Wines of the New South Africa. Tim James
(18.2 percent in 2011, down 12.9 percent from 1996)
Cabernet Sauvignon (12.0 percent, up 6.5 percent)
Colombard (11.8 percent, down 0.2 percent)
Syrah (10.3 percent, up 9.5 percent)
Sauvignon Blanc (9.6 percent, up 4.3 percent)
Chardonnay (8.0 percent, up 3.0 percent)
Merlot (6.4 percent, up 4.2 percent)
Pinotage (6.5 percent, up 2.7 percent)
Ruby Cabernet (2.2 percent, up 1.3 percent)
Muscat of Alexandria (2.1 percent, down 4.2 percent)
These ten make up more than 85 percent of the total plantings as measured by area. (Note that the percentages for 1996 differ from those originally published by the authorities because until 2003 they included Sultana, virtually entirely used for raisins and table grapes; these figures are adjusted to exclude Sultana.)
VARIETALISM, BLENDS, AND LABELS
Varietal naming of wines is currently dominant in South Africa, at all quality levels, as in most of the New World since it emerged as an inexorable practice in the United States in the middle of the twentieth century. This procedure is, of course, not inevitable, and earlier practices and debates in South Africa related instead to the European procedure of identifying wines by geographical origin—although reference was generally to European rather than local areas, except in the case of Constantia. Baron Carl von Babo was not the first to complain when he commented in his first report as government viticulturist in 1885: “It is entirely useless and misleading to adopt foreign names for Cape wines; such names as Constantia, Paarl, Breede River, and Montagu on the labels of bottles containing properly prepared and manipulated Cape wine will read as well as Sherry or Madeira. . . . Also the name Hock is false and unjustifiable.”
In fact, there have long been some Cape wines named for varieties, either wholly or partly and with uncertain accuracy. Most notable were probably Hanepoot (Muscat of Alexandria), Muscadel (Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains), Steen, Pontac, and something called Frontignac (discussed later)—sometimes used together with “Constantia,” the only Cape area to have attained sufficient prestige to be really useful as a brand. All of those varieties were to some extent associated with a particular style of wine. But, judging by the insouciance, confusion, and ignorance with which varietal names were handled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (precisely because they were not widely considered to be immensely relevant in themselves but were generally used to indicate a style of wine), varietal naming was inevitably subordinate to a myriad of hopeful associations, such as Mallaga, Vintint, Moselle, Vin de Grave, Rheinwein, Rota, and even Boene—that is, Beaune.
While varietalism is a strong force in South Africa, monovarietalism is a little less so, as there is also a tendency toward producing blended wines. The tendency is notable, for example, in the use and image of the red Bordeaux varieties. A rough estimate, based on the summary of wine ratings in the 2013 edition of Platter’s Guide, suggests that there are approximately equal numbers of varietal Cabernet Sauvignons and blends using a significant proportion of Cabernet. This seems to be very different from the situation in, say, California and Australia. In the Cape, the authority of the Bordeaux example would appear to be simply greater. In California varietal consciousness appears to imply that if varietalism is good, then monovarietalism is better. In South Africa there can be observed an evident pride in including all five of the main Bordeaux black grapes—more than a few wines even allude to this in their names (De Toren Fusion V, Constantia Glen Five, Raka Quinary, and Gabriëlskloof Five Arches among them), in something of a triumph of tradition over terroir.
This tendency to blend is nothing more than that: there are probably more varietal Syrahs than Cabernet Sauvignons, for example, but fewer blends based on Syrah than on Cabernet. But where an estate produces both a varietal Cabernet (or Merlot or Cabernet Franc, for that matter) and a Bordeaux blend, the latter is likely to be the flagship wine and to take first choice of grapes when it comes to assembling the cuvées. The general rule in the Cape seems to be that wines labeled simply with the name of the property (like Morgenster and Vergelegen) or with an invented name (Buitenverwachting Christine, Mvemve Raats de Compostella) are blends, while the varietal Cabernets are usually named as such.
A factor that must have played some role in all this is that generic naming based on European models was dealt a heavy blow in 1935. In that year the so-called Crayfish Agreement between the South African and French governments involved the dropping here of names and words associated with French appellations in exchange for a commitment to buy South African crayfish. (It’s pleasant, incidentally, to note than an exemption was given to Chateau Libertas as it had been on the market since 1932; it is now one of the most venerable of local wine labels—and still spelled without a circumflex on the first a of Chateau.) The names of German vineyards remained to be plundered, however, and increasingly were—hardly surprisingly, since the German influence on winemaking here has been strong. Even now many popular wines are marketed (only locally, of course) under such long-established names as Kupferberger Auslese and Grünberger Stein. Stein even became a generic description for off-dry or semisweet white wine, inevitably causing some confusion because the more general name for Chenin Blanc remained Steen until comparatively recent years. But in Fairest Vineyards by Kenneth Maxwell, the first near-complete list and description of all Cape wines, published in 1966, the only French that creeps in is the occasional Vin Rouge, Vin Blanc, and Rosé, alongside a few Chiantis and the Germans. Apart from the many “Sherries,” the remainder mostly go simply by the name of the producer either alone or with a varietal appendage or with a more-or-less fanciful name.
Before the Wine of Origin legislation of 1973 there were no controls over varietal naming. Such had been the misuse of variety names that restrictions were introduced gradually; for instance, a requirement that a wine had to include at least 75 percent of a variety in order to be given that variety’s name was phased in over a period of years. Today, however, the international standard of 85 percent is observed. When a South African producer wishes to indicate on a label the different varieties that have gone into a blend, this is a matter of bureaucracy and paperwork—meaning that in practice, details of blends are not always given. Where they are, there is no requirement to indicate percentages, but the varieties must be given in descending order according to their proportions: it is not unusual for a producer to have a wine called Shiraz-Merlot one year and be obliged to change the name to Merlot-Shiraz the next, if the majority component has changed. If the varieties are listed, then usually all must be listed (though there are provisions for the smallest contributors to be omitted).
RED WINE VARIETIES
THE BORDEAUX BLACK GRAPES
Cabernet Sauvignon
In a brief discussion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the first (1980) edition of the annual Platter Guide, it is unquestioningly remarked that it “produces wines hard and astringent in youth. . . . A minimum of seven years ageing should be given a full-bodied cabernet to do it justice.” How times have changed! There certainly are some local wines that will benefit from seven years or longer in bottle, but comparatively few that are not made with the hope of giving at least some pleasure when they are released a few years after bottling. In the 1980s and into the 1990s (but seldom nowadays), serious red wines tended to be offered for sale only three or four years from their vintage date, and the advantages of further maturation were obvious to equally serious wine-lovers. Even at a modest level, Cabernets were expected to improve.
It is uncertain when Cabernet was introduced to the Cape vineyard. When it was being grown with some seriousness at Groot Constantia in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the claim was made that it had been growing there for about fifty years. During the first half of the twentieth century it gained a good deal of prestige, even though most of the wines associated with Cabernet were blended—above all with Cinsaut, ostensibly to “soften” the wine, but also to eke out the small quantities available. One of the most famous wines of the mid twentieth century was the GS Cabernet Sauvignon made experimentally in 1966 and 1968 by or for (details remain uncertain) George Spies, production director at Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery. This bore