David Trafford of De Trafford in Stellenbosch first visited the Malgas area on the banks of the Breede river in 2000 and saw similarities with both the Douro, Portugal and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, France. Land was acquired, vineyards were planted in 2004 and the first vines were planted in 2007.
“The primary focus is our white and red blends,” says winemaker Charla Bosman, incumbent since 2014. “However, every year we also make small batches of single-varietal wines with a view to improving our main wines”. Tasting notes and ratings for the new releases as follows:
Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R340
Matured in a 700-litre barrel and a 1000-litre foudre. Partial malo-lactic fermentation. Pear, peach, citrus and earth on the nose while the palate shows dense fruit and punchy acidity before a super-dry, slightly grainy finish. Alc: 13.2%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Grenache 2022
Price: R375
25% whole-bunch fermentation. Matured for nine months in a 1000-litre foudre. Red berries, floral perfume, fynbos and a slight meatiness on the nose. The palate is elegant and light-bodied with fresh acidity and crunchy tannins, the finish again remarkably dry.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Trincadeira 2022
Price: R375
10% whole-bunch fermentation. Picked deliberately early and hence an alcohol of just 11%. Attractively scented with notes of red and black berries, rose, pronounced fynbos and a certain twiginess. The palate is light-bodied with tart acidity. Super geeky – some will find it attenuated.
CE’s rating: 89/100.
Mourvèdre 2022
Price: R375
The nose has that typical varietal wildness – heady notes of black berries, earth, liquorice, fynbos and floral perfume. Generous fruit, fresh acidity and firm tannins. Plenty of flavour. Alc: 13.5%.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
Touriga Nacional 2019
Price: R375
Exotic aromatics of dark berries, potpourri, a hint of mint, spice and earth. Massive fruit concentration, bright acidity and “chewy” tannins. A powerful wine that nevertheless retains complexity – has the structure to mature very well. Alc: 14.2%.
CE’s rating: 95/100.
Tempranillo 2022
Price: R375
Grapes from a vineyard planted in 2016. Matured in 225-litre barrels, some new American oak used. Red and black berries and floral perfume plus pleasing notes of vanilla and spice. Medium bodied with fruit to the fore, lemon-like acidity and fine tannins. Well balanced and rather charming.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
“I grew up in the vineyards – it has always been a place of joy for me,” says Norman Paulse on his childhood in Jonkershoek. Around the curve of the mountain at another Stellenbosch farm, Paulse is now the cellar manager at Kleine Zalze. That, however, is not not the only title he holds. Paulse is also the director of Visio Vintners, a black-owned wine company formed in 2017 by the then-owner of Kleine Zalze, Kobus Basson in collaboration with the Kleine Zalze Empowerment Trust, an organisation of the winery’s employees.
Paulse has been at Kleine Zalze for almost three decades now. “I started here in 1996 as a general worker, and it wasn’t long before I was promoted through the ranks.” Now as cellar manager he says he still finds joy from being in the vineyards. “I feel so privileged to have a job I love.”
“And this is what I tell my staff, you must love what you do. I still find something new to learn every single day – and I am with them, from grape receival to bottling. To make wine, for me, is joyful.”
The empowerment initiative was born from a need to address Kleine Zalze’s farm workers’ financial futures. The holistic vision encapsulates everything that a wine business requires from farming and management of employees to winemaking and marketing with the goal of long-term sustainability.
“We are a certified Fair Trade company at Kleine Zalze with good labour practices and many community projects – but we also wanted to do something for our team that would uplift them in the future,” explains head winemaker RJ Botha. “An investment like this will make a huge difference in their lives.”
On paper Visio Vintners is billed as: ‘a sustainable brand that creates significant profit to distribute to the beneficiaries and their families’. This worthy mission is tangibly rooted in almost 20-hectares of vineyard land, neighbouring Kleine Zalze. Basson kicked off the project by assisting the nascent company with a loan as well as negotiating a long-term lease to plant its first vineyards in 2017. The maiden vintage was in 2021. Kleine Zalze is a minority shareholder.
