Landmarks

WINE Magazine Through The Years

We list the 15 wines that best demonstrate the significant developments that have occurred in the wine industry since WINE magazine’s inception in October 1993.

WINE magazine was launched as a title dedicated to celebrating wine and good living in October 1993. Considering that this was a particularly unsettled time in South Africa’s history, with democratic elections still a way off, it was an especially challenging undertaking. Nevertheless, just as the country as a whole would undergo a profound transformation, so would the wine industry, the old regulated regime giving way to a few mass-market players and many niche producers.

The following is a list of the 15 wines that have had the most significance during the magazine’s lifespan. While we acknowledge that such a list can never be utterly definitive, we have given considerable thought to the exercise. The one constraint placed on inclusion was that only the top end of the market would be considered. Of course what has happened at entry level necessarily impacts on how production is structured in an overall sense, but that is not the subject matter of glossy magazines. Further, it should be noted that, try as we might, we could not come up with a label that signified any serious black involvement in the industry.

Bredell's Cape Vintage Reserve 1995
This rated 4½ Stars in our July 1998 issue, 5 Stars in the 1999 edition of Platter’s and won the trophy for best museum-class Port at the 2004 Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show. Port is a strong category in South Africa and this 50:50 blend of Tinta Barocca and Souzão from JP Bredell Wines in Stellenbosch typifies why the Portuguese are so anxious that we should not have rights to the name. As part of a major trade agreement between the European Union and South Africa that has been the subject of ongoing negotiations for some 10 years now, local producers have agreed to desist from using the name Port (as well as Sherry, Grappa and Ouzo) for labelling purposes. South Africa was given until 2012 to gradually phase out the use of the contested terms, in return for which the EU would pay €15 million (approximately R178 million) as compensation. No money has been forthcoming as yet…

Columella 2000
Columella 2000, a blend of 90% Shiraz and 10% Mourvèdre, was winemaker Eben Sadie’s first wine under his own label, catapulting him to fame when he picked up a rating of 5 Stars in the 2003 edition of Platter’s. At the time, South Africa’s top reds mainly consisted of single-varietal wines and a few venerable old Bordeaux-style blends, and Columella rocked convention. A central tenet of Sadie’s is that single-variety wines only really succeed in continental conditions, where extremes of climate result in wines that in themselves are complete. Blending becomes necessary to achieve complexity in areas that have a maritime climate. With most winegrowing regions in South Africa having the latter character, blending is therefore the way forward. Sadie has since also developed a white blend called Palladius as a companion wine to Columella, and thanks to these two labels, we have seen increasing attention paid to the less mainstream varieties of the Mediterranean.

Ernie Els 2002
Ernie Els Wines was established as a joint venture between the eponymous golfer and Jean Engelbrecht of Rust en Vrede in 1999, the intention being to offer an ultra-premium product, the maiden release 2000 hitting the market at R400 a bottle. The wine was critically well received, the ’01 receiving a rating of 5 Stars when the 2004 edition of Platter’s was compiled, as did the ’02 in the 2005 edition. However, when WINE magazine subsequently encountered the 2002 in a blind tasting for the March 2005 issue, one panellist discerned the spoilage yeast brettanomyces, which testing subsequently confirmed. In future there would be much greater sensitivity to brett, with Ernie Els winemaker Louis Strydom, for one, soon becoming an expert on the matter. His wine has subsequently been spotlessly clean. What remains debatable is whether brett is an outright fault or something that, at low levels, provides complexity.
Fryer's Cove Sauvignon Blanc 2005
When the Sauvignon Blanc 2005 from Fryer’s Cove made from Bamboesbaai vineyards just south of Strandfontein in the Olifantsrivier region was rated 5 Stars in the November 2005 issue of WINE magazine, it demonstrated emphatically that South Africa’s premier wine-growing areas were no longer confined to Stellenbosch and Paarl. Other extreme areas that have started producing quality wine include the Elim ward near Africa’s southernmost point, Cape Agulhas, and the Langkloof near George in the southwest Cape. Vineyards have even been planted in summer-rainfall area KwaZulu-Natal. Terroir is the notion that wines should taste of the place where the grapes were grown and, if this holds true, then interesting times lie ahead.

