PUFFERY aside, behind the smoke and mirrors… The National Wine Challenge attracts entries from some of South Africa’s top wine producers, the judges and tasting director are respected professionals, plus there are often several good-value discoveries or confirmations as well as something or other that prompts you to ponder… Best Value? At just R95pb, a little over half the price
THE Top Wine SA Uber Value Wine of the Year: Treaty Tree Reserve Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2019 from the Flagstone cellar outside Somerset West! A 97-point gold medallist at the Veritas Awards (SA), class winner at the National Wine Challenge (SA) and the most highly rated wine at the SA Terroir Awards. It’s the only one of over 80 Uber
‘EXTRAORDINARY. Profound.’ That’s what the Winemag judges thought of Koelenhof Winery’s ‘Stellenbosch 1679’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 when reviewing it for the 2022 Prescient Report. The only wine among the 64 entries from 51 SA producers scored more than 95/100, it’s one of the 24 most highly rated Cape Cabs assessed by top panels locally and internationally during the past year
NOT A SINGLE Chardonnay considered better than 94/100 in Winemag’s 2022 Prescient Report on the category in South Africa? In the collective opinion of editor Christian Eedes and his fellow judges on the panel, James Pietersen and Jolette Steyn of retailer Wine Cellar in Cape Town, there weren’t any ‘extraordinary’ or ‘profound’ examples among the 80 wines from the 59
WE MIGHT never know whether the pink wine from Aaldering of Devon Valley in Stellenbosch was a contender for one of the 2022 Pinotage Rosé Awards. It might have been interesting to see whether the panel appointed by the Pinotage Association concurred with that at the Michelangelo Awards (SA) who a few weeks earlier had presented a trophy no less
MANY WOULD wager that GREAT reviews for wines at under R100 a bottle are a thing of the past. Not so according to the judges assessing what was entered for various top panel tastings in 2022 including the Chenin Blanc Challenge, the Michelangelo International Wine Awards and the Top 10 Pinotage Competition – to name just the most recent shows.
YOU CAN COUNT the number of today’s Top Cape Vintage Port producers on one hand… Okay, maybe two. It’s very specialist, very niche, but very good. One or two in Stellenbosch, one or two in Paarl and Wellington, plus a few in various other districts, however it’s Calitzdorp that has been the Port Capital of South Africa for several decades
A PINOTAGE-BASED red blend from the Flagstone winery in Somerset West, a Sauvignon Blanc from Paul Cluver in Elgin, a Cape Port from De Krans in Calitzdorp and the flagship Cap Classique sparkler from Graham Beck in Robertson. The four Wines of the Year at South Africa’s 2022 National Wine Challenge, and the producers were chuffed: “We are over the
BEFORE considering the majority vote… Upon conclusion of the 2021 Ultra Value Wine Challenge, the guys and gals at BuyBetterWine.com announced their SA red and white wines of the year to be the 2018 vintage of Stellenbosch Hills Merlot, at the cellar-door price of R92 per bottle, and the 2021 Goudini Chenin Blanc at R60pb from uniWines in Rawsonville. Also
TOP 10 IN the 2021 Winemag Pinotage Report (SA), gold medallist at the 2021 Decanter World Wine Awards (UK) and trophy laureate in the Pinotage Association’s 2021 Absa Top 10 competition. What an impressive beginning for Francois van Niekerk’s first vintage (2019) under his own label – a very limited release produced when not busy as cellarmaster at Wellington Wines
IT WAS inevitable, after another round of prohibition in South Africa, once wine sales were allowed again end-July 2021 at Lockdown Level 3 in terms of the COVID-19 Disaster Restrictions, top priority among those needing to stock up again was to look for the bargains on offer. People needed to get a case of something / anything decent onto those
AT THE VERY heart of the South African winelands, Stellenbosch was founded in the year 1679, and harking back to its roots, so to speak, ‘Stellenbosch 1679′ is the name of the new tier of wines introduced by one of the most successful co-operative cellars in the district. The Chenin Blanc was first to catch the aficionados’ attention when it
THERE WERE A NUMBER of familiar labels among the ‘Best in Class’ and ‘Wine of the Year’ laureates that shone in the 2021 SA National Wine Challenge, but nobody could have anticipated the identity of the overall red wine champion. A newcomer from the Koelenhof Winery, The Legacy 2017 is the first (Cab-led) red blend in the premium ‘Stellenbosch 1679’
NO OTHER CAPE PORT has been more highly rated during the past 12 months. In 2020 it was judged Best in Class at the Trophy Wine Show, Best in Class at the National Wine Challenge and one of the Top 10 in the Winemag’s report on the category. This after several top accolades in 2019: 5 Stars in Platter’s SA Wine
EDGEBASTON is the name of his wine farm on the slopes of the Simonsberg, but Finlayson is the name that most people in the know associate with top winemakers in the Cape winelands. Of course, he’s not the only one: his father Walter was once cellarmaster at Blaauwklippen and then Glen Carlou; his uncle Peter and cousin Peter-Allan are synonymous
MULDERBOSCH was a pioneer of wooded Chenin Blanc in South Africa. The style quickly gained a following and today many, if not most of the leading wines from this variety so widely planted throughout the Cape have spent time in barrel. Although, the Steen op Hout (Chenin on Wood) from this cellar off the Polkadraai Road in Stellenbosch is fairly
ANNI is the third daughter of Vrede en Lust owner Dana Buys, her namesake a rather impressive Sauvignon Blanc. From Casey’s Ridge, the family’s farm in Elgin, the grapes are taken to the cellar on their estate in Simondium at the foot of the Simonsberg, Paarl. And what emerges in bottle, adorned with a dove, is an unwooded beauty of
PINOTAGE is the red that they are best known for, although there’s also a Malbec in the Diemersfontein Carpe Diem Reserve range of “world-class, innovative wines” from David Sonnenberg’s estate in Wellington. Indeed, the Carpe Diem Pinotage has a distinguished track record, ranking among South Africa’s Top 100 wines over the past decade, with Carpe Diem Malbec also included in the
CELEBRATING her 335th birthday in 2020, the Grande Dame of Cape Town’s winelands ranks as one South Africa’s Top 30 cellars. Chardonnay and dessert-wine fans might argue that Groot Constantia is among the country’s top five or six estates, at least, although it can be challenging to pinpoint exactly which category the team is best at or the property most suited
THE 2020 National Wine Challenge of South Africa – a.k.a. Robin von Holdt’s Top 100 Wines – attracted “well over 500” entries, down on previous years but not bad given the lockdown(s) due to Covid-19. The coronavirus pandemic resulted in the judges all being locally based, with Greg Sherwood MW unable to fly out from the UK. Ginette de Fleuriot
