SA vs Rhone
If you're looking for uncomplicated, pleasureable drinking then there are a variety of wines from the red Rhône varieties to choose from . Tim James, associate editor of Platter's, reports.
Deliciousness can be an underrated – or at least under-reported – quality in wine. When the word turns up in a tasting note, it all too often comes across as a consolation prize for a modest effort that hasn’t impressed with elegance or grandeur and must suffice.
But deliciousness is what we were all hoping for when WINE magazine editor Christian Eedes, commentator Angela Lloyd, Roland Peens of wine brokerage and cellaring firm Wine Cellar and I sat down to taste a dozenand- a-half masked bottles. Fortunately it was generally forthcoming – in some cases along with loftier qualities.
In the bottles were wildly varying blends of what we casually call the red Rhône varieties – those characteristic of the south of France generally, and reaching their highest expression there in Châteauneuf du Pape. (Reaching also, let it be said, a pretty low expression thereabouts: Côtes du Rhône, comprising much of the Rhône Valley’s vineyard, is a massive producer of poor wines; other parts of the sunny south contribute even more generously to European distillates.)
So: a good deal of Shiraz, plenty of Grenache, some Mourvèdre, Cinsaut and Carignan, and a splash of Viognier. Famously, 13 varieties are allowed in Châteauneuf itself, and we had one of those in our line-up, but if lesser varieties Picpoul and Counoise were present, they shut up about it.
The point was to compare some local versions of the “Rhône blend” with examples of the real thing available in South Africa in more or less the same price range. Around R200 was the upper limit, which excluded many foreigners as well as some locals (no Sadie Family Columella, no Spice Route Malabar), but many of the Cape versions cost over R100 – though a welcome few much less – so it’s clear that South African ambition is not lacking.
THE RISE OF THE BLEND
One of the most interesting and admirable things about modern South African winemakers in a New World context is their continuing interest in blending – in the conviction that a complicated whole can be something special. The concept of varietal primacy is triumphant here, as elsewhere, but there’s surely less commitment to the idea that varietal truth inevitably implies most value in mono-varietal wines. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling, traditional loners, are the obvious exceptions to my rash generalisation, but the red Bordeaux blend has arguably more cachet here than straight Cabernet Sauvignon (which is not the case in California and Australia, for example) and the same pattern is starting to emerge with Sauvignon-Semillon blends and, to a lesser extent, with Chenin-based wines.
And Shiraz? Straight versions dominate – and, with the authority of the Northern Rhône and Australia behind them, should do so for the foreseeable future. But even apart from the modish and dubious flirtation with Viognier, and the handful of splendid intermarriages with Bordeaux, the ambitious Shiraz-based blend is gathering new converts. For example, Boekenhoutskloof now has Chocolate Block as well as Syrah, Saronsberg’s Full Circle shares the prestige of its Shiraz, and there are a host of others, not so much inspired by the Rhône as reminded by climatic and other similarities of certain possibilities of expressing soil and climate.
LEADING THE WAY
Nowhere is this happening with more energy and legitimate conviction than in the southern Swartland within sight of the Perdeberg and Riebeek mountains. It’s only 10 years since Charles Back took his experimental forays to the logical conclusion of establishing Spice Route, and a few years less since his first winemaker, Eben Sadie, struck out on his own, and released Columella, a blend of Shiraz with around 20% Mourvèdre.
It was that wine, more than anything, along with Back’s and Sadie’s infectious enthusiasm about the potential of the whole area for Rhône-style winemaking, that led to the proliferation of such wines that we have today. True, there are only a handful of new wineries, but the number is growing: former Rustenberg winemaker Adi Badenhorst is perhaps the latest to base himself there (his red Rhône-style blends unfortunately not tasted on this occasion, as the bottles went astray...). In terms of bottlings, more significant is the large number of outside producers making use of Swartland grapes as at least components of such wines, usually anonymously.
THE TASTING
In expectation, then, of deliciousness and more, we settled in to taste and discuss, in appropriately friendly and not overly rigorous manner, seven mostly youthful wines from the Rhône or thereabouts (one from Roussillon), and 10 from the Swartland. Or thereabouts in that case too: a few, like the two Goats do Roam wines, include components from other regions, and Vondeling Baldrick is from Paarl’s Voor-Paardeberg – but that ward seems spiritually and vinously linked to the Swartland, to whose southern fringe it clings.
It also seemed a good idea to broadmindedly welcome a Pinotage component in a few wines, as a distinctive South African contribution. In fact, no-one remarked on a Pinotage distinctiveness: clearly the local variety is a fair-enough inclusion – one of its parents is Cinsaut, after all. What Pinotage probably did do was add to the slightly greater sense of sweet-fruitedness in many of the local versions – although, as Eedes pointed out, national differences were not as substantial as some might have expected.
What could be expected from two warm climates, of course, was the degree of ripeness that we found, part of the warm generosity that comes with generally substantial alcohol levels – though, again, no excess. Lloyd remarked on another shared trait: a welcome restraint with oak, which adds to the unpretentious approachability of the wines. Lloyd also pointed out, though, that easy drinkability is fine, but a good wine still needs to be well structured. Many of these were.
The overall highest-scorer – but only just – was the most expensive at R225, the Domaine Mathieu Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2004, certainly benefiting from a comparative maturity (though the Guigal Gigondas 2003, the oldest here, was more controversial). Two local wines and one French followed in joint second place. Lammershoek Roulette (R115) was one of the more serious-minded examples, with firm tannins and showing just a touch of oak, along with the dried herb notes characteristic of many of the wines – call it “fynbos” or “garrigue” if you will, and argue the difference. Roulette was from the 2006 vintage as were its fellow-scorers, Spice Route’s new and less pricey version of Malabar, the winningly named Chakalaka, and Chapoutier’s Estubiers Coteaux du Tricastin (both around R125).
These were followed by another mixed trio: the biodynamic Bila-Haut Occultum Lapidem 2006 (another Chapoutier; R135), Perrin Vinsobres Les Cornuds 2005 and Fairview Caldera 2007 (both about R95) – the latter suffering a little from its comparative youth.
Honourable mentions, as it were, go to the rest of what we tasted: Chapoutier Belleruche 2006, Black Rock Red 2006, Vondeling Baldrick 2007, Cabasse Sablet Les Deux Anges 2006, Schonenberg Cape Blend 2006 (equal Pinotage-Shiraz, our bottle rather porty and past its best). The two cheapest wines in the tasting performed pretty creditably: Riebeek Cellars’ Shiraz-Cinsaut 2007, though at the lower-scoring end, must count as very good value at R22 ex-cellar, while the standard Goatsdo- Roam Red 2006 (R40) was mostly preferred to the “in Villages” version (R70).
The disappointment of the tasting was the Sequillo Red 2006, from Sadie’s other Swartland venture, a wine I know from other occasions to be excellent; this was undoubtedly a problematic but not obviously faulty bottle. Generally, the Swartland wines are in the same price range as their French counterparts and the best of them show well in terms of comparative quality: hardly bargains, but fair value.
• Prices given are approximate retail. All the wines were donated by producers or importers.
• Cabasse, Guigal, Domaine Mathieu and Perrin wines are imported by Reciprocal Wine Trading (Tel 011 482 9178/9). Chapoutier is imported by the Wine Cellar (Tel 021 448 4105).
Tim James is associate editor of Platter’s South African Wine Guide and writes for local and international wine publications.
