Gary's Wine Travelogue

More Travel Memoirs: Napa Trip Feb '08 | Napa Harvest '07 | Gary's Trip to Burgundy and Bordeaux | Argentina in August

08 Harvest Visit to South Africa

I just returned from a week of checking out some wineries during the harvest season in the Western Cape of South Africa, where I really enjoyed learning about a wine region that’s still coming into its own.  Because there’s so much to cover, I’ll break the trip into two posts, so check back for more to come.

We arrived Saturday night to our first and only blackout, which suited me just fine. After twenty-some hours of air travel, I was ready for some fully reclined sleep.  Sunday morning we got on the road around ten to see the Cape Town waterfront and took a ferry to Robben Island, the present-day World Heritage site that was a former political prison during apartheid (a very important place for any visitor to see).  We were treated to a warm welcome dinner of classic Cape fare at our hotel in Paarl that night under colorful tents in our courtyard.

Monday morning we got to business bright and early with a ride out to visit Hamilton Russell and Southern Right vineyards, both in the Walker Bay region.  Along the scenic drive, we had the fortune to catch glimpses of ostriches, a family of baboons, and the national bird, the blue crane. When we arrived, the Pinot Noir harvest was in full swing, as rains were approaching.  It was an especially late harvest for them; most years all the Pinot grapes are brought in by mid-February, a full month earlier.  Proprietor Anthony Hamilton Russell took a break from the business to show us around and welcomed us for lunch in his home after tasting some very impressive Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Hamilton-Russell as well as some great Sauv. Blanc and Pinotage from Southern Right.  The emphasis here was all about the right soils for the right wines: a study which Anthony has put much energy into.  Their aim is to mimic Burgundy in finding the most clay-rich soils for their Pinot Noir and Burgundy, and to leave the limestone-rich soils for the Sauvignon Blanc.  Their particular nature goes beyond terroir selection: in the cellar, they try to match each specific lot with the ideal barrel from the right cooper, the right forest, and the right toasting level.  (I’d call it borderline OCD if it didn’t make such good wine.) 

In the tasting room, all three of their varietals impressed.  Their Chardonnays (2006 and 2007) had a nice balance between minerality and buttery character.  The 2007 vintage carried pear aromas with a nutty finish, while the 2006 vintage showed richer with notes of lemon merengue and toast.  The 2007 Sauvignon Blanc from Southern Right (their sister winery) was very aromatic with a nose of gooseberry and passion fruit; however, minerality took over on the palate.  The result was a very “worldly” Sauv Blanc: a New Zealand nose paired with a Sancerre Palate.  The Southern Right Pinotage was tasted next, and really changed my perspective on Pinotage, which is well known for sometimes having an unfortunate “band-aid” smell.  This certainly wasn’t the case with thiers; the 2006 (91 points from Wine Spectator) carried aromas of red cherry and game with a little tanginess on the nose, followed by a dry and serious palate.  Very different.  The 2007 vintage (not yet released) showed softer, fruitier and fleshier.  More ripe cherry appeared on the nose, and the game arrived more on the palate, followed by a finish spiced by nutmeg and white pepper.  Finally, we tasted Hamilton Russell Pinot Noirs from 2006 and 2007, respectively.  The 2006 (92 points WS) showed well with a nose of cherries and raspberries and a bit of barnyard grain, but the 2007 was a bit more amped up with a headier nose of cherry and earth, riper fruit and a roundness that makes it show very well at the present.

The night ended with an entertaining and spirited dinner at a local eclectic outdoor buffet with dancers and some more recovery from the jet lag.

Tuesday morning we started out with a morning tasting with MAN vintners.  MAN (named for the first initials of each partner’s wife) is a fairly new enterprise, turning out some fun value wines that I imagine have their best place at a summer barbeque.  The highlight of these was actually their Chenin Blanc, a white varietal that doesn’t have the best reputation at present, but in their case is made only from free-run (unpressed) juice to avoid that certain soapy character from the skin of this grape.  It had a nice lemon-rind aroma, and a very clean flavor.

Following the MAN tasting, we joined Jose and Marie Conde of MAN and Stark-Conde wines for lunch at their home.  Over lunch, we tried their higher end Stark-Conde Cabernets and Syrahs from the Jonkershoek and Stellenbosch regions.  Their 2005 Jonkershoek “Twin Peaks” Syrah in particular was a treat: a concentrated fruit aroma with fine grained tannins, some cocoa qualities on the nose, and a little bit of a floral aspect.  I also enjoyed their 2005 and 2006 Stellenbosch Cabernet, both with dark and red fruit, the 2005 with a nice cinnamon nose and the 2006 a bit more savory…and not a bad value at all for its price.

The evening was spent at a dinner tasting at Boekenhoutskloof (pronounced boo-ken-HOOTS-kloof) in Franschhoek.  Winemaker and head honcho Mark Kent likes to do things his own way, and doesn’t have much regard for the things that aren’t “their style.”  (Among the things that aren’t “they’re style: advertising, brochures, tour buses, pretty winemaking equipment, tasting notes, technical notes, talking up vintages, terroir and soil science, and the term “estate grown.”  Among the things that are “their style”: no-nonsense winemaking, anything-goes varietal blends, the Rollings Stones and thick cuts of steak to complement their Cab.)

