If you drive around South Africa’s premier wine-growing area in this worryingly extended autumn (and the days this week are so far positively summerish), you’ll notice an equally worrying number of dark-red vineyards. Nothing to do with lovely autumn colouring, everything to do with serious levels of virus. It looks likely that many producers in these difficult times, even in expensive, prestigious Stellenbosch, simply can’t afford to replace old vines – let alone afford to take great care of younger ones ­– so virus is rampant, leading to stressed vines with lower yields of grapes that can’t easily ripen. Maybe the producers are just holding on in the hope that salvation will come in the form of a property developer wanting to put up yet another housing estate, as Stellenbosch town sprawls ever wider.

I was on Meerlust estate last week, and the story is very different there, the beautifully tended vines subsiding gracefully and greenly into winter, any virus well managed, and a programme of vineyard replacement that has been pretty continuous for at least a couple of decades now. The last five years at this great property have seen major new investment, including in uprooting and planting vines. One of the main aims is to replant in a way that “will get the best sites planted for Rubicon”, says Wim Truter. He’s been winemaker here since 2020 – his time happily coinciding with this new investment phase. Replanting has meant a temporary decline in volumes of the prime Bordeaux-style blend, but I’d guess that they’re hoping to take production more than past previous levels, while also improving the quality, especially in terms of site expression.

If you note that the latest vintage of Rubicon, 2021, retails locally for up to R600 per bottle, and that there were 126 000 bottles made, well, even I can do some basic arithmetic and conclude that Meerlust should certainly be able to afford to make some expensive investments. Indeed, and there’s no doubt also a bit of luck involved in the estate’s success – having a lovely Cape-Dutch house and werf and a family presence going back to 1756 must help marketing. And actually I think Meerlust was lucky to have had the refreshment of a new winemaker (also coinciding with new plantings) back in 2004, when Chris Williams took charge of the cellar. In the previous decade or so, Meerlust had, arguably, been drifting somewhat, and its reputation remained higher than it really deserved. But the last 20 years have seen splendid management of the business, and fully rewarded efforts in the cellar and vineyards. Hence the possibility of investment that can only continue to help it all grow. Having money undeniably helps in progress here.

Unlike the case in large swaths of Stellenbosch. Where it’s not just a matter of less luck that’s producing somewhat lacklustre wines, scarlet vineyards and a worrying bottom-line. I’m not competent to tell that story properly, one surely including families taking too much money out of the business to spend on the holiday home in Elandsbaai or whatever, of farmers having relied overmuch on a cosy relationship with the erstwhile National Party government, of reliance also on a cheap and purposely ignorant labour-force as a source of profit, of producers treating their estates and wine business like (as someone recently described it to me) “a cottage industry”.

Earlier this year I reported on a discussion I’d had with Johann Krige, MD of Kanonkop, another of Stellenbosch’s great and greatly profitable estates (though with less of a long, grand history than Meerlust’s). I spoke of Johann’s being “possibly proudest of having brought, and then maintained, financial stability. It happened through rigorous control and carefully directed spending – including arguing in the 1980s against the directors getting a bonus, when that money could be better spent on the farm.” Johann was far too polite and politic to make comparisons with other producers, but was clearly very aware of the troubles they had arguably brought on themselves by insufficient concern for the best ways of building a viable business. Owning land, and more or less lazily managing it, is not enough. Fortunately, there do now seem to be signs that a new generation in Stellenbosch is willing to work hard and with quality in mind.

Back to Rubicon. A further enabling development for the winemaking team, led by Wim Truter with Altus Treurnicht, is a new cellar dedicated to this wine. It allows for a new approach, with small separate vinifications of different parcels of grapes: “We can now explore and express the vineyards better”, says Wim. A small group of visitors were last week given some idea of the varied terroir expression at present available on the farm – a variousness deriving more from soil type, aspect and slope than altitude (it’s all not far from sea level here: False Bay is just five kilometres distant). Four components of merlot and four of cab sauvignon showed some of the range of flavours, aromas and structures to select from (with more to come).

