When winegrowers come to the Cape from different traditions, intent on making fine, distinctive wines, do they relate to those traditions or to what they find here – or is there no real conflict? Angela Lloyd visits Ingwe and Vilafonte to find some answers.

Top Australian winemaker and commentator Brian Croser, for one, brushes off the notion that regional wine styles can be categorised as New or Old World. As he indicated in his interview in Grape 23, he bases essential differences on quality and approach: ‘branded commodity wines’, and wine which is ‘differentiated, more cerebral, always regionally and often site identified’.

While the debate continues about a ‘Cape style’, Croser would avoid comparisons: ‘South African wine is a product of that part of the old Gondwanaland geology and the climate created by the junction of three, not two, oceans….’

How do ambitious foreigners relate to that ‘old Gondwanaland’? There’s a telling comparison to be made between Alain Moueix from Bordeaux, owner of Ingwe, and the Californian husband and wife team, Phil Freese and Zelma Long, partners with Warwick’s Mike Ratcliffe in an even newer venture, Vilafonte.

Two traditions

On one side we have a member of a famous Bordelais wine family – Moueix manages Châteaux Mazèyres in Pomerol and Fonroque in St Emilion. On the other, a duo highly esteemed in the modern world – Long has been one of California’s most eminent winemakers; she and Freese now consult in South Africa as well as in the US.

All are committed to their Cape ventures: these are no absentee owners, but active participants. All feel deeply about the country and its potential, particularly about wine but also about its people and future.

Freese and Long first came to the Cape in 1990. ‘We both realised then that it can make great site-specific wines’, says Long. Further visits and experience encouraged them to buy land, initially with Michael Back as a partner; later they bought him out and teamed up with Ratcliffe.

Moueix’s first visit was in 1996. He, too, saw potential for fine wine. ‘The climate and soil are right for a wine with balance and elegance’, he maintains, enthusing about the many possibilities in a comparatively young wine-producing country, while only small improvements are possible in strictly regulated Bordeaux. Reliable harvest weather was another attraction. Ingwe’s excellent soils tempted Moueix to buy the property in 1997.

This quietly-spoken vigneron has a classical palate and open mind, a combination that might capture the best of all worlds. His training was traditional, but his views have been formed from far and wide, including two years in New Zealand: ‘I wanted to go somewhere far away to get another perspective.’

The appeal of the soil

To the unpractised eye, neither Moueix’s Ingwe nor Freese-Long’s Vilafonte appears special. The immediate surroundings are even unprepossessing; no grand gates, gardens or houses – in fact, neither yet has a cellar! The attraction lies in the soil: on both properties predominantly a mix of gravel and clay.

Ingwe (Xhosa for leopard, which used to roam the area), between Somerset West and Sir Lowry’s Pass village, lies on the lower, southerly facing slopes of the Schaapenberg. It directly faces the wind gusting off False Bay, which reduces risk of fungal diseases, and brings temperatures around 4°C lower than in Stellenbosch.

Draw a line 25 kilometres almost due north from Ingwe and you’re at Vilafonte, just outside Paarl. The name appropriately reflects the project’s site-specific nature, deriving from the farm’s major soil type, Vilafontes. Flanked by Glen Carlou to the south and Fairview to the north, the vineyards are off the track known as the Simonsvlei road. ‘Next to the Santé Wellness Centre, useful if we get too stressed out!’, suggests Freese.

In his years consulting here, Freese has observed the issues winegrowers are dealing with. He reckons locals, like most in the New World, plant on soils with too high potential. ‘Low capacity sites produce a smaller vine structure’, he says. ‘We plant 5200 vines per hectare as against the general trend of 2400. With the proper practices, little remedial viticulture, such as topping, sideshoot or leaf removal and excessive shoot positioning, is necessary. Yet, many people who see the vineyard think, ”Oh shame, poor small vines!”’

Ingwe has a similar vine density. ‘Smaller space between rows creates lots of competition for the vines, resulting in smaller vines and smaller grapes’, Moueix’s viticulturist Francois Baard confirms. The Frenchman agrees: ‘Close planting produces less crop but better quality.’

Ingwe’s 24 hectares in production (a further ten are planned for) include the major Bordeaux varieties. The eponymous flagship blends merlot and cabernet (emphasis on the former variety perhaps reflecting Moueix’s Pomerol and St-Emilion wines). These also go into the second red, Amehlo, along with cabernet franc, petit verdot, malbec – and shiraz, a variety not allowed in Bordeaux. Sauvignon blanc is now matched with bought-in semillon in a Graves-style white blend, also named Amehlo (the Xhosa for eye).

Vilafonte has the same Bordeaux-style mix (without shiraz), apart from petit verdot. ‘This variety seems to have variable success in South Africa’, says Freese, noting that malbec’s freshness makes up for petit verdot’s structural qualities. Concerned about the status of the virus-free material and the clonal selection available, Freese and Long have, for now, planted only 12 of Vilafonte’s 43 hectares.

