FOR AN UPDATE of all the organic wines produced in South Africa that are officially certified as such, click here. Below are those from the Cape that received good to very good reviews from the top panels of experts in 2023. There are numerous winemakers and viticulturists who adhere to organic or biodynamic methods in the vineyard and cellar but
GLEN CARLOU has been a Chardonnay and Cabernet specialist since 1988. As they put it at the cellar on the slopes of the Simonsberg in Paarl, the conversation is led by ‘Quartz Stone Chardonnay’ and ‘Gravel Quarry Cabernet Sauvignon’ – two naturally-fermented, single-vineyard delights, which at the time of writing were on offer from the farm for R420pb and R530pb
AT LAST COUNT, the number of visitors to Groot Constantia stood at around 450 000 a year. It’s been the most popular wine farm in South Africa’s Cape winelands for some time, which is not to be confused with wine sales – gone are the days when ‘Joe Soap’ and ‘the man in the street’ would queue up at the
CHOICES CHOICES CHOICES… Tickets for ‘Wine on the Water’ in St Francis Bay are very hard to come by and those to the Stellenbosch Street Soirees are selling out fast. Interesting that the cellars exhibiting at Cape Town Fresh are mostly from outside CTN, with various districts all over the winelands represented. The Wellington festival will have somewhat of a
ODDLY ENOUGH, not all of the cellars in Wellington are members of the local wine route. Not officially, that is. For example, Mischa Estate to the north and Napier Vineyards on the Bainskloof Road to the east are not part of the ‘Go Wellington‘ movement. Nor is Roodekrantz north-west of the town, though perhaps they’re considered more Swartland than Wellington.
CONSTANTIA GLEN. Down the main road from the Constantia Nek traffic circle for those travelling via Hout Bay or Bishop’s Court / Newlands in Cape Town. Home to some of South Africa’s most highly rated blends – white and red – over the past 10 years, as well as a decent restaurant. The Constantia Glen TWO white blend (R100pg) is
BEYERSKLOOF. Stellenbosch. Just outside the town on the R304 to the N1. Home to some of South Africa’s most highly rated Pinotages and Cape Blends over the past 10 years, as well as the Red Leaf Bistro. The Pinotage Burger goes for R155, the Pinotage Pizza for R165, perhaps accompanied by the Pinotage Reserve or the Traildust Cape Blend at
BEAUMONT. Bot River. Just off the N2 between Elgin/Houhoek and Caledon. Home to one of the most highly rated South African Chenins over the past 10 years. Recommended with Hot Smoked Trout (R160pp) or an interesting salad (R85) at their Zest Deli – R110 for a glass of the Hope Marguerite Chenin, R45 for their standard Chenin Blanc. Or perhaps
AMAZINGLY, well into 2024 – after the December festivities, months since the wine top-scored at the 2023 Veritas Awards to win the Duimpie Bayly Vertex Trophy – the Benguela Cove Cap Classique Joie De Vivre (Joy of Life) Brut 2019 was still available ex-cellar! With only the third edition of this bottle-fermented bubbly from Penny Streeter’s estate between Bot River and
IT’S GOODBYE to the Longtable restaurant at Haskell Vineyards and hello to Stellenbosch Reserve – for lunch (Tue-Sun) and dinner (Thu-Sat), classy yet casual, and a tasting room offering wines from the ‘Stellenbosch Collection’. Think pizza and chicken from the rotisserie, but also a lamb dish, beef fillet, pan-seared fish… On the the winelist and in the tasting room: the
IF YOUR WINERY is fairly off the beaten track, perhaps your tasting room isn’t attracting quite as many guests as you’d like and you want to bolster your public profile, to take things to the next level, why not relocate where you do your entertaining? The Vondeling farm is in that corner of Paarl called Voor-Paardeberg, just ‘over the hill’
2018 is the eighth vintage of Babylonstoren’s Cap Classique. How time flies! The bottle-fermented sparkler has a good track record and this year could be the best to date. It’s certainly got off to an impressive start, released five years after harvest, gaining in complexity. Not just 5 Stars in the 2024 edition of Platter’s SA Wine Guide but, at
IF YOU DEFINE the Simonsberg Wine Route in Stellenbosch as including those cellars on either side of the R44 between the boundary with Paarl to the north and Stellenbosch suburbia to the south, before you turn east to the Helshoogte Pass in the direction of Franschhoek, then there are only a few places of note if you fancy a table
THEY’RE IN AGREEMENT… The Top 3 places to eat at on South African wine farms are Chefs Warehouse at Beau Constantia, La Colombe at Silvermist in Constantia and La Petite Colombe at Leeu Estates in Franschhoek, i.e. included among both the 3-Star Restaurants honoured at the Eat Out Awards of New Media/Media 24 and those deemed worthy of a ‘Three
THE 2023 vintage of Riebeek Cellars Pinotage Rosé was judged the overall winner in the 2023 edition of Rosé Rocks, a competition focused on South Africa’s ‘pink’ wines – Rosé and Blanc de Noir, still and sparkling, sweet and dry. Unfortunately, the conveners don’t divulge the Top 3, Top 6, Top 10 or Top 12, and we aren’t given the
THE FIRST Vermentino vineyards planted in South Africa were on Ayama in the Voor-Paardeberg area in the north-eastern reaches of the Paarl wine district, close to the Swartland border. Taken from the Xhosa language, ‘Ayama’ means ‘someone to lean on’. There’s a leopard in the logo as a tribute to the few such cats that still roam on Paardeberg Mountain.
THERE IS more than one South African wine made using the Tannat variety of grapes, but they are very few and far between – and this one comes from grapes grown on an organic farm hundreds of kilometres from the heart of the winelands, a nine-hour drive from Cape Town. Prieska is in the Northern Cape, alongside the Orange River
IN AUSTRIA, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, it is one of the most widely planted grape varieties. It’s also to be found in the winelands of Hungary and New Zealand, as well as on the winelists of certain top restaurants in the UK and USA. In South Africa, however, Grüner Veltliner was pretty much unheard of until Diemersdal of Durbanville
THE ACHIEVEMENT of Iona with the 2021 Chardonnay in their Elgin Highlands range at the 2023 Decanter World Wine Awards (UK) was impressive, to say the least. Of all the Chardonnays entered in the competition, it was one of only 16 rated 97+ on the judges’ 100-point scale and one of only three honoured among the ‘Best in Show’ (Top
AVON is the name of Isak Visagie’s farm on the slopes of the Olifantsberg in the Breedekloof Valley where uniWines of Rawsonville sources the Clairette Blanche grapes for one of their old vine projects, an experimental wine in the DaschBosch range. The farm had been planted mainly to Palomino (Frans druif) and Muscat d’Alexandrie (Hanepoot). It was in 1977 that