Together these two varieties make up the large majority of the 2021, with a little cab franc and a drop of petit verdot. See here for Christian’s notes and review of the wine. I agree with his estimation of the quality (and would add that it makes for pretty good value, given the ever-soaring, sometimes perhaps aspirational prices of the better Stellenbosch blends and cabs). We also tasted from three other fine vintages – 2004, 2009 and 2017. I must say that the 2017 stood out for me as by far the one I most admired and enjoyed. Looking at the statistics gives the reason: more than half a degree of alcohol less than the others (13.6% versus 14.2 in 2021, which was the second-lowest), and a significantly lower level of residual sugar (1.57 g/l versus 2.04 for 2021, again the second-lowest). I subsequently spoke to Chris Williams, who made the wine, and he confirmed that that year everything just seemed to ripen earlier, at a lower level of sugar presence (meaning less alcohol, and less in the way of unfermentable sucrose). Clearly Wim is also won over by the desirability of this sort of ripening allowing earlier picking. I for one will be hoping that vineyard siting and management will help this to happen.

Incidentally, I must mention that I was almost shocked on being given a glass of the 2023 Chardonnay, so much finer and fresher it seemed to me than I remembered Meerlust chard as being. Chris Williams had, again, wrought great improvements with this wine in his time here, but it seems that the inclusion of grapes from a newer block on greywacke soil has made a substantial differerence. I’m hoping that a similar improvement will be coming to the Pinot Noir (decent already, but not up to the standard of the Chardonnay or Rubicon).

Next year, Meerlust (and South African wine) celebrates 50 years of its name on wine-labels. The long, responsible custodianship of eighth-generation Hannes Myburgh, since 1988, continues to bear fine fruit.

• Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. His bookines of South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013.

Though Helderberg property Waterkloof was established by UK wine personality Paul Boutinot in 2003, and incumbent winemaker Nadia Langenegger has been there from 2013, only now is a Cape Bordeaux red blend being released under the eponymous top-end label. Tasting notes and ratings for the new releases as follows:

Waterkloof Sauvignon Blanc 2023
Price: R300
Matured for 10 months in older 600-litre barrels. Subtle notes of blackcurrant, peach, floral perfume and buchu on the nose while the palate is tightly wound – impressive fruit depth, well integrated acidity and a pithy, deeply savoury finish. Alc: 14%.

CE’s rating: 94/100.

Waterkloof Chenin Blanc 2022
Price: R300
Winemaking as above. The nose shows pear, white peach, citrus, nuts and a hint of wet wool. The palate is pure and poised – not too lean, fresh acidity and a super-dry finish. Alc: 14%.

CE’s rating: 93/100.

Waterkloof Boreas 2020
Price: R550
51% Cabernet Franc, 25% Merlot, 14% Petit Verdot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. Whole-bunch fermented with the exception of the Cabernet Sauvignon. Matured for 27 months in 225-litre barrels, of which 10% were new, and 9,000-litre foudre. Red and black berries, rose, violet, and pencil shavings on the nose while the palate is medum-bodied with great clarity of fruit, acidity that kicks and mouth-coating, powdery tannins. Wonderfully well defined without being at all forceful. Alc: 14%.

CE’s rating: 96/100.

Check out our South African wine ratings database.

Thistle & Weed, the collaboration between viticulturist Etienne Terblanche and winemaker Stephanie Wiid, is now based at Jonkershoek farm Leef op Hoop, tastings by appointment. They are also in the process of getting their new releases to market, tasting notes and ratings as follows:

Springdoring Chenin Blanc 2023
Price: R360
Grapes from a Paardeberg vineyard planted in 1980. The nose shows hay, lime, white peach and a hint of flinty reduction. The palate is lithe and energetic – good fruit concentration, well integrated acidity, the finish pithy in texture and nicely savoury. Alc: 12%.

CE’s rating: 96/100.

Duwweltjie Chenin Blanc 2023
Price: R360
Grapes from a Paarl vineyard planted in 1961. Lime, lemon, nectarine and soft citrus with some floral perfume in the background. Dense fruit and snappy acidity before a dry finish – pure but not too lean. A very satisfying and complete wine. Alc: 13%.

CE’s rating: 96/100.

Brandnetel Chenin Blanc 2023
Price: R360
From a Stellenbosch planted in 1980 with over 30 different rootstocks for trial purposes. The nose is rather shy with subtle notes of yellow peach and earth. The palate is rich and broad with seemingly moderate acidity – nice weight and texture but perhaps a bit shut down at this point.Alc: 13%.

CE’s rating: 92/100.

Khakibos White 2023
Price: R285
45% Verdelho, 19% Chenin Blanc, 15% Alvarinho, 11% Palomino and 10% Finao Pires sourced from across the Western Cape. Top notes of floral perfume, hay and herbs before pear, peach, citrus and pineapple. The palate is well balanced and has broad appeal – pure and zesty with a dry finish. Alc: 13.5%.

