Out of Africa: Grape explorations of South Africa
It wasn’t too long ago that South Africa was considered a wine region out of touch with its winemaking talent, which goes to show just how far the country has come.
Since embracing democracy and re-joining the global wine trade some two decades ago, South Africa’s wine industry, much like the country itself, has undergone a tumultuous yet explorative journey to rediscover its potential. Much of that exploration is only now starting to bear fruit, with old vines being rediscovered, winemakers’ reliance on co-operatives ever lessening, and new plantings bringing a new level of diversity to its offer. While there is still work to be done, gone are the once all-too common complaints of quality control, ill-ripened fruit and burnt rubber, the latter with regard to Pinotage. Instead, exclamations of the country’s rapid advancement, improving quality and boundless potential are more commonly bandied about the trade. This shift in perception has been swift, shifting up a gear following 2012’s Cape Wine, and it is now almost impossible to ignore the vast leaps and bounds in terms of quality that this Old-meets-New World producer has made in the past decade.
Post-democracy progress
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> Experimental plantings of new varieties have exploded with everything from Nero d’Avola, Grüner Veltliner and Barabarossa finding a new home on the Cape.
> Driving this experimentation is a need to plant varieties that require less irrigation, following several increasingly dry vintages.
> South Africa is rediscovering old vine plantings, with Cinsault, Palomino and Chenin all witnessing a resurgence.
> Cinsault is enjoying a revival, with old vine, single vineyard expressions helping to refresh perceptions of it.
> An Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and South Africa came into effect this year, raising the country’s quota of duty-free exports wine exports in two litre or less formats into the EU from 48 million to 110 million litres, encouraging the industry to up its bottled exports.
> 60% of South Africa’s total exports are bulk, with the industry working to reduce this to 40% by 2025.
This progress has been made despite the industry’s on-going battle for profitability, weak currency, lack of government subsidies and free trade agreements with countries such as the UK and China, which its competitors including Chile and Argentina benefit from. It’s fair to say that South Africa has been somewhat on the back foot. Offering a modicum of support, this year an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU came into effect, which saw South Africa’s quota of duty-free exports to the EU in two litre or less formats double from 48 million to 110m litres,promoting bottled over bulk exports, which currently account for 60% of South Africa’s exports. The country’s Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP) is now working to reduce this to 40% by 2025. But while bureaucratic barriers are likely to remain an obstacle, it hasn’t hampered the ambition or speed with which the country’s winemakers have upped their offer.
“South Africa has been producing wine for hundreds of years, but post democracy it has just motored,” says Jo Wehring of Wines of South Africa. “With South Africa it’s hard to summarise its varieties. You have Stellenbosch championing Cabernet Sauvignon and beautiful Chenin Blanc, which are varieties you would think are traditional rather than new wave until you see how they are being used in blends with Mediterranean varieties and from single vineyards. Traditional and new wave varieties are being experimented with in the country, and both are driving quality.”
Of late, the country’s white blends and international varieties such as Syrah and Chardonnay have hit the headlines, which are promisingly profitable endeavors. Bordeaux and Mediterranean-style white blends now account for some of the country’s top drops, with the latter relying on Chenin Blanc – the country’s most planted grape variety. However, the precariously narrow gap between profits and production costs hasn’t stopped Cape winemakers from experimenting with new varieties.
“There’s a lot of freedom in South Africa and a real sense of not having to stick to a set of rules,” adds Wehring. “All of this is happening at a time when the industry is undergoing a huge learning curve in terms of understanding terroir and which varieties work well where. The industry is coming of age and developing a unique personality and style.”
Between 2011 and 2015, fifteen new varieties have been planted in South Africa, not accounting for those planted this year, with everything from Nero d’Avola and Nebbiolo to Grüner Veltliner, Assyrtiko and Alicante Bouschet on the radar of winemakers. Adi Badenhorst of Badenhorst Family Wines released South Africa’s first Barbarossa in 2015, following the 2014 vintage, with the second 2015 vintage released this year. He has since planted a second vineyard with the same variety. Similarly, Diemersdal released the third vintage of South Africa’s only Grüner Veltliner this year. Based in Durbanville, one of South Africa’s coolest wine producing regions, Diemersdal’s winemaker Thys Louw felt Grüner would suit its terroir, but admits that you never really know if it’s going to work, which, he says, is part of the fun. “I get quite a kick out of it,” he says. “It’s like a new baby that you don’t know the gender of yet. You don’t know how it’s going to grow and that’s exciting.”
