Greg Sherwood MW: SA’s 2015 New Wave wines – still shining?
By Christian Eedes, 4 June 2025
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The ageability of wine is a topic that surfaces regularly among global wine writers and commentators. Perhaps the most contentious aspect is whether a wine must be ageworthy to be considered truly fine. As younger generations of drinkers gradually move away from traditional styles—such as Bordeaux, which often require a decade or more of bottle maturation to become approachable—the spotlight has once again turned to the thorny question of fine wine and its relationship with ageability.
Current trends appear to clearly show that younger consumers are far less inclined to buy wine En-primeur or pre-bottled while still lying in cask, preferring instead to purchase wines that are both physical available and ready for immediate consumption or in the short to medium term. The concept of both buying wine to cellar, at home or in professional storage, is becoming an increasingly foreign concept to the iPhone generation, with the lack of suitable storage space and / or conditions in most forms of starter accommodation clearly an inhibitor.
With fine wine provenance and ideal storage conditions becoming critical to a wines secondary market value, the rise and rise of professional wine storage businesses has gone hand in hand with the past two to three decades of the fine wine boom times that have been witnessed up until around 2020 and the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is of course not only fine wine that has become increasingly expensive, so too has the business of professional wine storage, so yet another factor that has discouraged a younger generation from building fine wine collections.
While the merits of collecting wine can be debated endlessly, there is nevertheless a sizable cohort of Gen X and Millennial drinkers who are looking to drink less but also drink better, and this behaviour increasingly includes buying wines that are already optimally mature and ready to have their corks pulled. In the specific context of South African wine, it has been a long-held belief that the 10-year-old maturity mark is the golden moment to drink many of South Africa’s finest red wines, and increasingly, many of South Africa’s top white wines as well.
With the hallmarks of youthful primary fruit fading but not yet vanished, and the accompanying tertiary complexity and mellowing elegance of bottle age making many of these 10-year-old wines an absolute pleasure to drink, there is certainly a very sound argument to support the decade milestone. So, it was possibly only a matter of time before someone in the London wine trade set about putting together a 10-year retrospective, and this is indeed what transpired recently at the inaugural “South Africa’s New Wave Tasting – Ten Years On.”
For those consumers in South Africa unfamiliar with the “New Wave Tastings” that were held bi-annually for several years in London, the first event itself took place in 2015, representing a coming together of several leading South African wine importers in the UK market space including the likes of SWIG Wines, FMV, Indigo, New Generation Wines, and Dreyfus Ashby, who represent benchmark fine wine producers such as Sadie Family Wines, Reyneke Wines, Savage, Boekenhoutskloof, Rall, Newton Johnson, Keermont, Mullineux Wines, and many more.
The New Wave Tasting, an event for both the wine trade and for end consumers, rode the powerful wave that was the original young gun movement, profiling new producers and new releases of wines the UK trade had in many instances, never seen or tasted before.
In addition, 2015 was an ideal starting point, on account of its reputation, quality, and breadth. It was a vintage that earned widespread acclaim from the outset, an overall dry and relatively early harvest, taken on a long-term average (though since superseded by the deeper drought vintages of 2016, 2017 and 2018). A cool, wet winter in 2014-2015 ensured full vine dormancy, replenished dams and water reserves in the soil, and an even budbreak in spring. Broadly warm, windy conditions through summer (with few customary heatwaves) meant advanced ripening in generally excellent sanitary health.
Dryland vineyards tended to produce lighter bunches with smaller berries and lower than average yields were reported in the Swartland, Paarl, Stellenbosch and Hemel-en-Aarde. Full to larger crops were achieved in Worcester, Robertson, Breedekloof and Olifantsriver. At the time, producers and critics alike were excited about “the best Cape vintage since 2009” for both red and white wines.
Plenty then to justify a 10-year-old retrospective tasting. Co-ordinated and driven forward by South African wine champion Victoria Mason MW, the ex-buyer for Waitrose, Bordeaux Index, and currently working at the Wine Society, and Mark Dearing, the South African buyer for Justerinis & Brooks, there were many key players involved to make this fascinating tasting the incredible success that it was, including generous hosts Berry Brothers and Rudd, and with undoubtedly countless archive cellar doors opened by the influence of key importers like Damon Quinlan of Swig and Richard Kelley MW of Dreyfus Ashby. But enough back patting! What where the tasting results and who were the stars I hear you ask!?