“It’s not easy starting a wine business,” says Botha. “But with our established production channels as well as distribution and access to markets we are helping Visio Vintners in every way we can to succeed.” Both Botha and general manager of Kleine Zalze, Carina Gous are at the coalface of the fledgling start-up and believe passionately in its future, Botha, for instance, working side-by-side with Paulse in Kleine Zalze’s winery to bring the wines to bottle.
Much like the success of its benefactors, the vines – cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and shiraz – are planted on premium red wine soils, composed of decomposed granite with clay underbed, offering that magic combination of good drainage as well as water retention. The range of wines currently consists of sauvignon blanc, pinotage, cinsault rosé and red blend, Alliance, which is designated as ‘ultra-premium’ comprised of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, shiraz and pinotage.
Along with Paulse, the other directors of Visio Vintners are Gerald Snyman, who is the vineyard manager of Kleine Zalze and Brandon Uitlander who is responsible for the estate’s general maintenance.
In an official comment Uitlander said: “We are aware that it is no easy ride – this is not some sort of hand-out or window-dressing to make a business look good through ticking-off the BEE-box. The future of Visio Vintners lies in our hands. The vineyards must be worked, even if that means spending your weekend or afterhours pruning and suckering. We have to blend and bottle and ensure the product can stand proudly alongside all the other great wines South Africa sends into the market.”
So far the numbers are looking good. Visio has produced approximately 40 000 bottles of wine as well as 55 000 cans of sparkling wine, most of which were exported to Scandinavia. With the aid of Kleine Zalze, they have secured a U.K importer, Hatch Mansfield, and locally Vinimark will sell and distribute the wines. More markets will soon open up with the help of French wine group AdVini, who Kleine Zalze was sold to this year.
“There is nothing like looking at a vineyard and realising that you are part of a group of people fortunate enough to call it your own,” shares Paulse. “When we got together and held the first labelled bottles it was one of the most special moments of our lives.”
Grapes for this wine (price: R270 a bottle) come from the oldest vineyards on the Reyneke farm in Stellenbosch, two blocks planted in 1974 and 1976 respectively. Winemaking involved spontaneous fermentation in older 300-litre barrels and 2 500-litre foudre, maturation lasting 10 months.
On the nose, notes of pear, peach, maybe some citrus and a little earthiness. The palate shows good fruit concentration, round but not too full or sweet, the acidity bright, the finish having an ever so slightly bitter quality. Alc: 13.38%.
CE’s rating: 93/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Last Friday evening there was a strong American flavour to the platform line-up in an old building in Saldanha, on the Cape’s West Coast. The venue for the occasion was an old filling-station that Adi Badenhorst is renovating and developing for his Saldanha Wine & Spirit Co (giving sea air for the maturation of his sherries, apart from anything else). And what was happening was the second edition of The Swartland Gospel – heir to the famous old Swartland Revolution happenings of some years back. The Friday event was to be followed on the Saturday by the Swartland Wine & Olive Route Seaside Party, featuring a whole array of Swartland wine producers.
The main focus on Friday was Teagan Passalacqua, head winemaker of famous Turley Wine Cellars in California. He also, more to our purpose, has his own new-wave Sandlands project, making wine from old vineyards (some extremely old) that “harken back to California’s roots of exploration, wonder, and hard work” says the website. So you can immediately see the connection with the modern Swartland. And Teagan is no stranger to the area. I first met him back in 2011 when he came out to work the harvest with Eben Sadie – the start of a strong connection with the country, particularly the Swartland.
Also on the platform, as discussants along with Adi Badenhorst, were California-born Andrea Mullineux and local guy Graham Weerts, who has spent many years working for Jackson Family Wines and now also makes chardonnay for the US-owned Capensis Wine in the Cape.