CE’s rating: 92/100.

Knapsekêrel Cabernet Franc 2023
Price: R360
Grapes from Polkadraai Hills. 10% whole-bunch, matured for eight months in older oak. Red berries, musk and a light herbal note on the nose while the palate is juicy and approachable – medium bodied, moderate acidity and soft tannins. Alc: 13.5%.

CE’s rating: 89/100.

Nastergal 2022
Price: R285
31% Tempranillo, 27% Alicante Bouschet, 17% Souzao, 12% Pontac, 6% Tinta Francisca, 6% Touriga Nacional, 1% Touriga Franca. Blackberries, potpourri, herbs and earth on the nose. The palate has good depth of fruit, bright acidity, and firm but fine tannins. Nicely balanced – succulent on entry but ends dry. Alc: 14%.

CE’s rating: 93/100.

P. Jackson 2020
Price: R345 per 375ml bottle
Late Bottled Vintage. 39% Souzão, 39% Touriga Franca and 22% Tinta Barocca. Red and black berries, fynbos, spice and chocolate on the nose. The palate shows all the refinement and approachability you want from this style with good fruit definition, vibrant acidity and smoothness of texture, while the finish remains nicely savoury. Balanced and detailed. Alc: 17.5%.

CE’s rating: 94/100.

Check out our South African wine ratings database.

Rubicon 2021 from Stellenbosch property Meerlust is quite the achievement. It was the first vintage that saw Wim Truter entirely in charge as head winemaker, but it did offer exceptionally favourable growing conditions and Truter is quick to acknowledge this.

Perhaps, however, it is a case of all things coming together for good, viticultural improvements begun in the 2000s and continued throughout the 2010s, now yielding positive results. This is a big property with 65ha under vineyard and a further 20ha set to come online in the next few years. Is high quality at volume possible in the local context? Production of Rubicon 2021 was 126 000 bottles… 

So how does it taste? Consisting of 48% Cabernet Sauvignon, 46% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot, maturation lasted 18 months in 300-litre barrels, 60% new. The nose shows red and black berries, hints of rose and dried herbs, vanilla and pencil shavings while the palate is medium-bodied (alc: 14.2%) with good freshness and fine tannins. A seamless wine with great fruit expression and a long finish. Price: R590 a bottle.

CE’s rating: 95/100.

Check out our South African wine ratings database.

Perhaps because of Glenelly’s obvious and deep connections to Bordeaux, those who are custodians of the label are never scared to show their pinnacle wine next to the best of southwest France – founded by May de Lencquesaing of Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, it is now run by her grandson Nicolas Bureau.

To mark the launch of the Lady May 2019, the 2017 was tasted blind next to Smith Haut Lafitte 2016, both wines that I rated 97 on the night; the 2018 next to Lynches Bages 2018, where the relative difficulties of that vintage locally were apparent (93 for Glenelly, 96 for Lynch Bages) and then finally the 2019 next to Domaine de Chevalier 2019, where I had the Pessac-Léognan wine on 95 and the Stellenbosch wine on 96.

Tasting note for Lady May 2019 (R850 a bottle) as follows:

75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet franc, 10% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot. Initially, the wine spent 12 months aging as individual components in 30 – 40% first-fill barrels. After blending, it was returned to 75% first-fill barrels for an additional 12 months. Rose, quite pronounced but entirely pleasant herbal character, red and black berries and pencil shavings on the nose. The palate is medium-bodied compared to vintages like 2015 and 2016 – a wine of purity and brightness. Poised and intricate with powdery tannins, the finish long and marked by a slight salty quality. Alc: 14.5%.

Always fascinating spending a couple of days wondering around the London Wine Trade Fair in Kensington Olympia. While the 2024 show is undeniably a mere shadow of the wine megalith we became accustomed to in the early to mid-noughties, I certainly don’t side with the populist pessimists that proclaim that this event has outlived its usefulness and we are better off just leaving it to Vin Italy, Wine Paris and Prowein to fly the international wine trade flag. Nonsense! London has always been and remains the engine of wine innovation, fine wine dynamism, and creative liberal thinking when it comes to championing new wine styles and new wine regions. To deny this, is simplistic, negative, and defeatist.