The tasting format consisted of a sit-down tasting, organised into twelve blind flights (36 whites and 42 reds). There were seven red flights before lunch and five white flights after. Tasters were divided into two groups of nine tasters to make discussions more manageable after each flight.
Tasting Group A – Mark Dearing moderating am / Victoria Mason MW moderating pm, Daisy Gatt, Richard Kelley MW, Neal Martin, Robert Mathias MW, Jancis Robinson MW, Greg Sherwood MW, Christina Rasmussen, Emily Jago.
Tasting Group B – Victoria Mason MW moderating am / Mark Dearing moderating pm, Tim Atkin MW, Catriona Felstead MW, Matthew Horsley, Damon Quinlan, Julie Sheppard, Valerie Lewis, Robbie Toothill, Fergus Stewart.
Mark and Victoria collected notes during the discussion and collected the individual taster’s scores on a 100pt-scale. This blind tasting was the first large-scale opportunity to assess the oft cited capacity of the best South African wines to age – focusing primarily on the original New Wave producers who took part in the London 2015 event.
The results – best wines overall:
Chardonnay
Crystallum Clay Shales 2015 – 93.13
Chenin Blanc Stellenbosch & Other
De Morgenzon Reserve – 93.73
Chenin Blanc Swartland
David & Nadia 2015 – 93.93
Cape White Blends
Beaumont New Baby 2015 – 92.6
Sauvignon/Semillon and Blends
Thorne & Daughters Paper Kite 2015 – 93.2
Pinot Noir
1.= Crystallum Cuvée Cinema 2015 – 93.08
1.= Newton Johnson CWG Sea Dragon 2015 – 93.08
Mediterranean Varieties (Single Varietal)
Momento Grenache Noir 2015 – 91.75
Mediterranean Red Blends
Sadie Family Columella 2015 – 92.5
Syrah Cape South Coast
Kershaw Deconstructed Lake District Cartref SH22 2015 – 92.54
Syrah Stellenbosch
Reyneke Reserve Red 2015 – 92.79
Syrah Swartland
Porseleinberg 2015 – 94.71
Bordeaux Red Blends and Single Varietal
Boekenhoutskloof The Journeyman 2015 – 93.64
For ratings of all white wines tasted, download the following: SA’s NW Ten Years On Tasting – WHITES
For ratings of all red wines tasted, download the following: SA’s NW Ten Years On Tasting – REDS
Many global producers are aware of the reluctance of a new generation of drinkers to cellar and age wines, so, the industry is inevitably seeing changing styles of wines that are readily drinkable earlier and younger, modern Bordeaux reds being a perfect case in point.
Emerging trends may sway producers’ wine styles and global warming may lead to riper, more accessible earlier drinking wines, but South Africa’s best wines are still world leaders when it comes to fine wines that are accessible and enjoyable in their youth while retaining an almost magical ability to age gracefully for decades.
- 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 over 22 years. Sherwood currently consults to a number of top fine wine merchants in London while always keeping one eye firmly on the South African wine industry. He qualified as the 303rd Master of Wine in 2007.
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John Weaver | 8 June 2025
I suggest having a look at the median score. The median does away with the average being skewed by an individual giving either a much lower or much higher score than the group.
Erwin Lingenfelder | 7 June 2025
I’m not sure if this is allowed, but I have two 5L bottles Kanonkop Paul Sauer available if anyone is interested.
GillesP | 6 June 2025
On the tasting scores aledgedly perceived as too low, let’s just put a bit of perspective. Famous international recognised wine scorers tends to score lower than what I observe here in South Africa where scoring is often extremely generous versus how other wines from rest of the world are scored regularly. Maybe some introspection is required here.
On the reply I left earlier on the 2015 Red perhaps not being ready, I happened to open a Porseleinberg 2013 tonight (of course the Cork broke in 2 pieces) , the wine is still a beast , so I thought to give it a good decanting. It helped a bit but still nowhere near what I consider a wine to be fully resolved.