Amongst the vines

If soil is one key to quality, vine management is another. Irrigation serves quality, not quantity, on both properties. For example, Freese and Moueix agree on how to treat the vine at veraison (when the grapes start to change colour). ‘Vines must have a little stress before veraison for a rich, fine wine’, Moueix emphasises. ‘However, if the vine is over-stressed, the wine will lack finesse and finish and have no ageing potential.’ Or, as Freese puts it: `Two weeks before veraison we give the vines a near-death experience, then we irrigate and tell them “just kidding!”.’ (Freesian humour can make the most arcane viticultural methods graspable.)

What is a perfectly ripe grape? This is the real teaser. ‘When to pick’, Long insists, ‘is the most important decision’. Experience from previous vintages supplements walking the vineyards looking at berry condition, including seed colour and depth and evenness of skin colour, and tasting for condition and thickness of skins, softness of tannin and intensity and character of flavour, analysis being a further guide.

As the personality of each block emerges more clearly year by year, so harvesting decisions become easier. Ingwe’s resident winemaker PJ Geyer, supporting Moueix’s vision, also finds it vital to attentively monitor the berries.

In the cellar

Viticultural effort has its counterpart in both cellars. Ingwe currently uses part of an old dynamite factory at Macassar; Vilafonte borrows space at Tokara, whose winemaker, Miles Mossop, keeps a caring eye on the barrels while Long and Freese are in California.

‘Getting terroir into the glass requires that one knows each vat.’ Geyer’s opinion suggests there’s more to winemaking than applying a recipe. Long agrees: It can take four to five years to learn how to make wine from a specific site. By treating each block individually, one discovers its personality.’ Her options currently comprise seven blocks of cabernet sauvignon, two of merlot and one each of cabernet franc and malbec, each with its own clone, rootstock and irrigation programme. This selection makes it clear just what a long curve there is in learning to get the best out of the grapes.

Trying to capture each site’s personality, both winemakers follow a minimal-interventionist approach. ‘Every time one puts something into a tank is a minus; every time it is left alone for a month is a plus’, as Geyer puts it.

This restrained approach is also directed at oaking. Vintage determines the amount of new oak and length of maturation in Long’s barrels. Similarly, ‘the wine doesn’t always go back into wood after blending’, says Geyer, ‘only if we think it’s necessary.’

Blending is another commonality. Both French and Californian parties agree that, beyond offering diversity, or simply reflecting flavour choices, blends can aid the interpretation of site. Initial choices are not always right. Says Long: ‘We intended making a first and a second wine, then that idea changed to just one first wine. But when I saw the variation in the blocks, we decided to make two different styles. So our blends are not based on variety, more on blocks to fit the style.’ The ‘Series M’ is designed in a more fruit-forward, supple style (the 2003 is merlot, malbec with cabernet sauvignon and a splash of franc), while cabernet-based Series C should have greater structure and power. While being partly guided by his Pomerol/St-Emilion experience, Moueix also blends according to style of the components available.

The wines

The visions behind the wines originated in two different worlds, though the similarities in approach between the two enterprises are clear. The youthful wines themselves display distinct personalities.

Ingwe is linear with compact tannins, its dusty veil shielding reference to variety yet not the sense of rich vinosity that will become more evident with time. Although approaching 14%, the wine has a freshness lending vibrancy and lightness. The essential balance should allow for many years’ maturation. One can find something classically French in Ingwe’s understatement and bearing, and also links to the Bordeaux blends from its Schaapenberg neighbours, Vergelegen and Morgenster.

The Vilafonte duo impress with power and elegance. Superbly balanced, the tannins, slightly broader than those in the Ingwe, are silky, supple and dry. The weighty mouthfeel is offset by a refreshing minerality; Series M does, by design, have more expressive red fruit character and accessibility than Series C, but essentially both are classically styled in the modern idiom. Yet one would not be wrong in noticing a family resemblance to neighbour Glen Carlou’s Grand Classique.

It would be easy to think that Moueix’s French influence has a strong bearing on Ingwe’s more traditional side and that the modernity of the Vilafonte wines stems from Freese and Long’s Californian heritage. Yet both also reflect the opposite characteristics.

With so few vintages achieved, it would be presumptuous to already lay claim to precise terroir in either Ingwe or Vilafonte wines. Nevertheless, there’s an unforced distinction, a sense of them being what they are, rather than designed according to the winemaker’s whims – or cultural origins. Freese would agree they uphold his slogan ‘Different by design’ – the design of the sites they come from. And if that is a glimpse of the old Gondwanaland as expressed through present day South Africa, Brian Croser would be pleased.