De Toren, Stellenbosch
Stellenbosch farm De Toren, and its mini-elevator, have become highly acclaimed in a very short space of time. By Mike Froud.
The first that WINE magazine heard about De Toren was from one of the country’s leading winemakers shortly after the private cellar was completed back in 1999. Jeremy Walker of Grangehurst on the Helderberg in Stellenbosch was among the vintners who’d been watching the progress of the newcomer across the valley on the Polkadraai Hills – he was impressed with the sample bottle that had come his way and we were as interested as he was in “that lift”, a mini-elevator integral to the design of a cellar built so as to completely dispense with the need to pump any of the grapes or the wine anywhere at any time.
From harvest to bottling, “gentle” is part of what it’s all about at directors Emil den Dulk and Albie Koch’s operation – there’s no such thing as crushing the grapes at De Toren, with the berries picked by hand, taken to the cellar in hand-baskets, hand-sorted after de-stemming and fermented in squat tanks to further minimise the pressure they’re subjected to as the juice turns into wine that then spends 12 months in barrels (mostly new French oak, some American). Any pressing that does take place is more like a squeeze…
Today, not quite 10 years down the line, De Toren Fusion V is hardly a household name, but already it’s a case of “if you live in South Africa and you haven’t heard about it then you can’t be serious about wine” – it is one of the top SA red blends in many a cognoscenti’s book, with all of the seven vintages released thus far rated very good to excellent in WINE (SA) and six scored 90 or more on the 100-point scale in Wine Spectator (USA).
For those not inclined to spend well over R200 on a bottle of the good stuff , there’s the Merlot-driven De Toren Z, an earlier-drinking (read smoother sooner) red at about half the price of the Cab-driven Fusion V. And while both the Z (pronounced “zee”) and the V brandish De Toren on the label, there is another red from the property called Diversity, which in South Africa is now sold to Makro card-holders and available under Checkers’ Odd Bins label – but no longer for sale at the farm.
Surprisingly, despite the obsession with detail at De Toren and as good as the Fusion V is, Den Dulk concedes that it will never be the best wine in South Africa! “To make a wine of even higher quality we’d have to focus only on the best vineyard blocks, vinify the best of the grapes separately, then do a barrel selection and limit production to 500 cases, say. Instead we make 4 000 cases (40 000 litres) of the best wine we can in such volumes.” And to those who would argue that First Growth Bordeaux reds are made in larger volumes than Fusion V, Den Dulk feels that while these French wines are great, highly valued brands, they can’t be the best of their kind either. Too big!
Moreover, although the De Toren flagship is made from five Bordeaux grape varieties, neither Den Dulk nor Koch regards Bordeaux as the model to which they aspire. If anything they look more to “the finesse of the Old World combined with the power of the New World”.
According to Den Dulk: “We might have started with Bordeaux as our benchmark, but we’re now positioning Fusion V somewhere between New and Old World – fruity but also elegant.”
That said, they have something extra special maturing in their cellar, a 50:50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec treated to new oak, 50% French and 50% American respectively: De Toren Centennial from the 2006 vintage, a tiny quantity that will be sold ex-cellar and only to good friends of the farm. And then there will be a 10-year-old to look forward to: a very limited re-release of the 1999 Fusion V to be sold through restaurants in 2010, coinciding with the World Cup Football tournament in South Africa.
“The ’99 has settled down and is tasting beautiful now,” says Den Dulk, reminded of how things started at De Toren, of how they’re now much more educated in their winemaking…
“Ten years ago I knew nothing about wine,” he chuckles. “But we followed the advice of gurus such as viticulturist Eben Archer, leant on the expertise of those at the University of Stellenbosch, and have some very experienced winemakers to thank.”
Koch came on board as cellarmaster in 1998 and, while responsible for every De Toren wine bottled since, he credits two of his peers in particular for helping to give De Toren a foundation and achieve success from day one – the “scientific” Charles Hopkins, previously of Graham Beck Wines in Franschhoek, now at De Grendel Wines in Durbanville, and Nico van der Merwe of Saxenburg in Kuils River, down the road from De Toren. “Nico! Now there’s a man who can make wine by the seat of his pants,” Koch smiles before recalling how many holes have been dug in the process of analysing the different soil types on the farm, how many aerial images have been taken in mapping-out the vineyards, recording the difference between the various blocks and getting to really know the property both above and below ground level.
Milestones? 1996 was when Den Dulk opted to diversify and to make a wine called De Toren – even until three years ago he was still pretty heavily involved in direct marketing and Secure Logistics. In 1999 the first Fusion V was born as an extremely fruity number.
2001 was when the way forward was decided on in terms of the style of the V, as in “big and bold but more elegant”. 2004 was the first vintage of De Toren Z. And their customer database recently topped the 10 000 mark – this despite many people regarding the place as closed to the public. In fact, while visits to the property are officially “by appointment” only, wine lovers are welcome to drive up the windy dirt track, past the sign warning of snails crossing and then another warning of ducks crossing (hunting for snails), and on to the De Toren office and winery.
The V and the Z are available at farm prices Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and it’s only if you want to see inside the cellar that you need to phone ahead – the 90-minute tour-and-tasting is free of charge.
