Tim James: Cape whites now getting their due

There are, inevitably, different bits of more-or-less arguable evidence to adduce in speaking about the relative strength of white and red wines in South Africa. Whether it’s an argument worth having is another matter – I think it is. Some of us have argued the superiority of the local white wines for some time now. Back in 2007, I opened an article for the British-based World of Fine Wine (most of whose grand-wine readers had probably never paid much attention to South African stuff anyway) with the sentences “The Cape is red-wine country. So much the winelands golfers and IT millionaires tacitly agree.” (Looking back, I suppose I was thinking of the likes of Ernie Els and Jeremy Ord, and Stellenbosch generally…)

I put forward another view, first mentioning the rise in quality of Cape chardonnay, sauvigon blanc, and chenin. (Though most local chard was in fact still rich and oaky; sauvignon generally too green; chenin was still striving to reach the heights it occupies now, helped but also crucially hampered by competitions and critics that rewarded power, sweetness and oak.) But it was the emergence of fine white blends that seemed to me then the most exciting marker of the maturing of the post-apartheid South African wine revolution. The pioneers and leaders were André van Rensburg of Vergelegen, who’d brought out the first ambitious sauvignon-semillon blend, and Eben Sadie, who’d invented a unique chenin-based blend in response to the warmer terroir of the Swartland.

So perhaps the superiority of white wines in the Cape is a newish thing – or a renewed thing, given that there was little red table wine here worth speaking of until well into the 20th century.

We could take the Platter’s Guide (our best modern historical source with continuity) to evidence the growth of white wine quality and appreciation. In 2000, there were a mere 18 five-star wines in the guide, of which 13 were red (including ports). In 2010 and 2015 (when the number of five-star awards had risen to about 40 and 50 respectively), the numbers were pretty equal. In the current, 2024, edition – with score inflation and quality improvement certainly both registering – there are by my count 121 white five-stars and 92 red, with the largest categories of all being chenin, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc (and a good showing of various blends).

Sounds approximately right to me. And how about the Winemag-Prescient awards for evidence? I was present last week when the announcements of the Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon results were made. We had the chance to taste the Top 10 chards before dinner and I thought them all very good (well representing a wonderful category in the Cape these days); the cabs, with dinner, were a different story. I admit I didn’t taste them all, but I wasn’t particularly impressed – least of all with the top-scorer. And looking at the results I see that the judges more or less agreed with that (except for that Delaire-Graff): amongst the top 10 chardonnays there were five scoring 94, four scoring 95 and one scoring 96. The cabs ranged from two with 92 to four with 94.

And then there’s the Cape Winemakers Guild Auction, which so often seems to lag behind in its reflection of the best developments in Cape wine. It does so firstly, I suppose, because of its basis in a membership which inevitably invokes standards and approaches of earlier decades: though now, with the decline in it of what was affectionately called the “Stellenbosch mafia”, the formerly-new wave is ascending; secondly, perhaps because the buyers at auction are rather more conservative than the most alert critics and serious wine lovers.

It’s actually very difficult finding statistics for the CWG Auction. The annual press release gives some, but not the same ones consistently over the years, and even these don’t seem to be on the website – let alone full reports on each year’s auction (although the actual wines sold are fully recorded, back to 2002), But I’ve pieced together from here and there some relevant stats about white and red wine auction sales for the last ten years. The proportion of white wines offered by members has generally risen from about half the number of reds (in both 2013 and 2018, for example); this year’s auction still had a majority of red wines, but the ratio had narrowed greatly, to 28 versus 20.

No doubt this somewhat cynically reflects a response to the willingness of punters to pay more for whites these days, as well as the ambition and interest of some winemakers with regard to their whites. For the auction price gap has also narrowed. I couldn’t find overall averages, but in 2013 the average case price of the top three whites (R2,790) was just over half that of the top three reds (R5,097). In 2018 the average price of the top four whites was actually significantly less than half that of the top four reds (R5,102 versus R12,552). By 2020 the gap was much smaller for the average of the three top sellers in each category (R7,714 for whites, R12,269 for reds). Note that here I’m not concerned with the remarkable increases in all the prices paid at the auction.

The latest few years have registered a further shift, and the 2024 auction results show a marked step towards better reflecting the relative values of top white and red wines as estimated in, I reckon, most well-informed opinions. The four top red case prices averaged at R14,309; whites at R10,231. And for a change, we were also given the average bottle prices for the whole auction: R1,375 for red, R1,210 for whites; much closer than I’d have expected. Also, splendidly and for the first time, the top bottle price overall went to a white wine, and an unusual one at that: Andrea Mullineux’s The Gris Old Vines Semillon 2023 (a perennial good performer here). This is all great, marking an increasing maturity of the CWG and of the buyers, I’d say. And I reckon next year will see even more white on offer, seeking high prices.

Happily, the red-wine offering from the Cape has also improved greatly over the past few decades, but it seems to me that on an international scale few of them offer anything that’s both excellent and a unique response to local terroir and traditions (perhaps it’s happening with cab blends with cinsault and even with a few pinotages). But the whites, well, I suppose we know all this. The sauvignons have a distinctive Cape character, the bubblies and chardonnays less so but are of ever-rising quality, and chenin and chenin-based blends would be worth seeking out in London or New York or Singapore for quality and character alone, let alone for the good value which most of the whites offer. White wine country – who’d have thought it, 30 years ago?

• 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.