Editorial: A plea to embrace white blends

I recently had a hankering for fish and chips and so it was off to Belgian restaurant Den Anker at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. Now fish and chips is not a particularly Belgian dish even if Den Anker lists it as “Poisson et Frites” but the fish here is firm and flaky, the batter crisp, there’s mayonnaise on the side and the wine list is decent.

What to drink? I was the verge of ordering Tempel Kattemaai Chenin Blanc 2023 from a Wellington block planted in 1985 at R600 a bottle but then noticed the Eight Feet White 2023 from Swartland producer Kloovenburg.

“Did I know the story behind the label?”, asked our waiter, and indeed I did. Kloovenburg was acquired by South African rugby international Pieter “Spiere” du Toit in 1957 and is today owned by his son Pieter and his wife Annelene, they in turn the parents of four sons, the “Eight Feet” label created to acknowledge their involvement in the family farm. Good genes in this family as one of the siblings just happens to be current Springbok Pieter-Steph…

But rugby was not the primary reason I was ordering this wine. Rather, at R390 a bottle from the restaurant, it was less than two-thirds the price of the Tempel and happened to be best overall in the Cape White Blend Report sponsored by Prescient earlier in the year with a rating of 93. A blend of 44% Grenache Blanc, 34% Chenin Blanc, 11% Roussanne and 11% Verdelho with an alcohol of 12.93%, it provides that winning combination of drinking effortlessly under casual circumstances but is not short of complexity should you choose to engage with it more seriously.

Have white blends finally caught on? The concept has made some headway in the past two decades but is probably not as widely embraced as it could be. At the bottom end, Chenin Blanc-Grenache Blanc-Viognier blend that is Wolftrap White from Boekenhoutskloof consistently offers great quality relative to price (the currently available 2023 sells for R75 a bottle) but I can’t remember when I was last inclined to order a bottle of Heineken’s Graça NV, for instance (this from Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Colombar and selling for R65 a bottle). Other names to conjure with? No that many immediately spring to mind…

At the top end, there are now several wines that are highly celebrated among a small cognoscenti: Alheit Cartology, Anysbos Disdit, Lourens Family Wines Lindi Carien, Mullineux Old Vines White, Rall White, Sadie Family Wines Palladius and Thorne & Daughters Rocking Horse are just some of the profoundly good kit that local producers are making and the fact that the industry is unrestricted in terms of what varieties it’s permitted to blend serves only to fuel innovation. Anything goes, Chenin Blanc very often the secret sauce.

Sauv-Sem blends, meanwhile, make for an important sub-category and here wines like Cape Point Vineyards Isliedh and Tokara Director’s Reserve White have proved themselves top notch, their ability to age with benefit just about unequalled. Morgenster The Reserve White 2023 is another case in point, this blend of 60% Sauvignon Blanc and 40% Sem being the existing Prescient White Wine of the Year.

You must, however, wonder about what kind of larger following these wines have in an international context. The South African offering surely still struggles to compete with established white blends from regions like Châteauneuf-du-Pape (France) or Rioja (Spain), which have more established reputations. Sauv-Sem blends, meanwhile, are always going to be measured against Bordeaux. Being “big in Riebeek-Kasteel” is not the same as being big in New York. In addition, lack of recognition is exacerbated by the best stuff typically being made in small quantities and therefore hard to find.

SA’s varied styles may also be confusing to those more used to a European offering – I recall the late Steven Spurrier remarking that it was inconceivable to him that anybody would combine Chenin Blanc and Viognier in the same wine due to each of their fundamentally different and ultimately incompatible structures.

As always, challenges for SA fine wine but what can help move the dial, even if only incrementally, is if you, dear reader, are a bit more adventurous in your purchasing decisions. White blends tend to be some of the most complex wines that are currently being produced and, what’s more, are still almost laughably inexpensive in world terms. Rocking Horse 2023 for R325 a bottle? Disdit 2023 for R390? You’re getting a really good deal on wines that are truly distinctive and when this style of wine is finally universally understood and celebrated, then you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that, relatively speaking, you were an early adopter.