Tim James: The joy of magnums – and other bottles

There’s something essentially celebratory about large-format bottles from the outset. It must be because, being unusual and large, they carry a suggestion of excess, and more specifically because, well, they implicitly call for more drinkers than the standard 750 ml bottle. A party, in fact. But if celebration is not your thing, or you feel somehow obliged to have a respectable excuse for buying them, you can always remember that it’s better for long-term storage of the wine, or so they say, because the ratio of airspace to the volume of wine is less, making for slower oxidative development (though initially at least that space is nowadays usually filled with inert gas, so it shouldn’t make much difference). Importer Great Domaines suggests – no, states – the conventional view that “wine in larger bottles ages more gracefully due to a smaller air-to-wine ratio, resulting in slower oxidation and more complex flavours.” Probably.

Many of the fancier producers (believing, and eager to encourage belief, in the long-term development of their wines) will offer at least magnums (1.5 litres) and sometimes larger formats for some of their wines. It’s a bit of an effort for them. Larger bottles won’t go through standard bottling lines, and bottles larger than magnums generally have wider necks needing larger corks, so it all has to be done by hand – and the bottles themselves are quite expensive and need larger labels. Kanonkop is, I think, the only producer that has for some time regularly bottled in quite a range of larger formats. A Strauss auction in 2020 sold 19 double magnums (3 litres) and jereboams (4.5 litres) of Paul Sauer 1988–2006 for well over half a million rands. That could have made for a pretty good party. Or a very long-term programme of more contemplative occasions – extremely long-term if you had a Coravin.

Probably my own lack of interest in larger formats derives from being more or less the opposite of a party-person. Until last week I owned just one magnum, of Paul Sauer 2004, and that was solely because a few years ago at a Kanonkop function (where they generously always open older vintages and also offer them for sale in specific formats) that wine had seemed to me so marvellous that I had to buy it.

But I gladly surrendered my magnum to a party, in fact. My good friend and frequent lunch-partner John was planning on holding his 50th birthday celebrations at our favourite eating place, Table Seven in Salt River, Cape Town, so I offered my 2004 and we decided that magnums all round would be just the thing to meet his wine needs with a degree of panache. The bubbly was not playing this game, as John wanted Colmant, which was only available in (many) standard bottles. But he had in his own cellar magnums of Sijnn White 2018 and Sijnn Red 2019, a friend donated Sadie Palladius 2021, Savage let him have the Red 2021, and we got Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 2022 directly from the farm.

I also arranged a bit too late with Lukas van Loggerenberg for a Breton, but in the end couldn’t get it in time. But a last-minute, surprise replacement came when John’s friend Dan flew in, unannounced, for the party that afternoon from New York, bearing a double-magnum (even better, even more celebratory) of Sadie Columella 2013.

So it looked like there’d be enough for the two dozen guests, and there was, despite chefs Luke and Craig helping out manfully once they’d finished preparing their totally amazing food for us. But somehow there was none left the next day, even of that Columella. I was very sorry about that, as the wine had not really met my, and our, very high expectations: nothing wrong, really, it just lacked intensity and oomph. I tried it a few times through the evening and thought it was definitely improving with aeration into something good; would have loved to try it the next day.

The other Sadie wine, Palladius 2021, was superb – clearly the white wine of the evening; still youthful in its flavourful vivacity, but complex and delicious. It did in fact, make the Sijnn seem just a touch too bold, even clumsy – though expressive, in a way, of its rugged origins and it would have been more impressive without the looming comparison.

As to the other reds, I was too interested in the question of a Columella evolution and in getting as much of the fine, beautifully mature, tannin-resolved,  Kanonkop to drink as possible, to pay enough attention to anything else. I think everyone admired the Paul Sauer, and some (of the few in a sufficiently contemplative mood) were surprised that it was so satisfactory at that age – developed, but certainly not old. Myself, I’ve had too many 20- and 30-year old Kanonkops to be surprised.

Magnums finished, but a bit of relevant celebration continued the next afternoon with a few of us. In tribute to the excellence of the previous night’s Palladius, John had opened a bottle (standard) of the 2019, from his cellar – it was possibly even more brilliant; lovely drinking. I took along two bottles of older wine, to show that Kanonkop was certainly not unique as a modern Cape red with a fine ageability. The first, Swartland Pinotage 1975 (hardly modern, OK), had a very low ullage, so I wasn’t actually doing anything more than hoping for a miracle. That didn’t transpire, but I thought that beneath the oxidation there was evidence of what a good, long-lived wine it fundamentally was (or had been).

The other was my last bottle of Welgemend Estate Reserve 1997, a lighter year, which always suited the Welgemeend style. Entirely my kind of wine, even more so than Paul Sauer, having an extra degree of finesse and elegance, and just the right touch of stern austerity that still marks good Bordeaux, for me, compared with most Cape versions. What a pity it wasn’t a magnum – not that I’m sure it would have aged to this point more gracefully, but simply because there would have been more of it to drink.

I still own just one magnum, however – that late-arriving Van Loggerenberg Breton 2021. I won’t risk planning on giving it 20 years if I wish to enjoy it myself, but there it is, awaiting a celebration.

• 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.