Whale of a wine has folk reaching for map books as KWV, Mulderbosch and Mt Sutherland come top at OMTWS 2014 |

Whale of a wine has folk reaching for map books as KWV, Mulderbosch and Mt Sutherland come top at OMTWS 2014

05/2014 Mike Froud Leave a comment

PROBABLY the biggest surprise at the 2014 Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show was the revelation that award-winning wine is now also being made in the vicinity of Riversdale, where vineyards were nowhere to be seen prior to 2009. While the 2013 Baleia Bay Chardonnay that earned the trophy for ‘Discovery of the Show’ (best-value gold medallist) can be bought just off the N2 in Riversdale at a cellar-door price of R50 a bottle, the vineyards are further south on the farm Dassieklip outside the village of Vermaaklikheid, close to St Sebastian Bay… Baleia is Portuguese for whale, and the bay is a nursery for southern right whales that migrate to these waters on an annual basis.

Less surprising was the awarding of the show’s most sought-after trophies to KWV of Paarl as ‘Most Successful Producer Overall’, and to Stellenbosch cellars Mulderbosch and Super Single Vineyards for ‘Best White Wine Overall’ and ‘Best Red Wine Overall’ with their 2013 Chardonnay and 2012 Mount Sutherland Syrah respectively. KWV’s haul of silverware included trophies for ‘Best Chenin’ and ‘Best Semillon’, with their medal count including five golds, four silvers and 16 bronzes – 18 of the medals presented for wines in The Mentors range.

Other major laureates at the award function held at Cape Town’s Mount Nelson Hotel included Steenberg for their Magna Carta 2011 (Best White Blend), Jordan for their 2011 Cabernet, Altydgedacht for their 2013 Riesling, Nederburg for The Brew Master 2010 (Best Bordeaux-Style Red Blend), Spier for their 21 Gables Pinotage 2011, Delaire Graff for their Coastal Cuvée Sauvignon Blanc 2013 and De Krans for the 2011 edition of their port-style Cape Vintage Reserve.

It’s usually the ‘Full Monty’ Barrel Fermented Mulderbosch Chardonnay at R200pb that does the flag-waving for this cellar off the Polkadraai Road. However the lightly wooded version has also done the producer proud in recent years – at half the price! And as for the top-scoring red wine at the show, it’s a case of extreme winemaking, to be sure, with the grapes for Mount Sutherland Syrah (R190pb) brought in from the Great Karoo, near a town in the Northern Cape better known for the telescopes of its observatory than the highest vineyards in South Africa.

Sutherland can be pretty warm in summer but come winter it’s one of the coldest places in the country – snowfall is common and the lowest recorded temperature stands at minus 16ºC. The extent of the ±320km trek to get the grapes from the Kanolfontein farm in Sutherland to the De Waal’s cellar in Stellenboschkloof is nearly as far as the 350km or so that David Nieuwoudt trucks grapes from outside Elim in Cape Agulhas to his cellar in the Cederberg where they’re turned into wines under the Ghost Corner and Berrio labels.

For full results of the 2014 Trophy Wine Show and more information about the competition, click here. For details of public wine tastings at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on 6 June and at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg on 12 June, click here.