I’m not going to discuss the eight splendidly fresh, elegantly charming and deeply expressive Sandlands wines he showed, but only mention one of them, the 2021 Amador Chenin Blanc, from a 1979 vineyard. There used to be considerable plantings of chenin in California, but the variety was perhaps even less valued there – a mere workhorse variety – than in South Africa, and swathes of the vineyards have been lost (partly to the demands of white zinfandel, partly to chardonnay). It seems that few old vineyards like the one used by Sandlands survive, which would undoubtedly forestall any really significant chenin revival similar to that which has been so signal a part of both the Swartland quality wine revolution and the wider South African one.
Elements of revival are clearly there, however, with more winemakers seeking out any remaining fine chenin vineyards to make serious wines like this Sandlands, and there are even some ambitious new plantings, it seems. Teagan is obviously significant in this, and no doubt Andrea Mullineux too (she’s made some Californian chenins). Andrea told me of the importance of the example of top South African chenin for this small Californian renaissance.
But if South African chenin blanc is helping to build vinous links with California, it’s even more significant in relation to France and the great historic home of chenin in the central Loire Valley. As a sign of this connection, in the enthusiastic audience on Friday evening were two notable vignerons from Vouvray: Benjamin Joliveau, winemaker at the great Domaine Huet, and Vincent Carême, who set up his own domaine in 1999 – with his South African-born wife, Tania, whom he met while working harvests in the Cape from 1997 to 2000. He’s gained a great reputation for his Vouvray wine and as helping to bring new energy to the region. Both Benjamin and Vincent presented their wines at past Swartland Revolution events – and Vincent comes out here every year to make his own two Swartland wines for the Terre Brulée label (Le Blanc of course from chenin, Le Rouge a syrah-cinsault blend): no doubt, bottling time in November is useful for catching up with events like this one.
More than anyone else, Eben Sadie tells me, it is Vincent who, apart from so personifying the Cape-France connection, has encouraged and helped develop the links between the world’s two great chenin-producing regions – especially through bringing French vignerons here and welcoming their South African counterparts there. And that’s not to diminish the indispensible role of the tireless Chenin Blanc Association. The Chenin Blanc International Congress can no doubt be seen as a fruit of this internationalism (the second congress was held in Stellenbosch in 2022; the first, in 2019, and the forthcoming 2024 edition is in Angers). There’s no equivalent strong link of mutual warmth and respect, I think, between other varieties or styles in South Africa and the European wine homeland.
Working together to build the international reputation of chenin – with its ability to produce truly fine wines in a range of styles that perhaps only riesling can match – is no doubt the crucial thing. I daresay one of the reasons why South African and Loire producers can get on so well together is that the wines they make are essentially different, complementary rather than competing. But there is something really special and exciting about this reaching across borders and language barriers. It was a part of the great atmosphere last Friday in out of the way Saldanha, with fine Californian wines as the focus, including a chenin blanc, and Americans and Frenchmen, as well as a host of geat Cape producers (few from beyond the Swartland, sadly), and of course a crowd of happy wine lovers, gathered together.
The current public health messaging around alcohol is a big problem for the wine industry. It’s becoming clear that in many countries, public health bodies are trying to make alcohol the new tobacco. The message being spread is that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, and that people should be steered away from drinking at all. We can see where this is heading: increased taxation of alcohol, with reduced availability and limits on advertising. Neo-prohibitionists have booze in their crosshairs.
Doctors and scientists who work in public health have a strong motivation to change people’s behaviour. They see the damage that people do to themselves, and their mission is to reduce it. This creates an incentive to exaggerate the harms of certain behaviours: eating too much, eating the wrong things, smoking, drinking too much and living a sedentary lifestyle. If you are a government chief medical officer, your mandate is to reduce harm to health, and encourage the population to be healthier. You see the damage that excessive drinking does, so you want to discourage it. It’s much simpler to say that there’s no safe level of drinking and that it’s best to avoid alcohol altogether, rather than a more nuanced and accurate message (moderate consumption is good, high consumption is bad) that might be seen to encourage drinking.
