National Liquor News, February 2001
South African vineyard ventures 
around the Cape
Sitting aboard my South African Airways flight with a glass of Meerlust Chardonnay in one hand and all the literature from the South African TourismCommission I could muster in the other, I pondered about the new South Africa -what the wineries would be like, the people, the food, not too mention the securityand what a pleasant surprise it all was. South Africa, or the wine regions of theCape, have to be the most beautiful wine regions of the ‘New World’ and are certainly in the top three of all wine regions of the world. The mountains and valleys of the Cape that incorporate the wine districts are stunningly beautiful.

My visits included the wine regions of Paarl, Stellenbosch, Constantia, Franschhoek, Hermanus and Walker Bay. What contrast and beauty South Africa has to offer. Here thevineyards are called ‘farms’ and the winemakers are called‘Cellar Masters’. The nearest wine region to Cape Town is Constantia, a short 20 minute drive east of the city along theM3. It was here that my tour guides, Vineyard Ventures, (Tel.27 21 434 888) started us on a mammoth eight day tour ofas many wineries as we could possibly visit. I had my list, they had theirs and somehow the two blended together. The Constantia Mountains provided a magnificent backdrop to this region. The wineries visited here were Buitenverwatching(a good Irish name!), Klein Constantia, Steenberg and UitsigConstantia. The wines, or rather styles, were limited to Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlotand Shiraz.

The Sauvignon Blancs in particular were more the Hawkes Bay style - on the nose they’re less intense in the herbaceous spectrum and offer more tropical flavours such asguava and melon. The palate tends to be more full bodied and rounded reflecting the higher acidity and pH of a warmer region. No great surprises here except for the Steenberg Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2001 showing powerful varietal fruit flavours on the palate. A refined wine and one of the best in this region. Constantia Uitsig 1999 Semillon, matured in French oak, was another wine worthy of note. The restaurant here at Constantia Uitsig is highly recommended and restaurateur Frank Swaniston will tantalise you with his modern South African culinary delights. In particular his Pan Fried Foie Gras with Poached Pear and Rosemary sauce complemented with a glass of Meerlust sweet wine is exceptional at 34R ($9AUS).This is the place to eat when in Constantia ( Tel 27 21 794 4480).

From Constantia we went to Paarl and to the once mighty KWV Co-operative which, in the old days, ruled the roost as far as the South African wine industry was concerned. While no longer the ruler, it is still a very important player in the scheme of things. Both KWV and its super premium offshoot, Laborie Estate, are situated in Paarl. Here winemaker Gideon Thereon has done an admirable job with his Bordeaux blends and his Cabernets and Merlots which were exceptional. His 2001 Shiraz was really something if not hot at a whopping 15.5 per cent alc/v. The Laborie Estate is a picture postcard and the restaurant food and decor would not be out of place in the deep south of Mississippi USA. 

We then moved on to Bot River and Walker Bay. The Beaumont’s of Bot River have a couple of good wines on offer such as Pinotage, Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay which are all well deserved in the under $12 price bracket. These wines are all exported to the UK and imported by Berry and Rhudd. 

Winemaker Niels Verberg, who has worked in France, Chile, NZ and Australia at Houghton’s, has put his extensive industry-wide experience to good use, particularly with his 1999 Shiraz. This is a fruit driven wine, showing good texture and firm tannins on a long finish. It is his belief that Shiraz will do for South Africa what it has done for Australia. Beaumont’s are currently looking for an agent for their wines here in Australia. (Tel. 27 28 284 9733 and ask for Raul or Jayne).

My last stop in the Walker Bay region and one well worth the treck was Bouchard Finlayson. Here winemaker Peter Finlayson has put together some exceptional wines, both red and white, in particular the 1999 Pinot Noir Cuvee which is simply outstanding. It reminded me of the wild yeast Pinotsof Mooraduc the Mornington Peninsula - deep in colour, powerful on the nose, powerful varietal fruit, complex, good structure with excellent palate weight and length. His Sangiovese/Nebbiolo/Pinot is an odd one, but taste it and you will see why he called it ‘Hannibal’ after you know who! This winery was the only one which had a high trellis system for its Italian grape varieties in all the wineries we visited. Also, an electric fence around the base on each block about 30cm high to stop the local marsupials, wild bores etc attacking the vines.

