Cape Town blind tasting: SA Pinot, Chardonnay against world’s best

The Singles Club – a collective of like-minded friends passionate about single-vineyard, terroir-driven wines, namely Newton Johnson Family Vineyards, Restless River, and Storm Wines – recently set out to probe a big question: just how good is South African Chardonnay and Pinot Noir?

With international wine media and trade figures in Cape Town for CapeWine 2025, the trio hosted a special tasting this past Saturday under the banner “The Judgement of Cape Town.” The format: six flights of three wines tasted blind. Labels concealed, 16 guest tasters kept in the dark about the line-up, and the three winemakers aware of which wines had been included but not of their sequence. To prevent outlier scores from skewing the outcome, the highest and lowest ratings for each wine were discarded before calculating the group averages.

And the results? All the Pinots clustered tightly, scoring between 93 and 94 points once rounded – a striking testament to the overall quality.

The group’s top three examples of Pinot Noir were:
1. Restless River Le Luc Pinot Noir 2022 – Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley – 93.69 points
2. Domaine Armand Rousseau Pere et Fils Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru Clos des Ruchottes Monopole 2022 – Gevrey Chambertin – 93.63 points
3. Felton Road Calvert Pinot Noir 2022 – Central Otago – 93.50 points

The Chardonnays scored in a band of 91 to 95. The top three examples were:
1. Domaine Bouchard Pere & Fils Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2021 – Aloxe Corton – 94.69 points
2. Newton Johnson CWG Sandford Chardonnay 2022 – Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley – 94.31 points
3. Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay 2022 – Margaret River, Western Australia – 94.25 points

My Pinot Noir top three were:
1.= Cristom Eileen Vineyard Pinot Noir 2022 – Eola-Amity Hills, Willamette Valley – 97
1.= Littorai Savoy Vineyard Pinot Noir 2022 – Anderson Valley, California – 97
3.= Domaine Georges & Christophe Roumier Les Cras 2022 Premier Cru – Chambolle-Musigny – 96
3.= Domaine Armand Rousseau Pere et Fils Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru Clos des Ruchottes Monopole 2022 – 96

My Chardonnay top three were:
1. Newton Johnson CWG Sandford Chardonnay 2022 – Upper Hemel-en-Aarde – 98
2. Domaine Bouchard Pere & Fils Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2021 – Aloxe Corton – 97
3. Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay 2022 – Margaret River, Western Australia – 96

As so often happens, the Pinot Noirs divided opinion stylistically. To my mind, the local examples showed slightly less fruit concentration and structure than their international counterparts, though others might just as easily have read this as elegance. The broader consensus, however, was that South African Chardonnay is more difficult to distinguish from its international peers than Pinot Noir.

Pouring order and full group scores
For Pinot Noir, download the following: Judgement of CTN Pinot Noir
For Chardonnay, download the following: Judgement of CTN Chardonnay