One problem for the wine industry is that it’s very hard to fight the ‘no safe level’ messaging. It’s almost impossible for the drinks industry to respond with a message that for some people, moderate drinking isn’t just safe, but actually carries a health benefit. If wine producers claimed ‘drinking is good for you’ there would be an outcry. But this is what the science shows, and quite clearly, and as recently as a decade ago this wasn’t really contested. The reproducible finding that I’m talking about is the J-shaped curve. This is the shape of the line that results from plotting alcohol consumption against mortality. If we take non-drinkers as the baseline, then those who drink moderately live longer. Then as alcohol consumption goes up, risk of death goes up, and beyond a certain consumption level passes the abstainers and then rises to create the J shape. This J-shaped curve is the thorn in the side of public health people who really don’t want to admit that alcohol can be good for you. It also calls out the ‘no safe level’ message as being incorrect. It’s clearly safer to drink moderately than not at all.
One criticism of the J-shaped curve is that non-drinkers might be a poor baseline because some of them may have stopped drinking because of health reasons: the sick quitters. But this can be controlled for by using never-drinkers as the baseline, and the J shape is still there. Another might be that moderate drinkers as a group tend to have other behaviours that are protective: they might go to the gym more, or eat more healthily, or smoke less. These can also be controlled for, and still we have the J.
The reason for this curve is that alcohol seems to be protective against cardiovascular disease, while at the same time increasing risk of death by other means, such as cancers and accidents. Cardiovascular disease is a major killer, so its reduction by drinking lowers the risk of death more than it increases the risk of death by other means, up to a certain point. This is where the ‘no safe level’ claim is duplicitous. Yes, any level of drinking raises the risk of certain cancers, but it also lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease. And this is where we need to dissect out a more complicated message than public health people would like.
The question of safe consumption levels is complicated, because all the studies are done on self-report, so it’s likely that the safe level is higher than studies indicate (although, of course, we can’t be sure of this). This is where we run into the problem of risk assessment, something which people are bad at. We tend to be scared of things that are actually very safe (flying, for example) and not afraid of things that are very risky (like cycling or driving a car). Add to this, the confusion between relative risk and absolute risk. Both need to be known for us to make a sensible decision, but public health officials often just mention the relative risk.
Take shark attacks. They are very, very rare, so your absolute risk of dying from a shark attack is tiny. Perhaps 1 in 300 million. But if you take up surfing your relative risk of being munched by a shark might be 70%. This doesn’t mean that you are likely to be attacked by a shark, just that you are substantially more likely to be because you are frequently getting in the water. 70% sounds alarming but because the absolute risk is so tiny it’s still nothing to be too concerned about.
How should the wine industry, which sells a product that can damage peoples’ health, respond to attempts to restrict it, or shut it down? Let’s think about the car industry. Cars kill a lot of people every year. For most of us, the highest risk thing we do is get in a car. How does the car industry respond to criticism when it is making a product that kills and injures many every year? First of all, eliminating cars would cause the collapse of many societies, so entrenched are they as a means of transport. So that’s not on the table. Second, people are comfortable with the idea that there is a way that they can make their car travel safer, by driving more carefully, and governments have introduced laws about how to use the road and how fast to drive. Third, car manufacturers have had to improve safety standards of their vehicles. But still many people die on the roads.
The key issue here, though, is that there is an understanding that there may be no truly safe level of driving a car (you can’t legislate for the behaviour of others), but that this doesn’t mean that car driving is to be banned. People understand that here, the answer to mis-use isn’t dis-use, it’s correct use. Society isn’t working towards zero car use, but understands that cars have a place, they can be made safer, and that the current level of injury or death on the roads, while regrettable, is better than it used to be and could only be eliminated by steps that would cause huge societal problems that would eclipse the level of road accidents by a huge distance.