Kwispedoor | 7 June 2025
Yes, but in this particular case many of these international tasters regularly taste and score South African wines.
Tim Parsons | 7 June 2025
I had a Luddite Shiraz, 2007, last night. The cork broke into many pieces. I think this is an issue featured in a previous article and one that the SA fine wine producers, who sell today but, tell you to leave it for 5 – 8 years, need to address. It’s really disappointing, and embarrassing, when this happens, usually, a special occasion or with guests!
GillesP | 7 June 2025
I hear you so loud and clear Tim. I was the one bringing up the topic a couple of weeks ago. Tuesday night me and a good friend opened a Chateau Simone Blanc (2021) from Palette Appelation, proper beautiful Cork of 56mm a day a Domaine Dujac Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru les Gruenchers 2011 with impeccable 50mm cork. No issue what so ever. Can the South African premium wine producers take note?
Greg Sherwood MW | 9 June 2025
Regarding closures, this is from the organisers post tasting wrap up report and the issue of closures tops this list:
Headline Criticisms / Drawbacks:
“Inconsistency of closures, as forewarned to all tasters at the beginning, proved to be an issue. Approximately 30% failure rate across the whole tasting which at times damaged confidence in the wines.”
It might be slightly annecdotal but I suspect that many or most of the producers in the New Wave tasting, including many who performed very well, like Crystallum, are now using composite corks as closures. I am not sure what year composite corks / Diam corks started to gain real traction in the SA market (perhaps Christian has a better idea?) but it is an ever growing trend.
Though, quality of cork to start with counts for alot. The Boekenhoutskloof wines in the flight performed very well and they all had natural corks. Oh, and just to emphasise the point further, the beautiful Beaumont New Baby White Blend 2015 (a maiden vintage) at 13% abv. was spectacularly fresh and of course, bottled under a Diam! ;-P
GillesP | 9 June 2025
Adding to that, my boss tried opening a bottle of Vilafonte C 2008 this weekend. Same story with the Cork disintegrating. He actually gave up on trying to open it in the end.
Christian Eedes | 6 June 2025
Let’s not forget that earlier this year, Winemag reviewed 98 wines from the 2015 vintage, awarding a score of 96 to one fortified, and 95 to three whites, two reds, and another fortified: https://winemag.co.za/wine/best/10-year-old/
Kwispedoor | 6 June 2025
It bears mentioning that, nowadays, most of the wines on this tasting are generally not entered into the kind of blind tastings that winemag conducts. Very much regrettably so. There might be just a tiny amount of wines, if any, overlapping between the two types. So, simply going by the scores here, comparing this tasting with the winemag tastings is just more proof that either these wines are not quite deserving of the pedestals that they are put on, or they were scored too conservatively .
Jos | 6 June 2025
And if it is indeed that these wines are not all that as many claim, then every publication has something to answer for. CE, for example, has never scored Magnetic North below 96 on release, with 3 releases getting his ceiling score of 98.
In this tasting, the wine got the lowest in the flight at 88.8. Are we really to believe that a wine THAT consistently good can go so wrong when it should be around its peak?
Kwispedoor | 5 June 2025
I’m not buying it, peeps – the scores are LOW!
The highest scoring 2015 wine of all is the Porseleinberg, right? Didn’t even get to 95. Let’s just compare it with some recent scores from Christian, who has been accused of scoring too low before. He’s often defended his comparative low scoring by saying that he doesn’t want to fall into the score inflation trap. However, in May alone, he has scored 16 newly released spring chickens at 95 points or higher. Come on guys, it’s really petty clear that the scoring here was conservative!
Christian just gave the 2024 vintage of Alheit Fire by Night 98 points. I know he didn’t attend this blind tasting, but it’s worth reflecting on what he might score this very young Alheit wine in a blind tasting after it’s been allowed to mature for another nine years. Higher? Lower? Just the same?
I don’t buy it that all these different tasters have suddenly taken an immediate and simultaneous stand at this tasting to fight score inflation and score lower. If so, their websites should be awash with important notices relaying this, so that their readers and followers can be made aware of this significant recalibration. Otherwise, a sudden shift like this will certainly confuse everyone. I’m respectfully also not buying the notion that tasters were using scores merely as a tool to concentrate the mind here. Many of these tasters are top professionals and can score wine in their sleep. And if the tasters were so incredibly positive about the wines, their scores should have reflected that.
