-bunch fermentation, with its carbonic maceration component, works well, and there’s a lovely fruit purity. The current 2022 has a particularly prominent aromatic charm – of the kind which always suggests some triviality to me (as in so many of the fashionale hipster cinsaults). That was matured in old oak after fermentation in clay, but there’s a shift to two-thirds concrete in the 2023, accentuating the stony dryness and focused fruit purity. There’s less of the ingratiating perfume, which suits me, there’s more spiciness and generally more of an air of seriousness (of higher purpose perhaps), and I preferred this vintage. I took the bottle home with me and it didn’t suffer over three days, which portends well for a good medium-term future of development. A rather gorgeous wine. By no means cheap at about R500 (as with the others off the estate), but lingering and lovely.
Incidentally, I’ve just opened a bottle of that Van Loggerenberg Breton 2016 that caused such a stir back then. The lack of real fruit substance perhaps implied by the 12.5% alcohol is now clear at eight years of age, when it’s not compensated for by early charm. There’s still enough in the wine to be enjoyed for its elegance, lightness and restraint – though the totality of these now amounts to leanness; the fruit has faded to an echo, leaving the tannins a touch more exposed than mature pleasure demands. I’m sorry I kept my bottles so long, and hope later, riper vintages, will prove more suited to a bit of development.
Back to Radford Dale Organics. Jacques has been working hard on the farm. Irrigation has been introduced everywhere, and judicious watering is playing its part in increased production at no quality cost. The six hectares under vine have doubled – with the only new varietal addition being gamay, which RD has long championed. There’s still plenty of sauvignon blanc, but until they are replaced, the grapes are sold off. Until the gamay comes along (just perhaps in 2025), the range will stick at four bottlings. I did taste the current releases of those, along with the forthcoming new 2023 releases (mid-year, probably), except of the unbottled pinot noir. The Touchstone Chardonnay 2023 continues the lemony acid vibrancy of the 2022, but is a little more airy and more mineral-vibrant, without the slightly disconcerting touch of sweet, leesy richness in the older wine. Revelation Semillon remains lime-lemon fresh, textured and with some phenolic bite. For me the 2023 flirts a little too dangerously with insubstantability, though at a mere 12% alc it doesn’t have any of the greenness that comes with some cooler-climate Cape examples.
Freedom Pinot 2022 has been around for a while, after a 2021 was made from just one of the farm’s blocks. That older wine is not maturing impressively, it seemed to me, and is rather lean – drink up, I’d suggest. The 2022, benefiting from Jacques’s management of the vineyards as well as access to all the vines, is much better, with more flesh, muscle and depth. Jacques says it started off with “very loud plum fruit”, but it’s settling down nicely.
Jacques is frank about having needed to feel his way with vineyards that are new to him, and which he is still coming to understand as he works with them. The whole range is clearly on the up, and the light, fresh streamlined elegance is going to be widely welcomed (see Christian’s reviews of the 2022s here – he also particularly enjoyed the Higher Purpose). We can look forward to the Gamay – but I will be particularly keen on how the cab franc develops as the vineyards mature. It’s a great addition to Elgin’s limited red wine repertoire outside pinot.
The maiden 2022 vintage of Chardonnay from Stellenbosch property Cavalli placed Top 10 in last year’s category report with a rating of 92. This was made by now departed winemaker Mali McGregor, her replacement being the experienced Rianie Strydom who officially took over on 1 August last year and would’ve seen the newly released Chardonnay 2023 into bottle.
Winemaking involved maturation lasting 10 months in 225-litre barrels, 25% new, 50% malolactic fermentation occurring. The nose shows a top note of blossom before pear, lime, lemon, a hint of flinty reduction and a brush of vanilla. The palate is pure and focused – a dense core of fruit matched by zippy acidity, the finish suitably dry (alc: 13.1%). Should only be more harmonious in 12 months’ time. Price: R230 a bottle.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Something made me realise wine might be interesting when I was 21. I’d just begun my PhD and was spending quite a bit of time with a group of friends in Wallington, in Surrey. On Sunday evenings we’d sometimes gather and an older friend who knew about wine would share a couple of interesting bottles. This was a revelation because until then all I’d experienced had been cheap supermarket wines which, frankly speaking, didn’t taste very good. These wines were different.
My interest piqued, I found a wine book at my friend Mike’s house – I think it might have been in the upstairs toilet. It was the first edition of Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide, and I started browsing it. Each of the wines he tasted were scored with a mark out of 100, and a letter from A-F indicating its price range. I found this interesting, even though most of the wines were really hard or impossible to find. The sweet spot for us at the time were the wines scoring in the high 80s that weren’t expensive. An 86A was worth seeking out. 86 was a decent score then.
