TALK ABOUT extreme winemaking! There’s no cellar closer to the sea than the Fryer’s Cove outfit at the waterfront of Doringbaai, over 300km from Cape Town on South Africa’s West Coast. And their small blocks of vineyard nearby in the tiny ward of Bamboes Bay – north of Lambert’s Bay, south of Vredendal and Strandfontein – are so close to the Atlantic Ocean, they’re almost within throwing distance. Temperature wise, the summertime highs on this coastline are lower than they are inland, however this is a very dry area, and it can get very windy. A water pipeline from Vredendal (29km long!) provides just enough irrigation to sustain the vines planted in 1999 – volumes under the Fryer’s Cove label are small, although a second-tier range sold as Doringbay taps into supplies from further afield to expand the offering at less than half the price.

The winelist includes a Rosé, a Shiraz and a Pinot Noir, but these folks are Sauvignon Blanc specialists: The Jetty at R75 per bottle and Doringbay at R95, with the Bamboes Bay at R260pb and wooded Bamboes Bay Hollebaksstrandfontein at R285. In 2018 it was the turn of the Doringbay to shine on stage, the 2017 vintage Listed in the Sommeliers Selection and going on to place among the winners come the Sauvignon Blanc Top 10 competition: “Fresh, crisp, steely, grassy, ripe, tangy, tropical fruit,” recommended with goats cheese, green vegetables, oysters, sole; Alc 14.2 | RS 2.6 | TA 6.5 | pH 3.3. And with the 2018 vintage of Doringbay comes a makeover, the new label design having more of a harbour feel to it, less like peeling open a tin of fish.

In what was once a crayfish factory, the winery opens out onto a jetty that is shared with the neighbouring abalone farm – the cold Atlantic feeding the shellfish and assisting with temperature control in the cellar. On the jetty is a fish restaurant that also serves steak: good hake and chips, calamari this way or that, curried fish, pickled fish and roosterbrood – all well priced, and all of the cellar’s wines available by the glass/bottle. Sadly, no abalone on the menu: such is the supply and demand that a perlemoen dish would cost over R500pp.

Open to the public Monday to Saturday, Fryer’s Cove is also remarkable in being beneficial to the local fishing community of some 1300 who benefit from the rent that is paid for the premises, from a percentage of The Jetty Sauvignon Blanc proceeds, and from the turnover at the restaurant in which the wine business only has a minor stake… The winemaker and marketing manager: Derick Koegelenberg and Francois van Rensburg. The cellarmaster and co-founder: Wynand Hamman of Stellenbosch. Hamman’s fellow shareholders: local farmers Ponk van Zyl, Jan van Zyl and Johann Laubscher.