Cape crusaders: South African wine on a roll

Leopards on the lawn. Security alarms and rolling blackouts. A Covid-spooked government. Wine production in South Africa has its challenges, which makes it all the more extraordinary that there is so much optimism and energy among the Cape’s producers.

Less surprising was to see the gleeful co-operative spirit that has characterised the new wave of wine producers over the past decade riding the success of a rediscovered region. Swartland, in the hot, dry interior of the Cape, has recently been recognised as a potential source of exciting wine from old vines. The Swartland Revolution, a festival that combined these emerging, often low-intervention wines with music and sheer exuberance, was held every November from 2010 to 2015. At that point it was felt that producers such as Eben Sadie and Adi Badenhorst, two of the most admired, were no longer revolutionaries but truly part of the South African wine mainstream.

We fickle wine writers tend to fixate on the new. Those in the old guard of South African wine must have felt rather abandoned. But Stellenbosch, South Africa’s most important wine region, has been fighting back. The Stellenbosch Wine Routes are a clear invitation to tourists to visit the 130 wine estates in the stunning countryside around this attractive, leafy university town. The good news is that, although historically visitors to Cape Winelands were typically British or German escapers from the northern hemisphere winter, last year even more visitors came from the US. There are now direct flights from New York to Cape Town, gateway to wine country.

South Africa’s better wine producers desperately need to export to encourage higher grape prices that will keep vines in the ground when so many farmers are turning to more profitable crops. As Thomas Webb, son of the respected Stellenbosch wine producers Gyles and Barbara Webb at Thelema Mountain Vineyards, put it to me: “The domestic market can’t bear much of a price increase.” But he, unlike some of his peers, is wary of raising prices too much. “I would feel like a bit of a crook trying to charge someone 50 quid retail for a bottle of Thelema Cab when I think 30 quid is a fairer price.”

The US is one market that seems to value highly priced wine but, until now, South African wine has had only a modest impact on the biggest wine market in the world — a source of frustration to me, a fan of the best Cape wines for decades. I hope these American visitors will return with an increased interest in finding the wines they enjoyed on holiday back home.

Even though no fewer than 17 South African wine producers are US-owned, American confidence and investment in South African wine production doesn’t seem to have done the trick. Celebrated California viticulturist/winemaker duo Phil Freese and Zelma Long planted the innovative vineyard for their Vilafonté project on the slopes of the Simonsberg mountain just north-east of Stellenbosch as long ago as 1998.

I can’t believe how sophisticated Warwick’s The First Lady 2020 Chardonnay is for £8 a bottle at Tesco

Jackson Family Wines, the wine company that sprang out of the bestselling Kendall Jackson California Chardonnay, has been producing its fine Capensis Chardonnay from a particularly high vineyard in Stellenbosch’s Banghoek district since 2013. But these wines still seem more celebrated in South Africa than spearheading an export push across the Atlantic.

The great attraction of South African wine for many northern European consumers is the value it offers. I can’t believe, for example, how sophisticated Warwick’s The First Lady 2020 Chardonnay is for £8 a bottle at Tesco. But it is notable that, although Warwick is based in Stellenbosch, the appellation of this wine is the much less specific Western Cape, which encompasses a massive swath of Cape Winelands. Much of it comes apparently from Bonnievale in Breede River Valley, way inland.

Webb also points out that Stellenbosch producers are “in general infamous for their lack of effort in marketing their brand (and their region) and relying on reputation to sell and market their wines”. Associations celebrating the Cape’s dominant (and best?) grape variety Chenin Blanc and its unique red wine grape Pinotage already existed. But finally, in 2017, the Stellenbosch Cabernet Collective was formed. Its stated objective is “to see the region’s Cabernets performing on a global platform”. Kathy Jordan of Jordan Wine Estate explains that Cabernet Sauvignon is seen as Stellenbosch’s speciality and that to be a member you have to be on the Stellenbosch Wine Routes and make decent Cabernet.

There are now 29 members, six of whom hosted an online presentation to British wine media in November. Founding member Christo Le Riche of Le Riche Wines described how housing pressure is encroaching on Stellenbosch vineyards. Referring to the heavily irrigated inland wine regions, he explained why it is impossible to find Stellenbosch wine at less than £15 a bottle. “Our yields are just six tonnes a hectare when they can be 24 elsewhere.”

I asked several old Stellenbosch hands how they felt about the new-wave producers who had hung their hat on Swartland. Almost all of them felt the new-wavers had created much-needed interest in South African wine in general, although one or two pointed out that not all the wines were that well made. One observed tartly: “You can’t stay young for ever. They’re all getting grey now.”

Youthful old-timer Ken Forrester, Stellenbosch’s champion of Chenin Blanc, took the long view: “For a while we had a sure focus on Stellenbosch and then along came the Swartland lads and lasses, and then came Bot River . . . it’s truly dynamic and ever-changing and if there’s a new wave coming, we’re looking and ready for it. But right now it’s the Ian Naudés of Wellington, Sam of Lismore in the south coast, Adrian Vanderspuy of [Oldenburg in] Banghoek and Stellenrust of Stellenbosch catching some of the glow.”

There really is dynamism in Cape cellars and vineyards, and everyone is agreed on the headline trends: much more specialisation in what’s suitable for the site, rather than trying to produce everything; more single-vineyard wines and greater emphasis on the different characters of subdistricts such as those of Stellenbosch; old vines highlighted by the Certified Heritage Vineyards seal on bottlenecks; fresher wines; and — this may not please members of the Stellenbosch Cabernet Collective — an increasing regard for Syrah. As Webb points out: “It is harder to start a renaissance than a revolution!”

Tasting notes on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com. More stockists from Wine-searcher.com

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