Goats Do Roam 1999
South African wine marketing is extraordinarily staid and predictable on the whole, but trust the forward-thinking Charles Back, owner of Fairview and Spice Route, to provide a shake-up in the form of Goats do Roam. Already known for his panache with Shiraz and looking for a new style of wine to woo adventurous consumers, he came up with a blend using Rhône varieties such as Shiraz, Cinsaut, Carignan and Mourvèdre with a dash of local Pinotage, which he sourced from various vineyards (his own and others) around Paarl and Malmesbury. Having arrived at something intriguing in the bottle, Back added humorous packaging, calling the wine “Goats do Roam”, a pun on the famous French wine appellation Côte du Rhône. Since then, Goats do Roam has expanded into a wine company with a range of nine whimsically named wines, including a classic Bordeaux-style blend called Bored Doe and a red blend of Italian varieties named The Goatfather.

JC LE ROUX PINOT NOIR 1986
In compiling the inaugural October 1993 issue of WINE magazine, Cap Classique was the first tasting category ever to be reviewed by our panel, this wine becoming the first to be rated 4 Stars. As part of the 2008 Cap Classique Challenge sponsored by Amorim Cork, one of the few remaining bottles was sourced from the producer and, unbeknown to the panel, included in the line-up. Fifteen years on from release, it rated a very credible 3½ Stars, impressing with the complexity that extended bottle age had brought about. In general Cap Classique has become a category with a high general level of quality overall and a growing public following. It might not be Champagne, but then it doesn’t cost nearly as much either.

Kanonkop Paul Sauer 1995
Emerging after years of politically induced isolation, the South African wine industry desperately needed affirmation that it was capable of making wines that were indisputably world class. Enter the Paul Sauer 1991 from Stellenbosch farm Kanonkop, which took the Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande trophy for best blended red wine at the 1994 International Wine & Spirit Competition in London. However, it was the 1995 vintage that really impressed, rating 4½ Stars in our September 1998 issue as well as 5 Stars in the 1999 edition of Platter’s before again taking the IWSC trophy in 1999 – the sort of wine that was almost impossible fault. Subsequently, two other South African red blends have won the IWSC trophy: Vergelegen 2000 in 2003 and Meerlust Rubicon 2001 in 2006, and there need be no doubt that at least some of our reds can compete with the best.

Kanonkop Pinotage 1996
This wine is included as one of the most significant of the modern era on the basis that, despite being bottled, it was never released! Though Kanonkop, with winemaker Beyers Truter at the helm, had been at the forefront of efforts to make quality Pinotage until then, a decision was taken not to put the 1996 on the market as it was felt that it had a taste profile (rumoured to be excessive bitterness) that would do damage to the standing of the label. Post political transformation, there were many who were convinced that homegrown variety Pinotage would take the wine-drinking world by storm. It would be unfair to suggest that this wine alone was responsible for destroying the dream, but it did make it abundantly clear that Pinotage is a difficult grape to work with, even in the most skilled hands. Expectations of what can be achieved have been considerably tempered since then.
Kanu Wooded Chenin Blanc 1999
This wine gave Teddy Hall honours in the 2001 WINE magazine Chenin Blanc Challenge, the first of his four victories in our annual competition started in 1996 in the hope of facilitating a renaissance for the variety. When the KWV used to hold sway in the industry, Chenin Blanc became the nation’s most widely planted variety because of its usefulness in the production of bulk wine. Along came deregulation during the 1990s, and Chenin growers had to radically restructure their activities. One option was to uproot, and plantings have decreased dramatically from 30.1% of the national vineyard in 1997 to 18.8% in 2007. Another option was to make worthwhile table wines from the variety, and in recent times a few dedicated producers have been increasingly successful. Other wins for Hall at the Chenin Challenge were with Kanu Wooded 2001 (which tied with De Trafford Keermont 2001) in 2002, Kanu Wooded 2002 in 2004 and Rudera Robusto 2004 in 2005.

Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 1986
Though Sauvignon Blanc is a variety not generally known for making wines of great longevity, Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 1986 rated 5 Stars in our October 1996 issue – after a full 10 years in the bottle. It was the first white wine to get WINE magazine’s ultimate accolade and provided an early indication that South Africa was capable of making superlative (and, in some cases, age-worthy) wines from the variety. The rise of Cape Sauvignon Blanc continues apace, and it can no longer be considered a fad, if ever it was. The ward of Constantia remains at the forefront of quality Sauvignon production, but it is fascinating to watch the scramble to find those sites most suited to producing the variety. The realisation has dawned that the best examples come from cool-climate areas, and producers are going to extremes to find such locales.

KWV Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2003
Following an investigation by the regulatory Wine & Spirit Board at the end of 2004, three KWV Sauvignon Blanc wines were found to contain illegal flavourants. These were a limited quantity of KWV Reserve 2003 and two other batches of wine destined to become Laborie 2004 and KWV Reserve 2004, both of which were destroyed before they reached the market. The concern was that this would have the same devastating effect on the local industry as the 1985 Austrian wine scandal, which saw unscrupulous producers adding antifreeze to their wines to make them fuller and richer, and caused huge damage to the collective reputation of Austrian wines, with both local and export sales dropping dramatically. By comparison, SA escaped relatively unscathed.

Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 1992 This wine won winemaker Gyles Webb the title of Diners Club Winemaker of the Year in 1994, a title he would go on to win again in 1996 with his Cabernet Sauvignon 1994. Webb is the epitome of the avant-garde producer and, under his direction, Thelema on the Helshoogte pass between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek has firmly established itself as one of South Africa’s foremost properties. He was working as the assistant winemaker at Neethlingshof when the family of his wife, Barbara, purchased Thelema in July 1983. The first release under a Thelema label was from the 1988 vintage and the wines, which are modern in the best possible sense, have been impressing loyal fans ever since. A new farm in Elgin called Sutherland was purchased in 2002, and the wines from these vineyards, first made in 2005, are also worth keeping an eye out for.

Stellenzicht Syrah 1994
The 1994 vintage of the Stellenzicht Syrah gave impetus to the Syrah/Shiraz revolution in South Africa when, in 1995, in a taste-off between South Africa and Australia sponsored by SAA, an international panel rated it better than the 1991 vintage of legendary Australian wine Grange Hermitage. The rise of Shiraz within the modern South African context is not hard to understand. The wine possesses a number of characteristics in the glass that readily appeal to the consumer, typically being full-flavoured, textured and easy to understand. As far as producers are concerned, it delivers acceptable quality under all sorts of conditions, and the fact that it has an established following internationally means that it can be readily exported. Plantings have consequently increased rapidly: Shiraz has gone from comprising 2.2% of the national vineyard in 1997 to 9.7% in 2007, making it the second most planted red variety behind Cabernet Sauvignon.
Vergelegen 2002 (white)
This blend of 67% Semillon and 33% Sauvignon Blanc from the Anglo American showpiece cellar in Somerset West rated 4½ Stars in our June 2004 issue and got the same high rating five years after vintage in our May 2007 issue. It also rated 5 Stars in the 2004 edition of Platter’s and won the trophies for best blended white as well as best white overall at the 2003 Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show. While 2001 was the maiden vintage of this wine, it was Sauvignon Blanc driven and, in an effort to attain greater elegance, winemaker André van Rensburg subsequently reversed the weighting of the blend – it has included more Semillon ever since. Inspired by Van Rensburg’s example, many other winemakers are now making high-quality white blends and it is currently one of the most exciting categories around.

Vergelegen V 2001
This maiden vintage of Vergelegen’s flagship wine makes the list not so much because of wine quality, but rather as Anglo American’s fairly brazen attempt to up the ante in terms of what a South African wine might be sold for. Launched in 2005, this blend of 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot and 1% Cabernet Franc spent 21 months in 100% new French oak and came with a hearty alcohol by volume of 15% – an unashamed blockbuster. Production was limited to 500 cases and the asking price was R600 a bottle. The currently available 2004 vintage sells for R750, making it South Africa’s most expensive wine made in any significant quantities. Meanwhile, the 2003 vintage of the farm’s very good Bordeaux-style red blend goes for R298. You decide which is the better investment.