Tim James: Testing the sub-R100 depths of chardonnay
By Tim James, 3 February 2025
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I was strolling past the supermarket wine shelves, idly wondering if I should try to find some more bargains that would be acceptable to demanding, but possibly hardpressed, winelovers. A label jumped out at me (as they say), saying “give me a chance!”, but I now have a feeling that it was, rather, something in my mind that magnetised it. A slight feeling of anxiety, or guilt. I’ll come back to that. Anyway I noticed a bunch of chardonnays, some of them of a cheapness that surprised me.
The surprise maybe reflected my ignorance, but I do know enough that I should have been very wary of plunging into the sub-R100 depths with this variety. The quality of good Cape chardonnay has become impressive (though I take the point that Christian Eedes made to me not long ago that a lot of the top end is still too rich and oaky). And I have a liking for serious-minded unoaked versions (I mentioned the Glenelly recently as a good buy at around R150). But cheap ones that readers of this website might find acceptable, seemed rather unlikely, going by what experience I had. And there was that intriguing label that I thought I owed it to buy. So, optimistically I bought three of them, well under R100.
With the first one I tried, I thought I’d made a real mistake in my quest. I’d been quite hopeful about the Chardonnay 2024 from the Ken Forrester Petit range (about R80), but found it rather awful, and didn’t get far beyond a sniff (which was fruitily promising) and a tiny taste. Richly round to the point of flabbiness, squishily ripe and rather sweet, with a little taste of pickled citrus on the short finish the only bit of interest. This seemed to me to sum up the kind of dumbing down in an “entry-level” range that I deplored recently.
But then things got a little better. At the same sort of price, Porcupine Ridge 2024, also had pleasantly fruity aromas, though still quite a bit of fermenty yeastiness, and a hint of toast (it’s “lightly oaked”. It’s decently dry, rather fresher and grippier than the Petit. Not particularly chardonnay-ish, really, but drinkable.
Best of the three was the cheapest, the one that had jumped to meet my tinge of guilt: Four Cousins Chardonnay 2024. Guilt because I’ve recently been unabashedly rude about the saccharine boxed wines that are the main cousinly offering to South Africa’s sweet tooth; I thought I should at least try something a bit more vinously ambitious. There is a little bit of sweetness offered here, but it’s well balanced and altogether rather succulent, the whole not too plush. The only wine in this experiment what didn’t give its origin as Western Cape or Coastal: perhaps the fact that this was all from Robertson grapes helped account for its quality and that elusive touch of something one might call character. So I think I must apologise to the label and admit that I should have been a bit more discriminating in the range before damning the name. I said last week that I couldn’t see how drinkers could escape up a ladder from the sickly depths of sweet stuff. But perhaps Four Cousins is providing a few rungs of the ladder themselves by offering better wines to those who have come to trust the name but want to dry something a bit pricier, more smartly packaged. Mea culpa.
I thought then that I should try another cheap chard, but one a bit closer to R100. I found Hartenberg’s unwooded Doorkeeper Chardonnay (also 2024, WO Coastal Region, but the only one with cork rather than screwcap), which gave me one cent change from that crucial hundred buck point. More genuine chard notes here, easy-going and hardly elegant, but rather brighter and grippier than the others. Certainly the best I tried and worth paying that bit more for.
Could I, though, finally recommend sub-R100 chardonnay? (Incidentally, doing a bit of googling, I find that prices of these wines can vary from those I’ve given – there are often specials on somewhere; I’ve just noticed the Doorkeeper for R89, for example.) At this price level I’m tempted to say rather go for chenin, or sauvignon that at least has the merit of all tasting pretty much the same down here. I think that “brand chardonnay” seems to be still associated with ripe, soft richness (while spicy oakiness is not there at this price level), and some people clearly want that. So it might depend on your mood and the circumstances. If you’re eating a bowl of creamy pasta and watching television, one of the above (for me not the Petit!) would be fine. But if you’re paying a bit more attention to the wine and chard is what you want, grit your teeth and spend another R50 or so.
- 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.
Christian Eedes | 4 February 2025
From Augustus Dale of Elgin Vintners on Facebook: “Vineyard costs and low yields (less juice per bunch ratio than other varieties) make quality Chardonnay almost impossible at under ZAR100.00.
The bottle, capsule, labels, box, excise tax, government compliance, storage and transport (not to mention VAT) would bring very basic cost of production to around ZAR55.00 ex VAT.
Add on labour, rates and taxes, water, electricity and all the hidden costs involved and we might as well close up shop and put the keys under the mat!
This is for unoaked Chardonnay… no barrels… no maturation… no bottle aging…”
GillesP | 3 February 2025
Found myself drinking Lourensford Mountain River Chardonnay on Airlink recently and fought this was pretty good. Ended up buying 3 Cs at R69 per bottle at Get Wine and I think it’s a real deal bargain.
Christian Eedes | 3 February 2025
Hi Tim, I recently experienced similar mixed fortunes when looking for drinkable Syrah at under R100 a bottle. Leeuwenkuil 2022 at R94.99 a bottle from the Rosebank tops! at SPAR was more than passable while Porcupine Ridge 2023 (R84.99) and Riebeek Cellar (R81.99) were so unremarkable that they went unfinished by the thirsty assembled gathering. Nothing inherently wrong with the wines just extraordinarily bland.
Is this the result of a deliberate effort by producers to create something as inoffensive as possible, or is it simply a challenge to source quality grapes at this price point?