Neil Pendock: May 2007

SA Sauvignon Blanc producers have discovered a new additive and this time it's a totally legal one - wood. A new wave of barrel fermented Sauvignon Blanc is making statement whites of character a million miles away from the Cloudy Bay-inspired recipe of felines micturating on a gooseberry bush.Just how pernicious the 2004 green pepper additive scandal was for SA Sau-vignon producers is confirmed in the 2006 edition of The Art & Science of Wine by James Halliday and Hugh Johnson (Mitchell Beazley). As the authors comment, "Quite why SA does so well [with Sauvignon] is not easy to understand: its climate is much warmer - warmer than that of the Barossa Valley around Stellenbosch, and warmer still at Paarl (though cooler on the Simonsberg hills [sic]) - but even Sauvignon Blanc made in the modest co-operatives toward Paarl retains distinctive character. The added essence scandal of 2004/5 which greatly affected the industry giant KWV could (retrospectively) provide a partial explanation."

So it makes a lot of sense for SA winemakers to adopt an anti-green pepper style, and barrel fermention and wood maturation is just what two of the best and brightest SA winemakers are doing. Johan Reyneke, the biodynamic boffin on the Polkadraai road in Stellenbosch, has a barrel fermented 2006 vintage Sauvignon that took over a year to ferment in the converted cowshed that serves as a winery. It is a standout wine of extraordinary complexity and depth.

SA consumers are about to hear more from Reyneke as Tim Rands, one of the savviest distributors in the business, has recently invested in Reyneke Wines. As Johan puts it, "I'm a farmer. My heart is in production - not sales and distribution. I spoke to Tim to find out how to make my wines more available. He came to the farm, walked in the vineyards, tasted the wine and invested."

And the price? In true biodynamic fashion, Reyneke said it was impossible to put a price on 15 years of his life. But he was sick and tired of living in a one-bedroom cottage with his wife and baby daughter. So a sympathetic price was struck: Rands would take away the debt of Reyneke Wines and build Johan and his family a new home. Which is now nearly complete, with spectacular views of Stellenbosch and the encircling mountains.

Over in Franschhoek on Chamonix, Gottried Mocke notes: "We don't have the climate for a Cloudy Bay and those fruit-driven styles the Kiwis do so well. I'm going for mouthfeel, texture and length." Which he certainly achieves with his 2005 Reserve, 100% barrel fermented. The 2006 has 5% Semillon and is a true terroir-driven wine. Even the entry level Savvy has a 10% barrel component and, closed with an elegant VinoLok stopper, is already a firm favourite of restaurateurs.

Of course wooded SA Sauvignon is not guaranteed to meet with the approval of Halliday and Johnson either. Their opinion of Californian Fumé Blanc is radical. "Nowhere is the American diffidence about full-frontal fruit flavour more apparent than with Sauvignon Blanc," they opine. "A society that drinks swimming pools of Coca-Cola every hour, that indiscriminately throws fruit, waffles and maple syrup on the breakfast bacon and eggs, studiously avoids salt and substitutes sugar, takes all the flavour out of coffee and invented the Waldorf salad, is inherently unlikely to enjoy the tart, herbal, gooseberry flavour of untamed Sauvig-non Blanc."

"Yeah, right," as a Yank might say. Cheap "Ugly American" shots and clichés aside, being patronized by a denizen of the continent that gave the world the culinary delights of the pie floater on one hand and a member of the nation about whom French President Jacques Chirac memorably noted "one cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad" at the 2005 G8 Summit, on the other, does have its funny side.