Fast forward to today, and the world of wine criticism has expanded massively. There are now a number of teams of critics, all scoring on the 100 point scale. There’s also Jancis Robinson and her crew, but while they taste a lot of wines they’ve resolutely stuck to a 20 point scale so this is a sort of parallel universe. But just about everyone else uses the 100 point scale allotting points more-or-less in the sort of range that Parker used, but with one main difference. Parker in his heyday used quite a broad range of scores, albeit starting at around 85 for decent wine. Now the scale has shifted significantly, and scoring is in a much narrower range.
The thing is, if you are the only critic in town and you dosh out scores, if the winery is happy with your score then you are the one cited. The wine ecosystem does a lot of marketing for you for free. Each retail outlet will put your name on the bottle, or maybe you can sell stickers with your name and a score on them to wineries (another revenue stream), and then you will be advertised to everyone who buys the wine. Your business is promoted for free.
But what if there are a few critics in town? Assuming you aren’t a complete nobody, if you score a little more generously, you will be the one who the wineries choose to cite, and yours will be the stickers that make it onto the bottle. The pressure on the competing critic publications to be a little more generous is huge, even though I think they are all honest and doing the best job that they can. And this underlying pressure is seen in the way that scores have got ever higher.
In the past, you’d have to make a decent wine to score 85. Now, if you piss in a bucket you’d probably get 85 from some critics. And 90 scores used to be a cause of celebration for a winemaker, whereas now it feels a bit like a fail. 95 is the new 90, some are saying. The problem is that this upward trend in scoring is leaving us a very compressed scale to work with. And now it seems that 100 points is a score that is being used as a sort of marketing tool for critics: here is my 100-point score! We are dealing with a tiny scale for anything fine, to the point that you can predict most of the en primeur scores by knowing the reputation of the winery, and the overall quality of the vintage. For the first growths in a good vintage at en primeur in Bordeaux, who is going to score one of them lower than 98? So is this now a 3 point range?
I feel like the consumer is the one forgotten here. How useful are all these critic publications when most of the wines aren’t available to buy for normal people, and the scoring scale has lost any differentiative power. And when will wineries realise that the 94 points they were just scored is of little value when all their neighbours have scored the same or higher? It’s like the school disco – you go home on Saturday night ecstatic because the girl you fancied gave you a snog, only to turn up to school on Monday to find out she snogged five other guys the same evening.
I suspect many critics have moved their sights from being an independent voice for their readers, guiding them to the wines they’ll enjoy most, to being trade focused, looking to make money from wineries. They taste for free but charge wineries to use scores, to buy stickers, to buy tables at their events. I can’t see a prolonged future for this activity. Of course, wineries need a way to spend their marketing budgets, but wine media as it stands today is a little broken, and may not be the most effective spend.
For the majority of consumers, I suspect 100 point scores are no longer that interesting. The explosion of critic numbers, the rather mixed-ability wine scoring that is taking place, and the ridiculous bunching of scores at the top end of the scale is weakening the appeal of numerical ratings. Is there any way that wine scoring can be saved? It’s a tough one, and would rely on the sort of honesty, restraint and long-term vision that haven’t been absolute highlights of many aspects of wine media of late.
And I say this as someone who scores wines. Initially, when I started wineanorak as an amateur, I used a verbal scale: good, very good, very good/excellent, excellent. Then later I moved to scores. As a newcomer, I had to try to be in the same band as the established critics. Of late, I feel my scores have had to move up a little to keep in step – I very rarely gave 95 or above for any wine. And I’ve still never given 100 points for a wine. But from the inside, I realise we have a problem here, which is why I’m writing such a blunt piece as this one. When I saw Torres Viña Esmerelda getting 96/100 from Decanter a few years back, I realised this 100 point scale hasn’t got long for this life.
“Unnecessarily heavy bottle”, begins the review. Well, many reviews. Particularly if you’re scrolling through Jancis Robinson.com. The world-renowned Ronbinson is not alone in her condemnation of the heavy weights, many others have taken up her battle cry and are refusing to critique such bottlings.
Biodynamic front-runner and premium Stellenbosch wine producer Reyneke Wines has been subject to a few damning “unnecessarily heavy bottle” prefaces.
“It’s absolutely fair criticism,” says Johan Reyneke. “I’m a farmer, my focus was on the vineyard. I didn’t even think of the bottles… I was grateful that someone had the guts to point it out and say, ‘hey, you guys are leaders in sustainability, what about your bottles?’
“After we saw the tasting notes, we took it to heart to improve what we do.”
They started at the carbon footprint up, and brought on-board African Data Technologies (ADTech), a sustainability consulting company which looked at the entire structure of the business. “They pointed out that the bottle-weight wasn’t the only issue, we also needed to look at the percentage of recycled glass as well as the type of energy used in the production.”