Meerlust in the Stellenbosch region was, in my view, of the same ilk as Bouchard Finlayson - wines of the highest quality. Italian winemaker Giorgio Dalla is of the ‘old school’ where all roads lead to Damascus or in this case Burgundy and Bordeaux. Giorgio seems out of touch with the young guns of the South African wine industry with his quality Burgundy and Bordeaux styles. His 1989 Meerlust Merlot is heaven in a bottle. The pronounced palate is of powerful fruit with truffle, gamey earthy characters and was the best wine I tasted in the Cape. His Pinot Noirs, in particular his 1997 Meerlust, is a classic Burgundy style and it’s no wonder his wines are nearly always sold out or on allocation. In addition they are almost always served in First Class aboard South African Airways. The Meerlust property, with its colonial Dutch architecture, is said to be the most photographed property in all of the Cape and is most definitely worth a visit.

The magnificent Spier Country Estate complete with winery and vineyards was our base in Stellenbosch and from there we visited a number of wineries in the region. Warwick Estate was the inaugural winner of the 2000 Cowra Tri-Nation Chardonnay Challenge, the other nations being New Zealand and Australia, and of course their 2000 Chardonnay was exceptional. Their Bordeaux blends were mediocre, but not a bad effort from this once white only property. 

Another property worth a visit is Rust En Vrede or putting it simply ‘R&V’. This property trades in red wines only and one can see why, they are exceptional. Waterford (another winery looking to export to Australia, tel. 27 21 880 0496), had some very reasonable Chardonnays and one or two Sauvignon Blancs on offer. This sophisticated new state of the art winery shows promise with its present batch of wines, it’s just a matter of time. Here attention is paid to fruit handling and the winemaker prefers the women and not the men picking the fruit. In his view the women are more gentle with the fruit and he feels the men don’t pay attention to detail. A practical and theoretical education amongst the farm workers is taking place to help them understand the do’s and don’ts of pruning and picking etc. 

Staying at the Franschhoek Country House we popped over to Helderberg and Ken Forrester’s restaurant called simply “No 96 Winery Road”. The food was sensational, so was his wine list. One particular wine, a Ken Forrester 2000 Chenin Blanc, was a more Gewurztraminer style with rose petal nose, oily texture and plenty of spicy fruit. This was the only Chenin Blanc tasted in the Cape. 

The South African wine industry has many strings to its bow. I tasted very few Pinotage which were not, generally speaking, offered for tasting nor did I ask for them. I suppose I have had too many cheap imports to warrant further examination.  However since the change from white to black government in 1994 the South African wine industry has opened up and is starting to aggressively market its wines around the world. London is its main market (no surprises there), where it has had five South African representatives in the past five years compared to ours (Hazel Murphy in London for 20 years). This however has not detracted from its export drive. South Africa has an area under vine of 105 566 hectares and has 4,501 primary wine producers. The total crush for 2000 was1,098,170 tonnes with 138,382 mlt of wine used for export. 

The geographic distribution of South African wine grape vineyards per wine region in year 2000 was: Paarl 17,402 hectares, Worcester 17,373h, Stellenbosch 16,112h, Orange River 15,908h, Malmsbury 13,915h, Robertson 12,291h, Olifants River 9,350h and the smallest region known as Little Karoo has 3,215h. 

Total area under vine in the whole of South Africa is 105, 566 hectares. However a number of up-rootings have also taken place with unwanted varieties and in 2000, 8,013 hectares were uprooted while 6,043 hectares were planted. 

