Tim James: Cape white wines still rule but the reds are rising

There’s little doubt that the average standard of the Cape’s reds has improved in the last decade, at all levels – at the grander levels especially, when they’re not lightish, they’re that crucial bit fresher, less often overripe or over-oaked. I’d guess that better viticulture is also producing better grapes. Perhaps fine white wines haven’t improved as much as that, except in terms of the sheer volume and wider range available (especially through greater use of older, now better managed vineyards) –  but there was less room to grow, and it seems to me that the glory of South African wine is more found, as it long has been, among the whites than the reds.

These old thoughts came back to me in recent weeks with a handful of tastings I’ve had the pleasure of partaking in. I mentioned last week the splendid new white blend, Vesperi, from Mvemve-Raats, which ranks high. Of course, the MV red, De Compostella, is very far from being thereby cast too deeply in the shade, and it is probably simply a matter of my personal stylistic taste that I, given the choice of just one of them, would choose Vesperi. I do seem more easily impressed by local whites than reds, probably partly because too many of the reds still have a sweetness to them that doesn’t answer my deepest attachments, while so many whites have an elegant combination of fruit-full light richness and stony austerity that I find winning.

Jocelyn Hogan of Hogan Wines.

Which isn’t to deny the claims of many reds. Take Hogan, for example (to which the best response is: yes please). All of Jocelyn Hogan Wilson’s wines are very approachable in youth because of their comparative lightness and fresh balance; they all have undeniable charm. With the latest release (mostly 2024s), I was especially won by the Galvanised Chardonnay and the Chenin Blanc. I see that Christian Eedes rated the chenin particularly highly in his early-May tasting, and it is indeed a lovely wine: pure-fruited, light-feeling yet penetrating in flavour, supple and charming. But I chose to rather have a glass of the chardonnay with the delicious, interesting Japanese lunch menu at Tjing-Tjing House in Cape Town. Again it was a thrilling combination of gently fragrant prettiness and light freshness with a firm, confident energy and precision that appealed to me. I suspect it might feel just a touch too modestly restrained beside some of the grander cape chards, but it is excellent drinking now and for a good few years to come.

Incidentally, it must be noted that Jocelyn’s wines, which seemed expensive a decade ago, are now much more mainstream at the mid-high level (about R405 for the Chenin, R325 for the Chardonnay). As for the reds, to mention them more briefly: the Mirror for the Sun Cabernet Franc is very pleasing, quite gently structured though firm, with a pure, fairly fruity intensity. I admired the Divergent 2023 blend more, with its greater complexity built around black cherry and a succulent tannin-acid structure. It does have some sweet fruity, lightly perfumed charm from cinsaut and carignan, but the cab delivers a weight that I appreciated. I might have liked a little less carignan in the blend, but Jocelyn admires the grape more than I. I just don’t get it, really, when it’s prominent, and find the varietal Carignan bottling offers little to compensate for its cheerful, rather rustic and juicy-sweet simplicity.

Chris Williams of The Foundry and Geographica.

Interestingly, cab franc is the unifying grape in this brief, selective report on three producers. The subtle, serious but rather joyous, elegant but firmly tannic Geograhica Thoreau was my favourite red amongst Chris Williams’s new releases of the well-established The Foundry wines and the new, single-vineyard, sometimes one-off, more expensive, Geographica label. On the whole (going back to my stated theme) I did prefer his whites. Both the Geographica Aletheia Chardonnay 2023 (from a high, remote vineyard in Piekenierskloof) and Bonsai Chenin from Helderberg have a forceful, textured delicacy of rather different characters: more brightly austere in the former, richly intense in the chenin. Altogether admirable.

The Geographicas are pricey at R500, but the Foundry 2022 whites (around half that) can be reckoned as good value. The Grenache is all from Voor Paardeberg (where the label has its home now), mineral and grippy, pithy and phenolic, but with lovely, floral-aromatic fruit. More complex and exotic in character, the Roussanne, matured in a mix of barrel and clay pot, is the one I admired and enjoyed most, particularly enjoying its dry stoniness.

A third cab franc came from Gabriëlskloof. I sampled some of Peter-Allan Finlayson’s wines from Gabriëlskloof (just the single-vineyard wines) and Crystallum at another delicious lunch, this time at the Codfather in Camps Bay – whose reputation for seafood and sushi is almost unmatched in Cape Town, but whose excellent, serious winelist I wasn’t aware of before, including many older vintages (some Crystallums, for example, dating back to the 2013 Bona Fide). The Cab Franc 2022 – fresh and lively, but with depth and real interest – I thought definitely outshone the estate’s 2022 syrahs and, perhaps strangely, with less of a herbal character than those. Also greatly impressive was the only Gabriëlskloof white on offer, Amphora Sauvignon Blanc 2024 from Skurfberg and Bot River grapes, one of the handful of Cape sauvignons that makes an excellent, complex white wine that escapes the too-frequent obviousness of the variety.

As for other reds on show, Peter-Allan’s Crystallum pinots are justly famous, and the 2024s are very satisfactory indeed, with Cuvée Cinéma again in the quality lead, showing just what a fine vineyard this is. Pinot lovers with deep pockets certainly won’t go wrong here, but I do hope they put the wines away for at the very least half a decade, as they are still rather raw now.

I suspect the Crystallum 2024 chardonnays will age even more impressively, despite being almost irresistible in youth. Unfortunately the Ferrum, from iron-rich Overberg soils, wasn’t there, due to the distributor’s mix-up, but The Agnes, a blend from a range of vineyards (including from the own-site in what has the go-ahead to be a new ward: Shaw’s Mountain), is most appealing, with a nice chalky, phenolic edge, a little richness balancing the crisp acidity. Even finer is Clay Shales, from a high-lying Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge vineyard. Gently intense pure-fruit aromas with a hint of reduction; concentrated but not overbearing in the least; silky and lilting; tight enough now to promise a gain in volume as well as complexity. A great wine, amongst the Cape’s priciest at R800, and a reminder that chardonnay is certainly a category that has swelled in quality and number in the past decade.

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