Tim James: Thelema – for the love of farming

There are three fine estates at the crest of the Helshoogte Pass, just outside Stellenbosch town. As I turned on to Thelema’s gravel, I thought that the roadway itself symbolised the place. The other two properties up there, Delaire-Graff and Tokara, well paved and replete (to different degrees) with glitter, art and fine-dining, represent the visions and the investments of rich men; Thelema comes from the vision of a deeply wine-loving farmer.

The farm road, beautifully graded – unlike, say, the typical Swartland equivalent – runs alongside a vineyard on the other side of which is the line of eucaplytus trees that give the wine from those vines its characteristic ”minty” tang. It leads to a cluster of building – houses where the Webb families live, winery buildings and reception spaces. All is handsome but businesslike, homely and unpretentious. I hadn’t been to Thelema for over a decade (which is why I’d invited myself for this visit, having realised that the estate was so long a familiar part of my wine-life that I scarcely noticed it anymore), and there was a welcome new extension of the tasting facilities, including a broad deck overlooking vineyards, but they are unimposingly and elegantly simple.

I mentioned the vision of a farmer, but Gyles Webb was only just a farmer (though he’d studied viticulture and oenology since abandoning his career as an accountant) when his parents-in-law, the McLeans, bought this run-down fruit farm on the Simonsberg slopes in 1983. And he’s been at it ever since; now in his latter 70s he still (says Thomas, his son, who’s now pretty well in charge here) intimately knows and carefully manages every corner of the 50 hectares of vines: “My dad just loves farming”. As for the winemaking, he has over time pulled back from that, with Rudi Schultz, here for just about 25 years, responsible for the Thelema and Sutherland wines – Sutherland being the name of the Elgin farm the family bought at the turn of the century.

Driving around the farm with Thomas, I was struck by what an innovative, as well as effective, farmer Gyles was from the start. The beauty of the high-lying farm is not just in the magnificent views but because of the feeling you get of the meticulously tended vines having somehow settled happily amongst the almost-dominant fynbos. The highest slopes are wild, of course (Cape leopards are just the most glamorous of the animal life that makes its presence felt), but there’s also a ravine running through the farm, and there are corridors of fynbos interspersed. This integration of nature with viniculture was far from being the rule back when Gyles started out. There was later some experimentation with strict organic farming, but it proved impracticable; the approach now, says Thomas, remains “commonsense and best interest”.

Some 40 of the farm’s 50 hectares of vines have been replanted in the past few decades – necessitated partly by the not-always-satisfactory plant material that had been all that was available in the 1980s and ‘90s. And, again thanks to Gyles’s early awareness of the problem and a vigorous response, virus is remarkably under control here.

In the wines as well as the farm, there’s been only “quiet evolution”, says Thomas, over the Webb decades at Thelema. Well, perhaps, but the range has grown greatly over the years; I counted (I think) 17 under the Thelema label and 12 from Sutherland. Gyles’s early winemaking was innovative too, from the first few 1987s – Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling; the famous Cabernet Sauvignon saw its debut the following year and was most expressive of the difference happening here. The aim was freshness and pure fruit uncluttered by oak and effort: less classic, perhaps, more “New World”; certainly among the earliest of “modern” winemaking efforts in the Cape, and already hugely successful and prestigious in the 1990s.

Nowadays, the Cabernet seems rather more classic, but that’s probably the shift of the world. The 2020 is both serious and easily approachable, vibrant but deep. It’s ripe, but not too ripe, not heavily oaked, and it’s properly dry – altogether unshowy and immensely likeable. At about R360, excellent value.

Given the large range of wines, and my laziness, I’d asked Thomas to show me just a representative selection of the wines from both farms, so I’ll report briefly on some of those. The Bordeaux red varieties all do well on the Stellenbosch estate. The Mint Cab 2022 is a touch richer and more polished than the other (and R200 more), while the Merlot and Merlot Reserve 2021 are undoubtedly amongst the small handful of excellent local wines from this grape. Plenty of obvious fruit on the Merlot, easily approachable but with a welcome lean edge. That’s R250, but if you can splash out on the Reserve at R550, you get more gorgeousness and intensity, perfume and velvet, with some suave elegance too. The Rabelais 2021 – cab with a little petit verdot – is undoubtedly rather beautiful, impressively complex, rich and balanced, but inching in the direction of plush sweetness.

As for the Sutherland reds, the two Reserve wines I tasted, The Sarah Red 2018 (also cab with a little PV) and the Emily Petit Verdot 2022, have pretty well arrived at intense, impressive plush sweetness. I do wonder why Thelema needed to go to cooler Elgin to make the kind of reds that are already only too common back in Stellenbosch (though not at the home estate). They’re R500 each, and I very much preferred the Sutherland Syrah 2021 at R200 – a really attractive drink, just slightly rustic, unpretentious, well-structured and delicious: a better justification, I’d say, for growing reds other than pinot in Elgin.

The Sutherland whites I had were also particularly good, revelling in the acidity that the cooler climate gives them, and well priced. There’s a charming, just-off-dry Riesling 2024 (R160) and an elegant and interesting Viognier-Roussanne 2023 (R230) that is lovely, with its green-tinged succulently acid freshness. The Chardonnay 2021 is also drinking beautifully now (with room to grow), from subtle aroma to fantailing finish, both delicate and deep. It was interesting to taste it alongside the Thelema Chrdonnay 2022, a little lean in its greater youth but with an inherent richness and intensity that is soon going to blossom forth and give enormous satisfaction.

I must also mention Thelema’s newest wine, the Grenache 2022. It’s a wine that they’ve been working towards for some time, and became possible after a fynbos fire in 2016 exposed a very rocky area on the farm that seemed dead right for grenache – so they planted it the following year. The maiden 2022 (R280) comes mostly from that young vineyard, with a component from 2007 vines. It’s not in the vein of some of the very light grenaches that are fashionable now. It has the characteristic lovely aromas, but is ripe, sweetly fruited, dense and intense, with youthful vigour and power. We also tasted from a bottle that had been open a few days, and that wine had broadened and deepened – a good sign for bottle maturability. This is a serious wine, worthy of a place in the Thelema line-up.

But Thelema does also have a pair of more modest, screwcapped and lower-priced wines – Mountain Red and Mountain White, with the estate name downplayed on the labels. We didn’t taste them that day, but as I was leaving, as an afterthought, I asked Thomas if I could take home a bottle of each to try there. The aromatic 2023 White (R110) is mostly sauvignon blanc, with a little viognier to add weight and interest. Very pleasant, but I think the Red even better value (at R125). An idiosyncratic but successful blend of shiraz, petit verdot and grenache, with those useful few years on it to give harmony and easy approachability: there’s plenty of delicious fruit, and a savoury spicy edge, with enough structure to give it heft. Not easy to find all that at the price.

But, then, it’s not easy to find a parallel to Thelema itself. It played a significant role in the modernisation of Cape wine and then held its reputation for quality and value, and – what’s more – kept its soul as a fine family estate, ambitious but inherently modest in the best sense of the word.

• 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.