It’s completely plausible (to be expected, rather) that some heralded wines can sometimes tank a bit in a blind tasting or that wines that are considered as more modest can do surprisingly well (and that arguably did happen to a degree here). And I’m not saying that half of these wines should have scored between 95 and 98 either. But it’s entirely something else that not a SINGLE one of these wines could get to a 95 average score.
For me, young wine generally has less qualitative extremes. And once age becomes a significant factor, the goalposts widen: on the one hand, some wines go out of balance, some refuse to integrate, some become one-dimensional, some just dip too far over the hill, not to mention brett, RBO and all the other negative things that, if present, often gets amplified over time. However, on the other hand, Father Time can really work his magic on the better wines, resulting in something moving and singular, something that young wine can only dream of. So it’s fair to say that one can expect wider goal posts with more age, yet basically everything here was scored inside the narrow 89-95 bracket.
I’ve had the 2015 Restless River Cab recently and it’s certainly not a sub 93-point wine. And since its average was below 93, then some tasters likely only gave it somewhere around 89-91 points. Nope..! Okay, now let’s say it was an unfortunate bad bottle – that happens. But it still doesn’t explain the fact that not a single wine managed to average 95 points. Was it perhaps a root day? Were the tasters forced to listen to boy band music while they tasted?
What’s more likely?
1. In a blind tasting setting like this, it’s simply safer and less contentious to score in a range of between 90-95. It might not be a conscious decision to do so, but subconscious drivers have the same result on scoring.
2. As a whole, these wines might not really improve over time, like most people would suggest. Perhaps here and there, but people should generally curb their expectations.
3. Perhaps quite a few of these tasters don’t regularly drink older wines of this sort (or they drink them, but don’t like them when they’re older) and they scored lower here, dragging the average down.
These are just some suggestions, but I’m sure multiple factors are at play.
Wessel Strydom | 6 June 2025
Kwispedoor, thank you. As always, very thought provoking comment.
Greg Sherwood MW | 6 June 2025
Some very interesting points raised. The results did perhaps open a pandora’s box and now certain aspects need to be discussed. I have offered to do this for the “Steenwold Tasting” organisers and also for Winemag’s editor and its readers.
But a last couple points… large blind group tastings will ALWAYS lead to lower average scores… by at least 1 point or perhaps 2!
I will end with a snap shot of my personal scores, which I hope to expand on further in a future column, just from the Bordeaux Blends and Single Varietals 7 wine flight (which I feel is one of my strongest personal categories to judge blind):
Wine 1 – 93/100 Miles Mossop Max 2015
Wine 2 – 94/100 Leeu Passant Dry Red 2015
Wine 3 – 95/100 Boekenhoutskloof Stell Cab 2015
Wine 4 – 96/100 Boekenhoutskloof Frans Cab 2015
Wine 5 – 94/100 Restless River Cabernet 2015
Wine 6 – 97/100 Boekenhoutskloof Journeyman 2015
Wine 7 – 93/100 Gabrielskloof Cab Franc 2015
I would like to think these are fairly accurate representations of the wines “in numbers”… but of course, the highest scored wines are not always the most enjoyable to drink… or aren’t the first bottles to get drained at a wine party! But having recently done a vertical with Marc Kent of the Journeyman, the 2015 is clearly an EPIC wine that is sadly not really available to many people. Looking at my Journeyman 2015 score from the vertical 4 months prior in February… I scored it sighted a solid 97+/100.
Tasting is a complicated art and acquired skill. Blind tasting even more so.
FrankH | 5 June 2025
Wondering why they put Radicales Libres into the Chardonnay flight. Sure, it’s chard per definition, but due to its unique approach so far away from standard ones, that they could have chosen almost any other fuller bodied white wine as well 😉
Christian Eedes | 5 June 2025
Another way to interpret the scores is as a long-overdue correction to the widespread inflation of the past decade – the wisdom of crowds at work…
Fergus Stewart | 5 June 2025
As one of the lucky few at the tasting, I feel it’s important to add some commentary about the scores and scoring in general on the day.