This is a subject that won’t go away. There is great peril for the wine industry in not contesting the untruthful claims that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. But how it does so will require great wisdom.
Read about the recent Lifestyle, Diet, Wine & Health congress held in Toledo, Spain here.
Listen: Charles Parry, Director of the Mental Health, Alcohol, Substance Use & Tobacco Research Unit, SAMRC responds here.
If John Denver is the epitome of easy listening popular music (“Country roads, take me hone…”), then Seaward Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 from Spier is the vinous equivalent.
Matured for 14 months in older oak barrels, 80% French and 20% American, the nose shows prominent perfume of rose plus red berries, hints of iodine and fynbos. Medium bodied (alcohol: 14.14%) with fresh acidity and fine, maybe slightly soft tannins. Ready to smash at R135 a bottle.
CE’s rating: 90/100.
Check out our South African wine ratings database.
Given that more than three quarters of wine sells for under R50 per litre (the equivalent of R37,50 per 750ml bottle) domestically, it’s not appropriate to term wine in the R100 to R200 bracket “entry level”, but equally it’s nowhere near top-end with some consumers happy to pay an average of R1 375 a bottle at this year’s Cape Winemakers Guild Auction, for instance.
Presuming both some disposable income and more than a passing interest in the subject of wine, the TSW range from Trizanne Barnard of Trizanne Signature Wines is always highly suitable, tasting notes and ratings for the new releases as follows:
TSW Sauvignon Blanc 2022
Price: R140
Grapes from Benguela Cove. Matured on the lees in stainless steel tank for 11 months. Lime, white peach and a pleasant herbal note on the nose. Relatively rich – creamy texture, well coated acidity and dry finish. Alc: 13.31%.
CE’s rating: 91/100.
TSW Cinsault 2022
Price: R140
Grapes from Swartland producer Leeuwenkuil. 30% whole-bunch fermentation. Matured partly in tank and partly in barrel. Subtle aromatics of red cherry, plum, rose, spice and a hint of reduction. The palate has generous fruit, soft but sufficient acidity, the finish lightly tannic. Alc: 12.67%.
CE’s rating: 89/100.
TSW Syrah 2022
Price: R140
Grapes from same producer as the Cinsault. Matured in older 500-litre barrels. White-smoke reduction, red and black berries, fynbos, olive and black pepper. Good fruit delineation, bright acidity and nicely grippy tannins. Not super-intense but a wine that charms on account of its balance and nuance. Alc: 12.53%.
CE’s rating: 92/100.
The phrase “less is more” first tripped off the tongue of early 20th century architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to describe his minimalist style. He was ahead of his time, this epithet uttered many decades ago having found its way into all branches of artistic endeavour, from art to literature, and, yes, even winemaking.
How many times have we heard that maxim of “wines are made in the vineyard”? To an extent of course this is true, poor-quality fruit will never a fine wine make, no matter how many gadgets and ingredients you throw at it. Though, without the guiding hand of a winemaker that alchemic shift from grape to glass just isn’t going to happen by itself. One winemaker adept at balancing the tightrope between site expression and elevage is Clayton Reabow of Môreson and Miss Molly.
Walking into his Franschhoek cellar at any point in the yearly cycle, there’s a monastic calm, even in harvest, and that’s just the way he likes it.
“We keep things simple,” says Reabow. “We don’t create a complicated and labour-intensive environment by applying ridiculous amounts of additives. This is only further exacerbated by interns trying to remember what yeast, or additive, has gone into what tank.
“When travelling and visiting wineries it always amazes me to see how calm certain established ones are, irrespective of their size and volume of grape intake. Their systems are so well organised, and they do the basics right. Our approach is to get through fermentation, systematically and efficiently, then not touch the wine again, until assemblage and bottling.”