The wine trade is undoubtedly encountering significant headwinds that are having a major effect on the wider sales, promotion and messaging of wine marketing… globally. It is certainly not a phenomenon restricted to the ultra-dynamic and extremely competitive market in the UK. Every European supplier and EU mainland exporter / producer I talk to conveys the same message – the wine times are a changing… and so are the end-consumers! At the London Wine Trade Fair, where a few years ago we might have expected to see a proliferations of fancy pavilions for the Wines of Bordeaux, the Wines of the Loire, the Wines of Tuscany, and the Wines of California, we now see innovative stands for the Wines of Turkey, the Wines of Romania, the Wines of Ukraine, and the Wines of Greece. Perhaps more evolution than revolution?

There are of course smaller outposts of producers, gathered together in mixed, shared Alamo-style pavilions promoting wines from more mainstream areas like Rioja, Chianti, New Zealand and even South Africa, sharing ever diminishing budgets, but the commercial realities are real and stark, and the cost and commercial outlay for wineries and national wine promotional bodies is a significant deterrent in times when almost everyone’s promotional budgets are being cut to the bone. But ironically, desperate times breed an admirable amount of innovation and commercial resilience together with a reinforced and resolute will to do things better, more efficiently and in a more exciting manner.

Leading into the London Wine Trade Fair, I have spent many an evening pondering the changing face of the wider wine trade as well as the changing dynamic of all strata of modern day consumers, some of which I interact with actively on a daily basis and some of which I merely observe with keen interest from a distance, like an anthropologist trying to work out what makes humans human or equally, trying to work out what makes modern wine consumers attracted to certain wine styles or regions.

As a parent with two young boys, one 13-and-a-half and the other almost 18 and on the cusp of proper adulthood, I love to observe their eating patterns, like a wine buyer studies wine consumers’ buying patterns. As the main parent who oversees all the cooking in the house, I am fascinated why my youngest child is obsessed with eating mostly plain, generally bland food while my eldest is finally showing signs of enjoying, literally, a little more spice in life, with a growing penchant for Thai curries, Chinese noodles and aromatic Mexican dishes. When does the switch flip in their heads? When do they suddenly decide they are attracted to more exotic styles of food?

 During my ponderings, I couldn’t but help draw comparisons to wine drinkers, who traditionally moved from drinking beer and sweeter cocktails to experimenting with initially riper, sweeter, more obvious wines, mostly white, before moving on to softer, richer, riper, more overtly opulent and possibly RS (residual sugar) laden red wines. But of course, over time, we then slowly witness the progression of maturing palates to more mineral, dryer, more structured, picante wine styles, with a noticeable movement away from riper, sweeter, more obvious New World wine styles to a decidedly more restrained, classical, savoury leaning style of wines. It is, of course, impossible to illustrate this analogy without treading very close to a great number of generalities and obvious wine cliches.  

I, for one, could not help wondering if our obvious evolution of palate and wine drinking tastes towards the more restrained, savoury and classical was indeed almost inversely matched by the development and evolution of our epicurean tastes towards the more exotic, spicy and mysterious? It just seems to me, on reflection, that these generalised trends are too clear cut not to question their absolute validity.

Without doubt, none of us in the broader wine trade can honestly, hand on heart, say we have done our utmost to make wine more broadly attractive, agreeable, engaging and enticing to a newer, younger generation of potential wine consumers. We may envisage luring them in with opportunities to drink inviting old bottles of expensive aged Claret that outwardly cost the equivalent of a proper long weekend away in Marbella, Spain, but is this really the kind of bribery and enticement that is realistically going to reel in a new catch of engaged young fine wine enthusiasts? Somehow, I’m doubtful. The wine trade simply needs to work harder to convince the next generation of wine consumers that expanding and educating their wine drinking palates is just as important and enjoyable as cultivating their ever-expanding culinary tastes. Indeed, the two should go hand in hand without doubt!

• Greg Sherwood was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and as the son of a career diplomat, spent his first 21 years traveling the globe with his parents. With a Business Management and Marketing degree from Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Sherwood began his working career as a commodity trader. In 2000, he decided to make more of a long-held interest in wine taking a position at Handford Wines in South Kensington, London, working his way up to the position of Senior Wine Buyer. Earlier this year, he moved across to South African specialist merchant Museum Wines to become the Fine Wine Director. He qualified as a Master of Wine in 2007.

After 16 years of working with Jean Engelbrecht at Rust en Vrede , also involved in shaping the direction for related brands Donkiesbaai, Guardian Peak and Stellenbosch Reserve, Coenie Snyman launched his own label Rock of Eye with wines from the 2022 harvest.