Considering Sauvignon Blanc (in the white department) is the mainstay of the South African wine industry, it is Chenin Blanc which rules the roost in terms of tonnes crushed with 310, 623 tonnes crushed in 2000, followed by Colombard with 219, 034tonnes. Sauvignon Blanc accounted for a miserly 52, 023 tonnes crushed in the same year. It is Chardonnay, however, which commands the highest price per tonne equalling in Rand 1,270 in 1992 and in 2000 Chardonnay commanded R2,875 per tonne.  (In the first week of my visit the Rand was worth 3.60 to the AUS$, at the beginning of the second week it was worth 4.50 R). Sauvignon Blanc fetched R 911 in ‘92, in 2000, it was R3,278. In 1992,Pinotage fetched R971 per tonne and in 2000 R5,070: Cab/Sauv fetched R971 in ‘92 and R5,393 in 2000, followed closely by Shiraz with R 887 in ‘92 and R5,333 in 2000.

Exports are currently at an all time high. In 1994 for example, (the year the black government took over), the quantity of wine exports was 48.5 million lt. In 2000 that figure jumped to 138.5 million lt, despite a lack of investment and wine know how, not to mention poor varieta lgrape varieties which remained part of the past. The amount of bottled and bulk natural wine exported to Australasia in 1999 was 254,717mlt (white) and in 2000 that figure decreased slightly to 1,189,363mlt. No red was exported in 1999 or 2000.(source: SAWIS No 25 -2000). 

Many changes are taking place in the South African wine industry and none more so than at the Hartenberg Estate, one of the few wineries in South Africa to actually call themselves an estate, rather than farm. Here they have been using a very sophisticated weather station since 1998. Supplied by‘AGROTOP’, this weather station is used to monitor vineyard conditions. Hartenberg Estate took the decision earlier this year to upgrade their system by using the recently launched “Plant Plus” module. “Plant Plus” downloads the Prediction and Disease Models already present in their existing module to internet weatherstation mappers located in Holland on a twelve hourly basis. Within hours the information is assimilated and an email giving the 5 day forecast of what disease(s) might develop given in the period and a recommended spray program is returned to viticulturist, Frans Snyman.  The program was trialed for two years with potato producers in the Sandveld (Northern Cape). The forecasting proved to be very accurate and thus the program for vineyard use was established. 

Nearly every farm visited had the same trellising system, that is, ‘Vertical Shoot Positioning’ (VSP) with the exception of Bouchard Finlayson who in addition had the high trellis for his Italian grape varieties. Other than that, it was much of a muchness, not too many cellar masters were stepping out of bounds and trialing anything new. 

As I said to one cellarmaster “How come everyone has the same trellising system everywhere you go?” and he said “We’re not much into change here, if it ain’t broke why trial it?”. 

Finally, one must talk about the ‘Empowerment’ programmes that are taking place in many parts of the South African Wine Industry. Empowerment is now widespread amongst the wine fraternity, from the once mighty KWV right down to some of the smaller concerns such as Swiss company SAVISA. My visit to this winery situated close to Stellenbosch was interesting. Their Winds of Change label is to be found on board South African Airways and British Airways as well as the supermarket chains Sainsburys, Safeway and Tesco. Sommerfields and Virgin wines in UK also stock these brands. As part of the Empowerment programme, for each case of12x750 ml bottles sold, one pound goes to the ‘Winds of Change’ project back in South Africa. A small community hall on the farm has been set up to educate the children of local farm workers. Some of the other objectives are Land Tenure (the government gives 17,500 R to each worker and the cooperative helps with the remainder) and providing basic business and life skills. A health worker from the community is trained to assist in preventative healthcare. Not a bad effort from SAVISA. 

The South African wine industry appears to be gearing up for a bright future, which from my view point is not to be found in the domestic market. The majority black population are beer drinkers, the bourgeois are turning from brandy to wine. Like Australia it is the international market that, together with the new breed of South African winemakers, is the key to its long term future and success.

For wine purchases visit Vaughan Johnson’s Wine Shop also on the V&A waterfront. The best car hire rates in the whole of the Cape were with Tempest Car hire in Cape Town. I strongly recommend you organise a personal escort guide with Vineyard Ventures. South African Airways has five flights a week from Sydney and four from Perth with convenient connections to Cape Town. For further information on the South African wine industry visitinfo@sawsea.co.za or www.wosa.co.za .For trade enquires contact Pinkie Nqeto, Economic Counsellor, at the South African High Commission in Canberra on Tel. 026273 2424.