He’s done this by working with 2B FermControl South Africa, a supplier of certified organic yeast and yeast derivatives. The German-based parent company 2B FermControl GmbH also has distribution arms throughout Europe as well as in North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. The SA subsidiary has been operating locally for at least 15 years and was acquired by Reabow in partnership with the Friedman family (of Môreson) in 2021.
“On a trip to Nicolas Feuillatte in Champagne – a 50 million bottle winery – we did not see one person in the cellar, and it was this sense of composure I wanted to replicate,” says Reabow.
“By paring down to one simple programme we don’t spend energy on reworking things, and there’s no manipulation or corrections. All the focus goes into the winemaking whereas with additive oenology you just add more unnecessary steps which leads to confusion and you can end up obscuring the vintage.
“2B has allowed us to express the inherent characteristics of the grape, that are indicative of the vintage. The yeasts are thiol producing as opposed to ester driven. Even in a poor vintage, there’s no need to sugarcoat it. The best wines I have ever drunk or ever made are not super-polished – they have a little edge to them that shines out, and that’s what vintage variation is about.”
With the multitude of conventional yeast products on the market, deciding which to use can get overwhelming. One of the factors that sets 2B apart, explains Reabow, is that the manufacturing process is based on 100 per cent organic practices throughout from the sourcing of raw material to final product. 2B can be therefore used in both conventional and organic winemaking. “Our nearest competitors will focus on a portfolio of hundreds of products including over 30 yeasts, whereas 2B manufactures six yeasts in total with a new rosé strain being developed for 2024.”
2B’s trademark brand message is “The power of nature, inspiring simpler, better, natural winemaking”. Qualifying this, Reabow add that it’s “environmentally friendly, too”.
“2B products are all vegan-friendly, allergen free and free of microplastics. And, as discussed, 100 per cent organically certified; which means no declaration is required when using them.” This is especially salient as EU legislation comes into effect in December 2023 regarding wine additives and exports of wine to Europe.
Continuing on this thread, Reabow elaborates that all of the yeasts are not GMO nor hybrids (which is to say not created in the lab). “Instead, each was isolated from a single, either organic or biodynamic, vineyard based on the yeast’s enzymatic performance. This is a crucial step missing from conventional yeasts and where 2B has the upper hand.”
In addition to providing its simplest function, namely converting sugars to alcohol, each yeast has its own indigenous enzymatic activity. An example of this, says Reabow, is the Rubino red wine yeast, which was isolated from the Reyneke vineyards in Stellenbosch due its high hemicellulose activity, which breaks down cell walls and therefore has the ability to macerate and extract colour and tannins naturally. This, he says, allows winemakers to avoid using extraction enzymes.
The other key element he says is the use of Vitiferm Yeasts in conjunction with FermControl BIO yeast nutrition. Without getting too geeky, Reabow elucidates that the yeast product in conjunction with the nutrition can actually lower the alcohol due to a phenomenon called ‘nitrogen dilution effect’ whereby the yeast is stimulated to create more biomass as opposed to converting more sugar to alcohol. “Unlike conventional nutrition which is designed as a stimulant for the yeast to consume as much sugar as possible, it instead supports the yeast to metabolise the grape’s own nitrogen.”
Reabow shifted into using 2B over a decade ago. “I was on a journey to simplify our systems as well as make better wine. Converting to 2B, we were able to reduce labour inputs, saved time and money while also being able to address my desire to produce alternative, sustainable, minimalistic wines.
“There are no hiccups, no hitches – simply grape receival, making the wine and then packaging it. That’s exactly what you want, and the proof is in the quality. Less really is more.”
For even more detailed look into the science behind 2BFermControl, see here.
Pieter-Niel Rossouw.
Durbanville Hills has announced Pieter-Niel Rossouw as its new cellarmaster, after the untimely death of Martin Moore in May this year. Rossouw joins from Darling Cellars where over the past nine years he was the chief winemaker and viticulturist.