The Chenin Blanc and Cinsault are not at all unaccomplished (see here) but given that he grew up in Stellenbosch and his long tenure at a top-end farm in the district, a single-variety Cabernet Sauvignon had to be part of the portfolio. Tasting note and ratings as follows:

Rock of Eye Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
Price: R450
40% of grapes from Simonsberg, 40% Polkadraai Hills and 20% Helderberg. Components matured separately for 12 months before being blended and matured to barrel for a further six month – 300-litre barrels, 20% new. Top notes of violets and tea leaf before red and black berries. Medium bodied with vibrant acidity and sleek, silky tannins – very elegant indeed. Alc: 14.5%.

CE’s rating: 94/100.

Check out our South African wine ratings database.

To mangle and misquote Tolstoy “successful wine markets are all alike; unsuccessful wine markets are all unsuccessful in their own way.”

Humour me while I unpack this in the context of South Africa. We may have a few very successful producers, and we may be riding the crest of a public relations wave, but it would be hard to describe the Cape wine enterprise as good business. The key indicators are grim – a shrinking vineyard area, a declining number of producers, most growers breaking even at best, the local market battling, exports declining, survival dependent on an ever-weakening Rand…all in all, not a pretty picture.

It’s possible to argue that we are no worse off than most other wine-producing nations: Australia’s bulk growers are pretty much done for, the French government is funding a vine-pull scheme in Bordeaux, the German vineyards have been decimated by frost, the Californians by drought and wildfires – it’s tough (but not impossible) to find a poster-boy for a happy wine producing country.

But here’s the thing: most of the other wine producing nations are looking healthier than South Africa if you use metrics relating to shareholder/stakeholder value. Some of our biggest exporters make their living from the misery of growers (hence the attrition in vineyard area and farmer numbers). Most of the fashion brands, the geeky creations of landless winemakers, are the wine world’s equivalent of tuisnywerhede, mom-and-pop businesses so fragile that any one of several factors could wipe them out in a single season. To the extent that we have a strong and sustainable producer sector, it comprises fewer than 80 names, brands which have survived a few recessions and have enough energy and wealth to sit out a few more.

What they generally also have in common – surprisingly – is that their price centre of gravity is low both in local “Big Mac” equivalents and in hard currency terms. They are all pretty good businesses in the South African context – as long as you don’t have to account for the value of assets under management. By this I mean that these “successful” producers are cashflow positive and probably more profitable than they appear to be – as long as the current value of the vineyards (theirs or those they buy from) and the cellar is treated as a sunk cost.

Equally unsurprisingly, this happy position is achieved with an average price per bottle (as received by the winery) probably south of R100, and certainly not much more than R150. Most of our competitors can’t even produce at these costs – largely on account of the basic grape price. Our high-end New World competitors pay multiples of what our more top wineries pay in Rands per ton for grapes. Napa cabernet averages over R150k per ton – more than ten times what growers earn for Stellenbosch fruit. For this we must thank eighty years of state management via the KWV, where volume took precedence over quality, making the grape price the cheapest component in the major commercial brands. The fruit that goes into perfectly respectable wines costs less than R15 per bottle.

The result is a culture where good wine is cheap and readily available, and most of what appears expensive (to us – but is still cheap in international terms) is simply determined by limited supply, made desirable more by “rarity” than by the intrinsics which went into its production. From a consumer perspective this appears to be no bad thing: wine drinkers everywhere would like to have this “problem.” But it drags in its wake the law of unintended consequences.

Several of the geekier, so-called cutting edge wine brands will not be with us forever: they create excitement, and they enable the folk who make them to become proficient and to understand the economics of fine wine production. They provide material for publications like Winemag.co.za, but they don’t shift the needle of the key metrics of industry sustainability by more than a few digits. They are (in general) the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

Until we have big brands selling high-priced wines in significant volumes, we cannot pretend that we have made a qualitative move upwards from an industry dominated by co-ops forty years ago. The fact that many of our apparently prestigious higher volume brands achieve the bulk of their sales through wines acquired elsewhere in bulk tells you that the smoke-and-mirrors component has got better (as have the margins) but we are a long way from being a fine wine industry.

The test in fact is very simple: almost every one of the more successful mid-size and larger producers have built their businesses on their discount/non-estate labels. The vast proportion of what they sell is not made from their own fruit. The apex of their pyramid is occupied by wines with an apparent claim to a single site within their property. As you move closer to the base the words which appear most often on their labels is “Wine of Western Cape.”

