Editorial: 2015 vs 2017 – which vintage holds up?

“Early vintages often make for good wines, but do they make for great wines?”, Rudiger Gretschel, Vinimark’s Production Director, remarked to me shortly after the grapes from the 2015 harvest were in and general sentiment was running high.

In the Vinpro Harvest Report for that year, the producer support body confirmed that it was “one of the driest and earliest in years” but also predicted that exceptionally high quality would result.

Of course, Tim Atkin MW would go on to give his first 100-point perfect score to Paul Sauer 2015 in the 2018 edition of his South Africa Special Report cementing the reputation of this as one of the standout vintages of the modern era.

Along came 2017, however, and the consensus was that the resulting wines were again very good indeed. The infamous Western Cape drought that had begun around 2015 still very much applied, but cooler conditions slowed ripening – not extremely late, but later than the warm, early vintages immediately before it. A longer, steadier season, the thinking goes, should favour phenolic maturity.

The Blind Tasting Verdict

Recently wine merchants Brice & Burnett (previously Wine Cellar) facilitated a tasting billed as “The Great South African Stand-Off – 2015 vs 2017.

Seven pairs of wines were poured, in the following order:

Flight One
Mullineux Syrah 2015 vs 2017
Boekenhoutskloof Syrah 2015 vs 2017
Porseleinberg Syrah 2015 vs 2017

Flight Two
Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 vs 2017
Meerlust Rubicon 2015 vs 2017

Flight Three
Kanonkop Paul Sauer 2015 vs 2017
Le Riche Reserve 2015 vs 2017

Each pair was randomised and we tasted blind. In all but one instance, I found it possible to distinguish the 2015s from the 2017s. The 2015s, as expected, were often richer, seductive in their scale and generosity, but typically maturing relatively quickly. The 2017s, by contrast, tended to show greater composure – better fruit definition, fresher, more detailed, more restrained, their structure suggesting greater longevity.

The only exception was Kanonkop Paul Sauer, where I had no clear sense of which wine belonged to which vintage. Tasting blind, I had the wine that turned out to be the 2015 just ahead on 96 points, with the 2017 on 95. The fruit density on both is remarkable – the 2015 at 14.47% alcohol, the 2017 a slightly more moderate 14%. It poses the question: does a later, cooler vintage deliver the same va-va-voom at lower alcohol?

Overall, I favoured 2017. Two wines to buy, only available from Brice & Burnett: Boekenhoutskloof Syrah 2017 (96, R850) and Meerlust Rubicon 2017 (96, R825).

That said, my wine of the night came from 2015. Le Riche Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon was profoundly good – unmistakably of its vintage yet ageing with dignity rather than haste. I rated it 97 points and it’s priced at R1,350 (versus R3,750 for the Paul Sauer 2015).

Showiness vs endurance

Reflecting more broadly, what became apparent during the tasting was not just that 2017 outperformed 2015, but that it did so by exposing a fundamental fault line in our conversation around quality.

If this sounds like a familiar dichotomy – opulence versus structure – that’s because it is. But what felt different on this occasion was how consistently the latter triumphed. Not in a blowout kind of way, not in every glass, but often enough to shift the centre of gravity.

Which raises an uncomfortable question: have we been too easily seduced by early drinkability masquerading as greatness?

Warm, dry vintages like 2015 tend to produce wines that show well young. They arrive with a kind of instant authority, the fruit plush, the tannins accommodating. They flatter both critic and consumer, rewarding early attention. Cooler, more measured seasons such as 2017 demand more patience, their virtues less obvious at first glance but ultimately more enduring.

This matters because, in the age of scores, social media and rapid-fire opinion, immediacy is currency. Wines that impress on release are more likely to be talked about, traded, celebrated. Those that require time risk being overlooked, at least initially.

And yet, if the Brice & Burnett tasting is anything to go by, it is precisely these slower-unfolding wines that may offer the greater long-term reward.

None of this is to diminish 2015. At its best, it remains a vintage of real consequence, capable of producing wines of depth and impact. But perhaps its reputation has been amplified by the very qualities that make it so appealing in youth. The halo effect of a few benchmark bottles – Paul Sauer chief among them – may have cast too flattering a light over the vintage as a whole. By contrast, 2017 is less about standout bottles and more about across-the-board quality.

For the drinker, the takeaway is refreshingly simple: don’t buy the vintage, buy the wine. But more than that, interrogate your own preferences. Are you drawn to immediacy and scale, or to tension and longevity? Neither is inherently superior, but the distinction is worth making explicit.

For producers, there may be a more existential implication. If cooler, slower ripening conditions are indeed conducive to greater balance and detail, what does that mean in a warming climate? The success of 2017 might not just be a stylistic triumph but a glimpse of what is at stake.

And for the industry at large, perhaps it’s time to rethink how we define a “great” vintage. Not as one that shouts the loudest on release, but as one that continues to speak, quietly and persuasively, long after the initial excitement has faded.

Because if 2015 was about arrival, then 2017 is about endurance. And in the end, endurance is the rarer, and arguably more valuable, quality.