TN: South Africa

Notes from a blind tasting of South African wines.

These wines have always been more European in style than the Australian wines which started out as quite different styles, influenced by the common usage of American oak – kind of a Napa South situation. The South African wines have always been more European in style, often being almost copies of French wines, for instance. This blind tasting was quite interesting.

2018 Boekenhootskloof Semillon – light lemony colour, smooth middle and clean acidity at the end. At first we mistook it as a sauvignon blanc but as it opened up one of us came up with Semillon and things clicked into lace. Nice wine.

1994 Kanonkop Paul Sauer – this flagship wine is a Bordeaux blend – cab sauv, cab franc and merlot. It showed as quite European, with red fruit and cigar box notes, well balanced, long and tasty. Only the colour at the edges indicated age.

2017 Glenelly Lady May – interesting story on this one – the property is owned by May de Lencquesaing, of Pichon Lalande, (now 101 years old) who started up this South African winery making Bordeaux style wines. This one was excellent with medium colour, superb balance and a claret nose with some herbal and oak elements toward the end. Excellent wine!

2022 Rall Syrah – plum/raspberry flavours, long and elegant with a smooth medium length finish that had some pepper to it. A new one for me and as a Northern Rhone lover, a treat.

2016 Scali Syrah – another producer new to me. Darker, sweeter, youthful nose and darker sweeter fruit. Good length and showing some nice spice at the end.

2002 De Toren Fusion V – a blend of Bordeaux varietals this wine was showing a very claret like nose Smooth and soft on palate, a great claret imposter at peak now. From my cellar – I ‘discovered’ this wine when it first came into our market and bought quite a bit of it and still have nine vintages – time to do a vertical tasting, I think. This vintage was a blend of 60% cab sauv, 14% merlot, 14% malbec, 8% cab franc and 4% petit verdot.

2007 L’Ormarins Optima – sweet nose, dark wine, still tannic with good stuffing/intensity. Nice hint of anise on the finish, and some cedar in the nose. Quite good.

Bill's original post seems to have disappeared, but it sounded like a great lineup. I love the Boekenhoutskloof Semillon, but just don't see it here anymore. It ages really well. Sad I missed the Paul Sauer too!

[Jenise]

Oh crap! I apparently wrote my response over his post, a terrible mistake. I'll see if I can't restore it.

[Jenise]

Okay, all fixed!

My responses to Bill's notes: Not sure who your 'we' is, but Bob A and I both thought it might be chenin. As someone who drinks a lot of SB--not even close. But it was indeed quite nice.

Your Kanonkop was luscious and I followed it with my Glenelly because the grape constituency was almost identical. And you could taste that--almost the same wine, 20 years apart. (Btw, to prep it I uncorked it for 12 hours then decanted it overnight.) The DeToren was also similar but with broader midpalate flavors--perhaps because of the other two grapes. The fourth cab blend of the day, my L'Ormarins, was the outlier. It had the aged, leathery notes of the other wines but with some pretty hard tannins. I did not decant it at home--only at your house as it was a last-minute choice to bring it.

I enjoyed the two syrahs.

And last night, I tasted the remnants of the two wines I brought. The Glenelly was still superb, but the L'Ormarins was oxidizing.

It WAS a fun tasting, particularly as there were several producers that I wasn't familiar with. Back in the day when we has a club for these wines, I knew everything (it was limited of course) that sold here and they sponsored a wine festival as well. I think that it is the European bent they have that I find immediately attractive. No excess wood as we see in American and Spanish wines (only some of them, obviously).

Remind me to do a De Toren vertical some time.

Nice wines there. SA pickings in Alberta are hit and miss with many of the big names missing. Same in BC when I visit there.
France? Found some Baudry in a small BC govt store that from outside did not impress apperance wise!

2017 Glenelly Lady May – interesting story on this one – the property is owned by May de Lencquesaing, of Pichon Lalande, (now 101 years old) who started up this South African winery making Bordeaux style wines. This one was excellent with medium colour, superb balance and a claret nose with some herbal and oak elements toward the end. Excellent wine!

She was the owner of the Bordeaux 2nd Growth Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande; when she had problems with descendants about succession she sold the Bordeaux property, and started from scratch in Stellenbosch. Interestingly from the start she planted non Bordeaux varieties Syrah & Chardonnay along with Cabs S & F, Merlot and Petite Verdot and Syrah is blended with Bordeaux varieties in the Estate Reserve red.

The winery is built into a cliff which used to be a quarry and it has a glass wall offering super views of the countryside