And we as consumers are complicit in this: we allow ourselves to treat rarity as pretty much the only quality criterion – without asking whether or not this actually imbues wine with anything except the message of shortage; once we allow it to dominate the discourse then nothing else has a place in the discussion. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Chateau d’Yquem are the largest of the top-ranked properties in the 1855 classification. This tells you that you don’t have to sell in infinitesimal quantities for the wine to be great. Penfold’s Grange runs to about 10,000 dozen, Sassicaia to 15,000 and Opus One to 25,000. For what it’s worth, Dom Perignon sells half a million cases.

By making apparent rarity our primary benchmark of judgement we don’t allow our most credible fine wine producers to build critical mass in the premium and ultra-premium segments. We seem to be saying that the mere fact of a wine coming from a bigger-than-boutique cellar precludes it from being taken seriously. When a volume producer does well in a blind judging environment, we doubt the authenticity of the wine or the competence of the tasting panel. When Winemag rated blends in the 2021 Prescient Report, Chateau Libertas 2019 finished in the Top 10 with a score of 92.  Christian Eedes, editor and the chairman of the panel, immediately went to his local supermarket to buy a bottle to check whether he had been given a specially prepared sample (see here).

Until we restore the concept of vinous value to its rightful place, we will have an industry which succeeds by overworking words like “unique,” “old vines” and “single site” while selling its lowest common denominator. We are like the native inhabitants of Manhattan in the 17^th century, happy to exchange what is important to us for a few trinkets and some beads.

• Michael Fridjhon has over thirty-five years’ experience in the liquor industry. He is the founder of Winewizard.co.za and holds various positions including Visiting Professor of Wine Business at the University of Cape Town; founder and director of WineX – the largest consumer wine show in the Southern Hemisphere and chairman of The Trophy Wine Show.

Introduction

This year’s Chenin Blanc Report convened by Winemag.co.za and sponsored by multinational financial services company Prescient is now out. There were 75 entries of single-variety Chenin Blanc and 17 Cape White Blends (defined as any blend containing a Chenin Blanc component of more than 15% and less than 85%) and these were tasted blind (labels out of sight) by a three-person panel, scoring done according to the 100-point quality scale.

Chenin Blanc Top 10

The 10 best wines overall are:

---

Cape White Blends Top Three

About the category

Chenin Blanc is one of the world’s most versatile grape varieties, capable of producing wines in all manner of styles and at all levels of the market. As recently as 1990, it comprised around 35% of the total area under vineyard in South Africa but in the period after political transformation, the tendency was to replace it with more fashionable red grape types and much was ripped out. It nevertheless remains the country’s most widely planted, making up 16 912ha or 18.4% of the total 87 848ha currently under vine.

Moreover, there has been a growing awareness that the variety had a particular affinity to local growing conditions and there is also a sense that mature vineyards can play a key role in producing wines of excellence. Based on industry convention, old vines are defined as being at least 35 years of age , and of the 4 870ha registered as such, approximately half of this is Chenin.

As for Cape White Blends, these make for an important, if niche, category. No official definition exists but our proposal is that such wines can be made from any combination of varieties as long as they include a significant Chenin Blanc component, specifically more than 15% and less than 85% – the wines that result are often compelling in their complexity and, moreover, no other wine region in the world can lay claim to them.

What does a top Chenin Blanc go for?

The average price of the 49 wines to rate 90-plus is R221 a bottle and of the Top 10 is R246.

Best Buy

In-depth analysis

About the category

When it comes to Shiraz, two broad styles can be discerned, the first the overtly aromatic, medium-bodied but densely structured wines typical of France’s Rhône, and the second being the darkly coloured, full-fruited wines most famously associated with South Australia’s Barossa Valley.

Shiraz and Syrah are simply two names for the same grape variety, the former supposedly denoting wines of power and the latter wines of restraint but in reality it is not possible to make such a clear-cut distinction.

Shiraz is an important variety in South Africa, occupying 9.9% of the national vineyard at the end of 2023 (second only to Cabernet Sauvignon among reds) and it is to the country’s credit that it seems capable of making accomplished examples across the stylistic spectrum.

What does top Shiraz go for?

Average price of the 37 wines to rate 90-plus is R279 a bottle and of the Top 10 is R328.

Best Buy

In-depth analysis