To paraphrase Mark Dearing, who was integral in setting up the day along with Victoria Mason MW, the event was never intended to be score-driven. Instead, Victoria and Mark set out from the beginning to capture as much qualitative feedback around the maturity and qualities of each wine and category, using scores only as a tool to concentrate the mind. Tasters, particularly those who do not score wines in their day-to-day roles (myself included), employ the 100-point scale in very different ways, thus rankings are only a guide and do not always accurately reflect the sentiment felt by individual members of the group. The conversations on the day where overwhelmingly positive about the wines and their age worthiness. Simply looking at the collective scores is a reductive view imo.
I’ll finish with a reminder that wine is an organic product open to fluctuations and bottle variation. With different preferences to maturity and 16 different palates to please on the day, there was always the chance that some celebrated names might not perform as highly as we would all like. The following evening, I opened my last bottle of 2015 Alheit Radio Lazarus and am delighted to say it absolutely shone, so a relatively off day can be forgiven in a line up of nearly 80 wines.
Greg Sherwood | 5 June 2025
Fergus, thank you for your added insights on the days tasting. If I am totally honest, I am somewhat perplexed by the general obsession with the wines’ scores. Everybody by now should appreciate that a) blind tastings, and b) group score averages (especially for 16 people) will inevitably lead to slightly lower scores in general than either certain individual scores or if the wines were tasted sighted. This is the nature of the blind tasting beast.
The tasting was indeed a wonderful event and illustrated quite accurately how well most red and white wine styles from South Africa can age. To give a vague running commentary of the event without revealing the groups’ averaged scores would, in my mind, render the whole exercise slightly pointless. However, I fully agree with the organisers position that the purpose of the event was most definitely not a “scoring exercise” or a “numbers exercise”. Writing up all the intricacies and nuances of the entire tasting, for all flights and 80 wines in a 1000+ word column is simply not feasible. Likewise, hiding the group scores in favour of simply listing my own scores and notes would simply add a one-sided commentary.
So, all in all, bearing in mind the group averages, the blind tasting format, and the occasional problems with some of the wines’ closures, I kind of think even the averaged group scores for the top performing wines gives a fairly accurate picture of many of the best wines. 10 year old Pinot Noir scoring 93 points sounds outstanding, or Porseleinberg 2015 at roughly 95 points is probably about spot on. I think editor Christian Eedes correctly notes that perhaps we are all maybe victims of a decade of mainstream score inflation?
Jos | 6 June 2025
All the extra context in the comments are nice, but nowhere in your article did you mention these points so is it really that surprising that the readers assume the worst given the average scores handed out regularly by CE or yourself?
I mean just looking at your own scores for the Porseleinberg vertical tasting you scored the 2015 97+. If everyone suddenly decided that they want to take a bold stance against ratings inflation then that’s fine, but that should at the very least be communicated as the obvious takeaway in the absence thereof is that the wines didn’t show well.
Gareth | 5 June 2025
Lisa, I’m also surprised.
From the results it looks like Benchmarks like Magnetic North, Palladius, Storm Pinot’s and many others either can’t go 10 years or at the very least have gone backwards. Either way, not a great advertisement.
Lisa Harlow | 4 June 2025
Greg, I’m surprised by the low scores. Llooking in depth at the results, there are some world class wines in there that have scored very poorly imo, especially the Chenins and blends. Does that mean, they can’t go 10 years plus or other factors at play?
Kwispedoor | 5 June 2025
Blind tastings can often bring about lower scores because it’s easier to defend your reputation if you score a great wine a bit too low, than to do so if you score a (generally considered) modest wine off the charts. Even so, I’m also wondering about the relatively low scores, Lisa. These are top wines that are generally at a good stage in their development.
Jos | 4 June 2025
It’s a small sample size but seems like Swartland Syrah is holding up very well and surprisingly, Chenin didn’t perform that well. In my personal experience, Chenin tends to hold up the best from the SA white varieties.
GillesP | 4 June 2025
Thank you for sharing this Greg.
Personally, I still find the 2015 Red not ready yet to be giving their optimal. What are your thought?