Making a Master: Spier 21 Gables Chenin Blanc 2023
“From the soil to the glass” this Master-winning wine is carefully planned. db speaks with Spier Cellar Master Johan Jordaan to uncover the dilligent work that goes into every stage.
Sometimes great wines are born of a single grand concept: a world-famous terroir, perhaps, or a revolutionary vinification technique. Others are equally impressive, but less eye-catching in their story. Instead they rely on careful, attentive winemaking, from the planting of the vine through to the sealed bottle.
Spier 21 Gables Chenin Blanc 2023 is a wine which fits that latter category. Spier is a dependable source of good value South African wine but, having recently won the title of Grand Master at The Global Chenin Blanc Masters 2025, its fine wine credentials are also beyond doubt. Yet its quality is the result of subtle, considered decisions.
“To make great wine,” explains Johan Jordaan, Cellar Master at Spier, “you need patience, an inquisitive mind, grit, tenacity, and a very high degree of attention to detail.”
He continues: “Great wines are seldom made by neglect. Walk by your vines, see them, tend to them and – once in the cellar – apply the science, taste regularly and guide the wine to greatness.”
So what were those small steps that created a world-beating wine. db lifts the lid on how Spier made its Master.
Led by the land
“We plan the wine from the soil to the glass,” says Jordaan. The wines at Spier begin their journey with careful site selection, laying the groundwork for decades of harvests and winemaking. “As far as possible, we try to marry the terroir with the style of wine we want to make.”
Spier has access to a wide range of vineyards from around the Cape and so Jordaan and his team can craft a similarly wide range of varieties and styles. For the 21 Gables Chenin Blanc, however, quality lies in specificity.
The wine uses grapes from a single vineyard in the hills of Tygerberg near Cape Town. It is a privileged position, where the cooling influence of the Atlantic helps retain acidity while the Malmesbury shale soils allow dryland farming for high quality fruit. Further concentration comes from the vines themselves: it is a certified heritage vineyard, planted between 1983 and 1985. At Spier, it is referred to as an “old soul” terroir.
Those specific vineyard conditions set the wine on a certain path: its combination of finesse, intensity and complexity is destined for premium winemaking. Yet every vintage requires careful management; a cool wet year might require the removal of vegetation while a hotter season would require adjusting the harvest. Waiting and watching is key.
Moreover, Jordaan sees a responsibility to protect such remarkable plots for future generations, meaning that even in purportedly ‘perfect’ seasons, there is still work to be done. “With our practises,” he says, “we also endeavour to regenerate the soil and take our farmers, farm workers and fellow winemakers on a journey to leave a light footprint but a lasting legacy.”
Such a sustainable approach demands time and energy too. “This is the result of 30 years of planning, failing, trying, succeeding and then starting all over again with history as our reference, not our master.”
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The winemaker’s choices
Even with a meticulous approach in the vineyard, there is still much work to be done in crafting the wine. Though he has several years of experience crafting each cuvée, Jordaan must make subtle changes to adapt every year.
“Winemaking can be as simple as a recipe,” he says, “but then you need to be happy with the outcome, regardless. Working with the vines for 18 years, you have a better understanding of what is needed for the terroir and wine to sing the perfect note. Due to the variations from one vintage to the next, consistency is achieved by taking a modular approach.”
In Spier’s 21 Gables Chenin Blanc 2023, that modular approach has led to a recurring theme in its winemaking. Jordaan sees it as an opportunity to find complexity in every aspect of the winemaking process: “a single varietal made like a blend”.
It began with the harvest. The grapes were picked in six lots over a period of nearly two weeks, selecting grapes of different ripeness with each pass. For Chenin Blanc, a variety which expresses itself well at many points of grape development, it represents a path to complexity in a monovarietal wine.
Once harvested, care is the operative word: the berries are carefully sorted, destemmed and crushed. They spend just six hours in contact with the skins, allowing transfer of phenolics without rendering the wine too heavy. After this, the free run juice drains off for settling overnight before inoculation.
Fermentation takes place in a mixture of French oak barrels, ranging from 300 litres to 2,500 litres. Once more, the process creates a wider palate of complex flavours, with their varying levels of oak influence balanced in the blending process. The wine reaches its final form with 10–12 months in barrel: 50% new and 50% second fill.
Success for the 2023 vintage
Conditions in 2023 were “fairly challenging” for South Africa, according to Jordaan. “There was a lot of unseasonal rainfall in late February leading into March, that delayed ripening of the fruit, but also extra risk of rotting grapes.”
The multi-pass approach to picking therefore took on double importance: it was not just a means of attaining complexity, but essential to harvesting a healthy crop.
Still, with the team’s attention, the year proved successful. Indeed, Jordaan says, it has given the vintage a particular character. “The wine is slightly more elegant than 2022,” he explains, “but that is what a cool, wetter vintage does. You find slightly more elegance with fresher acidity and finer texture.”
Judges at The Global Chenin Blanc Masters 2025 certainly judged it successful. The wine was named Grand Master – the very best wine of the competition – by the experts. Panel chair Patricia Stefanowicz MW offers her tasting note below.
Spier 21 Gables Chenin Blanc 2023
- Producer: Spier Wine Farm
- Region: Coastal Region
- Country: South Africa
- Grape variety: 100% Chenin Blanc
- ABV: 14%
- Approx. retail price: £25
A perennial award winner, this vintage of 21 Gables Chenin Blanc received our top award in 2025, Chenin Blanc Grand Master. Pale lemon yellow in colour, the wine shows yellow peach, apricot and quince fruit with toasty oak notes. The palate is light-bodied, bolstered by brisk acidity with creamy texture and a butterscotch nuance. A fine-quality wine that will match fresh salmon soufflé.
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