Obsidian and glossy, and yes, heavy, the Reyneke Reserve range is distinct for its sandblasted front bearing the estate’s name. Reyneke was surprised to discover that the Biodynamic tier was by far the bigger carbon villain with its screen-printed labels. This, as the bottles need to be heated twice in the application process. “We will now be sandblasting all the wines as it’s a much more sustainable alternative. We have plans to make it even greener by setting up space and equipment to do it ourselves on the farm. With the added plus of job creation,” says Reyneke.
And the bottle? “We need to balance the three legs of sustainability: people, nature, and money. Our fear was that if we put our premium wines in lightweight entry level bottles, we could lose market share,” explains Reyneke. To solve this predicament the winery approached Ardagh Glass Packaging–Africa, who were able to produce a bottle with the same premium look at 450g, its predecessor weighed in at 580g. Additionally 40% of the material per bottle is recycled glass. Reyneke says the company is transitioning to renewable energy by 2030.
The new bottles will debut from the 2025 vintage, while Reyneke’s new ‘super-sustainable cellar’ is billed to be operational early 2026. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to design a cellar from the ground up, we’re not simply slapping a solar panel on the roof, absolutely everything will be considered.”
Reyneke is not alone in this quest. Swartland concern Lammershoek was purchased by the Johannes family in late 2022. They will release just two wines from the 2024 vintage (a red as well as a white blend), which will be available from mid-2025.
“We are keeping the name Lammershoek but we are changing what it stands for,” says Stefan Johannes, CEO and winemaker. “The name means ‘safe haven’. We asked ourselves how can we as an estate be this for the current and future generations?
“By being sustainable on every level. The rebranding we are doing presents us with an opportunity to choose a bottle which resonates with our vision.”
Johannes says that through his research he has noted that consumers react positively to lightweight bottles. “However, the moment they are asked to spend more than a certain amount they want reassurance. For some reason a heavy bottle still offers this.”
Johannes is asking himself the question: will the consumer demand lighter bottles before the supplier uses them? Or will the supplier take the leap? “For us it’s not such a huge risk as the brand is currently not in the highest esteem. As we re-establish ourselves in the market we have the perfect opportunity to start with a light bottle.”
Not just scribes but global markets are putting the squeeze on weighty bottles too. As an example, Johannes details how Scandinavian countries set specific requirements to some of their tenders, with the majority he says freezing the scale at 420g per empty bottle.
Perceptions need to change across the board. Johannes ruefully shares how he spoke to a sales rep at a large glass manufacturing company on the topic of producing a bottle lower than 450g and was told “We only produce premium wine bottles”.
That being said, speaking to Bruce Jack, he tends to take an holistic view. “When it comes to under-developed markets, you’re not going to get away with charging super premium prices for wine in a lightweight bottle.” This is in reference to his top end Heritage “Epic Journey” Coombsville Bordeaux style blend, which indeed comes in a bottle with a bit of ‘heft’. Jack believes a producer’s entire range should be taken into consideration, and an average carbon footprint determined off of that. Of the five million bottles his wine company produces each year, he asserts they are in the bottom 3% of weighty bottles overall. “There’s got to be context.”
With wine consumption being widely reported as being in decline across all markets, isn’t it time to tap into the current zeitgeist? Overall wine will need to shed its literal old-fashioned carapace and get with the planet saving programme.
As Jancis Robinson urges: “With production and transport of bottles being responsible for wine’s biggest carbon footprint, for the sake of the planet it’s imperative that we demonstrate that there is no connection between bottle weight and wine quality.”
She presses the point: “Consumers are already ahead of many wine producers in this respect.”
If producers are brave enough to convert their bottles to the magic weight of 450g…who knows? They may just be gifted with the much more distinguished “sensibly light bottle” in their next review.
Vote in our X (previously Twitter) poll on the subject:
96/100.
Here are our eight most highly rated wines of last month:
Keet First Verse 2020 – 96 (read original review here)
Kershaw Deconstructed Kogelberg Sandstone CY76 Chardonnay 2020 – 96 (read original review here)
Metzer Maritime Chenin Blanc2021 – 96 (read original review here)
Kershaw Clonal Selection Elgin Chardonnay 2020 – 95 (read original review here)
Kershaw Deconstructed Kogelberg Ironstone CY548 Chardonnay 2020 – 95 (read original review here)
Kershaw Deconstructed Lake District Bokkeveld Shale CY95 Chardonnay 2020 – 95 (read original review here)
Metzer Montane Chenin Blanc 2021 – 95 (read original review here)
Opstal Bergsteen Single Barrel Chenin Blanc 2022 – 95 (read original review here)
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