Rossouw grew up in the Bonnievale farming community and after matric, studied Viticulture and Oenology at Elsenburg Agricultural College in Stellenbosch. He has harvest experience in Portugal, Germany, and France, and prior to his tenure at Darling Cellars, he held positions at Mont du Toit, L’Avenir, and Wellington Wines.
“How successful can Sauvignon Blanc be at the top end of the market?”, asked Andrew Mellish of Mellish Family Vineyards in Durbanville. “Can it compete with those examples of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc that are causing all the excitement?”
He was speaking before a tasting put on jointly by him and Andri Hanekom of Bloemendal, Thys Louw of Diemersdal and Matt Day of Klein Constantia. 16 wines were tasted blind in four flights of four, each flight containing one international benchmark.
The flights were as follows:
Flight One
Iona Elgin Highlands Wild Ferment 2021
Tement Ried Zieregg Karmileten Berg 2019
Bartho Eksteen Houtskool 2019
Mellish Family Vineyards Blanc Fumé 2021
Flight Two
De Grendel Koetshuis 2019
David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner Wild Ferment 2019
Vergelegen Reserve 2019
Alphonse Mellot Edmond Sancerre 2016
Flight Three
Thorne & Daughtgers Snakes & Ladders 2019
Daguenau Buisson Rehard Blanc Fumé de Pouilly 2015
Bloemendal Suider Terras 2015
Klein Constantia Clara 2021
Flight Four
Trizanne Signature Wines Sondagskloof White 2018
Reyneke Reserve 2017
Diemersdal The Journal 2019
Le Petit Cheval Bordeaux Blanc 2018
I ranked the wines as follows:
1.= Klein Constantia Clara 2021 – 96
1.= Le Petit Cheval Bordeaux Blanc 2018 – 96
1.= Trizanne Signature Wines Sondagskloof White 2018 – 96
4. Vergelegen Reserve 2019 – 95
5.= Diemersdal The Journal 2019 – 94
5.= Mellish Family Vineyards Blanc Fumé 2021 – 94
7. Reyneke Reserve – 93
8.= Alphonse Mellot Edmond Sancerre 2016 – 92
8.= Bloemendal Suider Terras 2015 – 92
8.= Iona Elgin Highlands Wild Ferment 2021 – 92
8.= Bartho Eksteen Houtskool 2019 – 92
12.= Daguenau Buisson Rehard Blanc Fumé de Pouilly 2015 – 91
12.= Tement Ried Zieregg Karmileten Berg 2019 – 91
12.= Thorne & Daughtgers Snakes & Ladders 2019 – 91
15.= David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner Wild Ferment 2019 – 90
15.= De Grendel Koetshuis 2019 – 90
What the winemakers of the four properties wanted to interrogate was both the ratings and price ceiling that seems to apply to local Sauvignon Blanc – the Tement from Austria sells for approximately €60 a bottle, the Alphonse Mellot for €70, Daguenau Buisson Rehard for €120 and Le Petit Cheval Bordeaux Blanc for €160.
Some general observations. Firstly, while the South African wines might broadly match their international counterparts when it comes to intrinsic quality, the simply don’t have the same label cachet as their international counterparts – Steiermark, Loire and Bordeaux have earned a premium in the market that South Africa has yet to achieve.
As for stylistics, the case was made during the tasting that the South African wines tended to have harder acidities than their international counterparts potentially making them less universally palatable. Worth considering but I would counter-argue that the best local examples have a drive and vitality that sets them apart.
An important insight for me arising out of this tasting is that Sauvignon Blanc starts becoming interesting when it deviates from what makes it so commercially successful. The reason it has such a broad popular following is that it easily makes wines that are ostentatiously aromatic, crisp and dry but this is precisely what makes it tedious to more knowledgeable wine drinkers who are looking for less obvious pleasures like texture and detail. A fixation on pyrazines and thiols, which can be relatively easily manipulated in both vineyard and cellar, only takes the winemaker so far.
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