Cape Point Fairtrade Sauvignon Blanc, South Africa 2022 (£7, The Co-op) South Africa makes some fabulous fine wines, made by producers who go to sometimes extreme lengths to find their plots of old vines in remote and unusual places, and which taste like they could only come from a specific part of the world. That’s one side of the story. The other is the winelands’ ability to create excellent-value bottles filled with what wine people call ‘varietal character’: ie wines that taste like the grape they’re made from. In many cases, the producer behind the bargain £7 bottle and the winemaker producing the arrestingly evocative ‘wine of place’ are one and the same. Such is the case with Cape Point, on the southern tip of the Cape, which makes the outstandingly rich but incisive Isliedh 2020 (£39.75, thewhiskyexchange.com) and the zippy, mouthwatering Fairtrade bottling at The Co-op.
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Fairtrade Chenin Blanc, South Africa 2022 (£8.50, Sainsbury’s) Sauvignon blanc has become one of the Cape’s calling cards in recent years, its producers having hit on a happy medium of a style that sits very well between the more restrained nettly greenness of the Loire, and the vivaciously expressive style of New Zealand. But sauvignon is still some way off competing with South Africa’s biggest and brightest varietal star, chenin blanc, which is behind an outsized proportion of the Cape’s most interesting wines. Those bottles might be great-value single-varietal expressions, such as the lively and tropically tangy dry white from Sainsbury’s. Or white blends in which chenin stars, such as two from one of the Cape’s most creative winemakers, Adi Badenhorst: the peachy, fresh The Curator White Blend 2022 (£8.99, Waitrose) and the astonishingly complex Kalmoesfontein White 2020 (£32.95, swig.co.uk).
Stellenrust Old Bush Vine Cinsault, South Africa 2021 (£9.99, Waitrose) The red grape with which South Africa is most associated, and which you really don’t find to any great extent anywhere else, is one that even South African winemakers haven’t always found easy to love: over the years pinotage hasn’t so much divided opinion as set up a series of full-blown, red-in-the-face arguments about its merits. Recently, some of the heat has come out of the debate, as winemakers have learned to temper the sort of ashtray-and-bubblegum-style reds that turned so many drinkers away. It is best lending a leading supple character to a blend, such as the savoury Bordeaux-esque Kanonkop Kadette, Stellenbosch 2019 (£12, Tesco), and the gorgeously light, slinky, perfumed Rhône-ish combination with grenache, syrah and mourvèdre that is Maanschijn Herbarium, Walker Bay 2021 (£23.50, leaandsandeman.co.uk). For single-varietal red wines, meanwhile, I reckon pinotage is eclipsed by its parents: pinot noir and cinsault, with the latter responsible for the splash of summery red fruit and earthy tones of Stellenrust’s great-value red.
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