Wines of the New South Africa. Tim James
the variety on the minimalist label, testifying to the unusualness of the percentage, and also probably alluding to what was probably part of Spies’s experiment: to show that Cape Cabernet could make a valid wine by itself. The wine is still splendidly alive now—as are some older so-called Cabernets.
Plantings started to increase through the 1970s, but even by 1990 it remained under 4 percent of the national vineyard. Paarl and Stellenbosch had and continue to have the largest Cabernet plantings, but it is to be found virtually everywhere to some extent, such is its comparatively forgiving nature and its reputation for quality. There is a great deal of high-cropping Cabernet churned out, for example, by the cooperatives of the warmest regions (from the Swartland to Robertson); these wines are usually just about acceptable, adequately fruity and ripe, often with the expected pseudo-serious gloss supplied by oak chips but with tannins reined in by clever winemaking. Particularly at that level, no customers expect to have to wait a few years for tannins to soften before drinking their Cabernets.
The same truth applies at more ambitious levels too, in most instances, although some of the most classic, such as Vergelegen’s, can be austere in their youth. But the majority of the best, while they should improve with at least five years in bottle, are made to provide satisfaction at release: with forward fruit, ripely smooth, and soft tannin and acid structures. If the expensive new oak is still very obvious, as it often is—well, many of the customers expect that and, sadly, welcome it as a sign of quality, or at least of price. These are, in any case, truths common to all red wines and also hardly unique to the Cape. Tannic or early-charming, Cabernet Sauvignon remains undoubtedly the grandest of the Cape’s red wine grapes, its prestige enhanced by its association with some of the finest red blends—though challenged these days by some Syrahs and a few Pinot Noirs.
Cabernet remains comfortably ahead of Syrah as the most planted red variety in the Cape, although at the end of 2011 it was down a little from its peak in 2004, but still more than double the hectarage of fifteen years previously. In 2000, well over 40 percent of the vines were under four years of age; now, as the vineyards mature, that figure is less than 3 percent. There are now more than 12,000 hectares planted, nearly half of them in the Stellenbosch-Paarl heartland.
Merlot
Merlot’s critical reputation in the Cape is even more uneasy than it is in, say, California or Australia. Although there are a few good examples, many show an overtly herbaceous element, often expressed as mint, and often combined with an ultraripe lushness consequent on late harvesting that has endeavored to combat the greenness. Like Cabernet, it was widely planted, but proved less forgiving of unsuitable soils and climates. Its supposed tendency to make soft, round, and supple wines when compared with most of the other Bordeaux black grapes means first that it has historically been used in the Cape, as in Bordeaux and elsewhere, more frequently as a contributor to blends than for a varietal wine. Second, where it has been offered alone (sometimes with a stiffening of Cabernet), it has acquired the status of a particularly easygoing style of wine as much as a variety—even if not so markedly here as the film Sideways showed the case to be in the United States.
It seems that the little Merlot that was around in the 1970s was used for blending, and it was certainly planted by Billy Hofmeyr at Welgemeend in that decade for his Bordeaux blend. It has also worked well as a partner to Pinotage, at Middelvlei for example. Overgaauw is credited with the first varietal bottling for its 1982 Merlot. There are now nearly as many varietal Merlots as there are Bordeaux-style blends, though not as many as there are Cabernet Sauvignons, and they are in most cases less ambitious and less expensive wines than either of those two categories. A few consistently good Merlots are made, including those of Thelema and Bein. As with other “noble reds,” but even more than most, plantings of Merlot increased substantially over the fifteen years to 2011, and it now occupies more than 6 percent of the total vineyard, in third place among the reds and seventh overall. There is a wide distribution (cool Elgin has a promising newcomer from Shannon Vineyards, for example), but Stellenbosch and greater Paarl have the largest plantings.
Cabernet Franc
For much of the twentieth century there was a little Cabernet Franc grown alongside Cabernet Sauvignon, gaining more recognition with the rise of the Bordeaux-style blend, of which it came to be seen as an increasingly useful part, adding some perfume, complexity, and even elegance. It was widely observed to perform extremely well in a number of areas (the Helderberg in Stellenbosch has been rather more associated with Franc than anywhere else), and it became ever more used in such blends and started playing a larger role in some of them. It had a parallel career as a solo performer, with Landskroon the pioneer here, and there are now a few dozen varietal Francs, some of them (such as Raats, Warwick, Raka, and Buitenverwachting) very good. It is generally producers aiming at elegance who want Franc, who also delight in its aromatic profile and are not scared (when “herbaceous” tends to be a term of abuse in red wine) to welcome the leafy note that often, but not always, accompanies even ripe Franc grapes. Growth in plantings has been fairly spectacular: there are now more than 1,000 hectares devoted to it, a threefold growth over fifteen years. Franc is most important to the wines of Stellenbosch, greater Paarl, and Constantia.
Petit Verdot
It was long thought that Welgemeend contained Petit Verdot, but this proved to be a misidentification, and the 1996 figure of 10.3 hectares of Petit Verdot might even have been exaggerated. In the years since then, however, from that minuscule base it has seen proportionately the fastest growth of any variety: by 2011 there were 675 hectares. An increasing number of varietal wines have been made—some twenty-five by 2013 (possibly more as experiments than with deep conviction about the suitability of the grape for going solo, and none are immensely convincing)—but undoubtedly the main purpose of its cultivation has been, as in Bordeaux, to use it to complement the other traditional varieties in the blend, adding complexity and sometimes depth of color.
Malbec
What is true of Petit Verdot is also true to only a slightly lesser extent of Malbec, in terms of growth and its role in the blend. But Malbec might well soon outstrip Petit Verdot, not because of its actual or theoretical usefulness in blends but because of its suitability as a varietal wine—with the imprimatur of Argentina. There are already about thirty audaciously fruity and delicious Malbecs made (including Annex Kloof, Paul Wallace, High Constantia, and Diemersfontein, for example) and probably there will be more, as more producers and consumers become aware of the variety’s charms.
Other Bordeaux-Related Black Grapes
It might be fanciful to associate Pontac with Bordeaux, just because the name connects it to the well-known historical family from there and therefore with the associated area south of Bordeaux city. But Perold showed that Pontac, so important here in the nineteenth century, was identical with Teinturier (the original “dyer” grape, also known as Teinturier Mâle or du Cher). It seems to have come to the Cape in the seventeenth century (when it was also first noted in France). Its great career in old Constantia had late echoes in a number of fortified sweet wines, and a few table wines were made until the 1990s, but the last heavily virused block has now been pulled out. It would seem the last wine made in South Africa from Pontac was a Cape Vintage port from De Wet Cellar in Worcester; but in fact, it looks as though four Pontac vines were saved by the relevant authorities and cleared of virus, and at least one commercial winegrower is intent on propagating it once more.
It was thought for some time that the local crossing called Roobernet, released in 1990, was derived from Pontac and Cabernet Sauvignon, but tests in 2007 proved the parents to be Cabernet and Alicante Bouschet (the latter is a French crossing with Teinturier in its background, so that Roobernet is indeed related to Pontac). It scarcely matters: there are still only some 140 hectares planted, and Roobernet seems unassured of a great destiny.
Ruby Cabernet is quantitatively much more important, although this high-yielding American cross between Cabernet Sauvignon and Carignan is of no great significance for high-quality wine. There is a good deal of it about—mostly in the hotter areas, particularly Worcester, for which it was bred—and it actually ranks ninth in surface area: at well over 2,000 hectares nearly triple the area it occupied in 1992 (it was