We started off with their Porcupine Ridge line, the best of which (in my opinion) was their very reasonably priced Sauvignon Blanc, full of tropical lime and guava aromas.  Next were the Wolftrap wines, of which I enjoyed their Syrah-Mourvedre-Viognier blend the most.  It carried really interesting spices and smokiness on the nose, and again a great pricetag.  Their Chocolate Block wine was an added bonus in itself: a mix of Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault, Cabernet Sauvignon and Viognier that starts out with chewy dried currant and blueberry and finishes with nutmeg, white pepper, and other bitter spices that REALLY last on the palate.  Finally we were on to the Boekenhoutskloof wines, a very nice Semillon, Cabernet and Syrah.  The Cabernet showed the best to me: it had a great bouquet of chocolate and cherry and a deliciously soft, round palate of bold fruit, cinnamon and lavender, spicy tannins and a lasting finish.  After all this fun, another day was over and there was just enough time to catch some shut-eye before we were on to the fourth day of our trip.

South Africa and its beautiful vineyards continued to impress on day 4, not at all to my surprise.  We were scheduled to visit the top of Table Mountain on Wednesday morning, but as the  clouds had created a bit of a “table cloth”, as they put it, we would’ve found ourselves stumbling around a very steep cliff seeing nothing but white.  Therefore, we decided to spend a liesurely morning wandering about Cape Town’s outdoor markets.  Afterward, we were treated to a scrumptously spicy Malay lunch at the Noon Gun Cafe.  Now amply relaxed and shopped out, we ventured out to Neil Ellis winery for a late afternoon tasting of their Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Syrah and Cabernet, followed by dinner. 

Neil is a fairly soft-spoken man, perhaps balancing his imposing height with an unimposing personality.  But he spoke of his wines with quiet and humble insight.  While it seems the trend in South Africa for everyone to tout their wines as “Southern Rhone in style,” Neil stated that they make two Shiraz and one Syrah in their line.  The reason, he explained, is that they felt the “Sincerely” Shiraz and the Neil Ellis Groenenkloof Shiraz are both more “New World” in style: open and friendly and fruit-driven, while the Neil Ellis Vineyard Selection Jonkershoek Valley Syrah is more Old World (ie. French), with deeper spices and smokier, brooding tannins.  I agreed, to a large extent. The Sincerely Shiraz ‘06 showed lots of friendly ripe red fruit mid-palate with a lightly spiced finish, but the Neil Ellis Groenenkloof Shiraz ‘04 showed enough smokiness and cinnamon bark and an elegant enough finish that I probably would have called this one Syrah myself.  (But apples to apples, or whatever the saying is.)  The Vineyard Selection ‘05 from Jonkershoek, easily the most complex but similar in style to the Groenenkloof, carried less smoke but more amped up spiced fruit and a bit of cigar box or leather.  Also notable at this tasting were their Vineyard Selection Sauvignon Blanc 07: a refined example of an unobtrusively oaked Sauv Blanc with a rich, leesy apple and lemon custard palate, and their Elgin Chardonnay ‘06, youthful with grilled pineapple and cantelope notes and just a bit of buttered toast from the oak.  At dinner with Neil and his partner Hans Peter Schroder, we enjoyed some earlier vintages of the same wines over a lovely buffet of ostrich and colorful salads, all beautifully set up in their (currently empty) barrel room.

Thursday was our final day of wine tasting, so we really packed it in. The morning was spent at Spice Route, which has no “welcome center” or “showcase winery” to speak of. Here, in the warm arid Swaartland vineyards of Malmesbury, the grapes are grown almost entirely on bush vines and made into wine in a no-frills barn-style cellar complete with (what I found were charming) cobweb-covered chandelier lighting. The hightlights here: a very apricoty Viognier, a blackberry compote-flavored Mourvedre, and their prize bottling, a dark, spicy, chocolatey wine called Malabar (2004).

The afternoon was spent at Goats do Roam’s tourist-friendly winery, where we tasted the sister Fairview and Goats do Roam lines.  The highlights here: -another Viognier, the young 2007 Fairview, from the first Viognier vines ever planted in S. Africa.  (Allegedly.)  Very friendly and fruity with flavors of tangerine, peaches and cream -The Beacon Shiraz ‘05, in all it’s spiced plummy goodness. We've got a nice selection of GDR in stock if you'd like to try.

All official tasting behind us, we did a little frolicking with their ubiquitous goats at the nearby farm before meeting with Charles and Di Back for a very cozy dinner at their home. We dined on potjie (a genius Cape curry dish made in cast-iron Dutch kettles suspended over coals) and a mountain of Goats do Roam/Fairview cheeses, of course alongside our favorite Fairview wines.

Before we left, our trusty tour guide Robin Back wanted us to see the striking views, the baboons, and an abundance of penguins on the Cape peninsula. Friday was spent driving around taking all this in, enjoying our last day together in South Africa.

There are too many thanks to be said in this short space, but to all the winemakers and hosts that took us in, to our wonderful hosts at De Oude Paarl Hotel (including Sandra and Bowers, who kept Cuba open late for us to play cards), and most of all to Robin Back and our beloved driver Mario: “Buy a donkey, with pleasure!!”

- Maggie Fox