For Eben Sadie, one of the Cape’s foremost experimental winemakers, discovering and planting new varieties is not just a niche offshoot of South Africa’s commercial offer, but vital to its long-term sustainability. As water scarcity becomes a growing concern, discovering and planting grapes that can withstand heat and drought will be crucial.
“We work with a massive range of varieties in the hope that they will respond better and imbed into our region’s DNA better, with better results in terms of water conservation, preservation of natural acidity and lower alcohol levels,” explains Eben Sadie of Sadie Family Wines. “Regardless of the debate over global warming, in the past 20 years we have experienced drier and warmer vintages,” he adds.
“What we are trying to do is find varieties that consume much less water. All the vineyards that we are planting are completely dry farmed. Irrigation is not sustainable. No one in the world can prove that water availability will be there forever. We need to find farming techniques that are sustainable. Grenache Noir uses half of the water than that of Merlot in our climate. It’s logical that one should plant these varieties.”
No stranger to introducing new varieties to the Cape, Sadie has already toyed with the likes of Grillo, Fiano, Cataratto, Assyrtiko, Agiorgitiko, Xinomavro and Verdelho, to name but a few. This year Sadie planted Alicante Bouschet, a red variety from southern Portugal, and Counoise, another red from the southern Rhône but which is also found in California. Both hail from similarly Mediterranean climates, mirroring South Africa’s own climate.
“A lot of people tell me I’m crazy to plant these varieties and say how am I going to sell them,” says Sadie. “I don’t care. I just want to learn. You have to plant because if you don’t nobody can ever tell you that it won’t work.”
Of the grapes he has planted and vinified, Sadie reports “phenomenal results” with Assyrtiko – which has great resistance to sunburn and drought – but cites Verdelho as being the most adaptable to South Africa’s climate having planted it in a range of soil types. “It’s a grape that’s taken up a new home,” he says. “It’s happy here.”
Out of Africa
Nero d’Avola, a red grape native to Sicily, is another variety that has found a home in South Africa, specifically at Bosman Family Wines in Wellington. Arriving to the Cape in 2004, only two vines survived the journey and quarantine. This plant material was propagated and grafted onto Cabernet Sauvignon vines to plant a vineyard just 60 vines in size, leading to the inaugural 2013 vintage. However, it wasn’t until the 2014 vintage that the bottle was able to bear the name Nero d’Avola, after it was recognised as a variety in South Africa’s government gazette.
“I think wine consumers are more inquisitive than ever before,” says Bosman winemaker Corlea Fourie. “For people to be able to taste a Nero d’Avola from South Africa and compare it to one from Sicily is interesting – it’s a talking point and people love that. It gives the grape a new expression – a unique South African expression.”
Bosman is currently working on bringing Xarel-lo, the Spanish white variety typically used to make Cava, to the Cape. It will be a further six years until the vines are out of quarantine, propagated, planted, harvested and vinified, with Bosman setting its sights on becoming the first to produce a South African Xarel-lo dry white and MCC sparkler.
Also recognising the potential of Spanish varieties on the Cape is Newton Johnson, based in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley. The team began its investigation into Albariño a decade ago driven by its search for a “quintessentially coastal” variety to reflect the Cape’s oceanic influences. Eventually sourcing plant material from California, it bottled South Africa’s first Albariño following the 2014 harvest, with its 2015 vintage recently awarded 92 points in Tim Atkin’s 2016 South Africa report.
“We have changed so much as an industry in the last 70 years,” explains Bevan Newton Johnson, managing director of Newton Johnson. “Now it’s about pushing what we have done. In some ways wine is wine and to try and expand it so quickly is dangerous, but it’s also exciting. We have so much more that we can still explore in the Cape and it has got to be done through trial and error.”
Notably, the cultivation of niche varieties is not confined to similarly niche producers. As momentum for alternative varieties builds, larger producers have taken note, launching their own experimental lines to explore unchartered varieties. KWV, which was founded as a co-op in 1918 and dominated South Africa’s wine and spirits industry until the end of apartheid, launched its Mentors range to carry out more experimental fermentations. Created in a smaller winery, the range works to identify new grapes that could be suited to larger scale production, allowing its winemakers to initially experiment with different varieties, blends and styles on a smaller scale.
“For example, we can’t experiment with wild yeast in a commercial winery, so we isolated it,” explains Isobel Armstrong, general manager of KWV for Europe. “It’s a completely different process using 4,500 litre tanks – smaller tanks that we can experiment in. I think it gives winemakers an element of artistry. It allows our winemakers to create things that they just couldn’t in a commercial environment.”
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The best results are transferred to the larger winery to produce a second wine, in addition to the original Mentor version, scaling up experimental efforts to create a more commercial version. Currently, Grenache Blanc, Petit Verdot and Verdelho are ripe for exploration.
While many winemakers are breaking new ground by planting new varieties, others are looking to the past to further their offer. Sadie is working on Massal selections of historic grapes including Palomino, Semillon Gris, Cinsault and Chenin to “preserve the amazing strains that have mutated over generations”.
“We have a deal here in the Swartland, and it’s about completely new things being started, but one must always embrace the things of the past that might have fallen out of fashion,” he says.
“Twenty years ago you couldn’t sell a bottle of Palomino – it’s associated as a Sherry grape and not very high quality. But if you get a Palomino vineyard that’s 80 years old you can make a wonderful wine, and that’s how varieties from the past can come back and be revived. Fashion and the ‘big five’ – Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Chardonnay – have taken a big chunk out of regional grapes.
“They are the Mussolini grapes of the wine world. People plant them because they feel they can sell the wines but I always say you must not plant what sells, you must plant what belongs.”
Marinda Kruger-Van Eck winemaker at Boutinot agrees, noting that one of the problems of the past was that South Africa was “trying to be everything”.
“If someone wanted Sauvignon Blanc they planted it whether it was suited or not,” she says. “They just wanted it on the list. In that way we really damaged our appearance to the outside world. From the 1990s to ‘95 with Nelson Mandela, everything has been lifted and we are more exposed to the wider world. Our vineyards are getting older. If you are a producer you must really think about what suits the soil and what suits your climate. We have different pockets of micro climates which shows our diversity.”
One variety benefitting from this shift is Cinsault, once South Africa’s most planted grape, but which currently accounts for just 1,863 hectares. Plantings have actually decreased by 5.9% since 2011. However, this doesn’t mean its popularity is on the wane. Quite the opposite in fact, with its revival driven by the rediscovery of old vines rather than new plantings.
“In the 70s everyone planted it because it has big bunches and high yields, but it was never championed as a single varietal – it all went into dry red blends,” explains Kruger-Van Eck. “What’s happened now is that the growers that haven’t ripped it up because they couldn’t afford to take it up and replant, those vineyards are now quite old, and what’s fantastic is that with age comes balance and elegance.”
Recalling her time as a student, Kruger-Van Eck remembers Cinsault as having a “stinky feet” character.
“It was tannic and hard to drink and I was put off completely,” she says. “I think a lot of consumers were as well. It’s elegant, less tannic and fruitier now. It’s just lovely to drink.”
Sadie Family Wines was responsible for the first single vineyard Cinsault, Pofadder, in 2009. Now there are 35, reports Sadie, and again it’s not just from smaller boutique producers that are making a play for Cinsault.
“What’s great is that big players like Distell are now extensively using Cinsault, and not only at the lower end,” says Sadie. “They are upgrading grapes for their blends, so it’s not only in niche wines, it’s big scale. It’s a true revival.”
Twenty years on from the dawn of democracy, South Africa’s modern wine journey is far from nearing completion. Far from settled with their lot, winemakers are continuing their search for South Africa’s grape equivalent of the Holy Grail, planting new varieties in a range of terroirs in the hopes of unlocking the next big thing.
“There are more guys that have the freedom to do what they want to do. We have seen an incredible amount in the last 5-6 years,” says Bevan Newton-Johnson. “For me it’s about how the 10th vintage of what we are seeing now shows. We have to make the most of this moment and see the maturity, which I think will be at an even more exciting level than where we are currently.”
With most new plantings less than five vintages in, their real contribution to South Africa’s wine offer are year’s off being realised, but their growing presence in the Cape is a sign of its winemakers’ growing optimism and ambition for the future.
As Sadie admits, he will probably have to pull out a lot of these vines in 10 years time after discovering they are not suited to the terroir. However, such a scenario, he says, would be far from a failure, given the prize he has set his sights on.
“Imagine, you could find the next red grape for this country that’s undeniably majestic. That would be a huge contribution and a legacy to leave behind.”
