RECENT RELEASES
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End-of-year drinking (2)
Axe Hill, Eikendal,
Idiom,
Môreson,
Axe Hill White port-style wines are a rarity in South Africa, and we enjoyed this new tipple from Calizdorp-based Axe Hill, best known, of course for the red version that the late Tony Mossop established as one of the Cape’s best. From chenin blanc fortified to arrest the alcoholic fermentation at 71 grams per litre of residual sugar, and then aged in oak, this wine glimmers antique gold in the glass, has a slightly oxidised bouquet of nuts, blue cheese and tea leaf, and a dry and balanced, if uncomplex, palate. The 20% alcohol is integrated and gently warming. Only 450 litres of this maiden NV were produced, winemaker Miles Mossop using 225 litres each of the 2003 and 2004 vintages he’s ageing in oak. His intention is to build a solera, adding to it with every vintage, and then to fractionally blend with the maturing wines; this will, over time, gradually increase the blend’s complexity. As for the current release, it’s an ideal gift (the bottle looks really stunning) for that certain someone you always struggle to find something for. If you buy it for yourself, try it chilled with gazpacho or on its own on the rocks as you salute the final sunset of 2006. – CvZ
Eikendal Swiss-owned Eikendal, situated on the slopes of the Helderberg with sweeping views of False Bay, celebrated its 25th winemaking anniversary this year. The property is one of South Africa’s ‘evergreens’, consistently producing good-quality, value-for-money wines but seldom making headlines despite its frequent trips to the awards podium. The current winemaker, Henry Kotzé, arrived just two years ago after a lengthy stint at Neil Ellis Wines where, he is quick to point out, he learnt many valuable lessons, the most critical of which is the difference between a good winemaker and a great winemaker – attention to detail. Significantly, when asked what wine he sees himself as, Kotzé replies: ‘a Pomerol’: predominantly merlot for understated style, hints of cabernet franc for spice and youth and splashes of cabernet sauvignon for power and ageing potential. As to his wines: Janina 2006 is an unwooded chardonnay, named for the first granddaughter of one of the owners. We found it not very complex with just a hint of lemon blossom and spice on the nose. On the palate it was full-bodied and weighty with lime-like acidity, but we felt that there was not sufficient fruit flavours and that the wine relied on this acidity for its character. RP disagreed; he liked its austerity and thought it did show complexity; a few years, he suggests, will have it showing far better. By contrast, the oak-matured, 14% alcohol Classique – a blend of merlot and the two cabs in Kotzé’s Pomerol mould – found favour with all. Its bouquet was still very primary with lots of bright black fruit cabernet and meaty merlot characters. The palate is dense and powerful, somewhat modern in its force and focus. Firm yet fine tannins lead to a lingering, berry rich finish. The wine is structured for cellaring for up to 10 years, and we’d suggest you try to keep it locked away until 2008 at least.
Idiom There’s now quite a range of wines (all made in a big, bold manner) coming from the Da Capo vineyards near Somerset West and vinified at Whalehaven in Hermanus – both properties owned by the Bottega family. It's already quite a success story, with various 2004 wines doing well in competitions and often faring better, it must be said, than they did when we tasted them for Grape. We did, in fact, appreciate this new ‘Cape blend’ much more. In the modern, exuberant house style, it has plenty of clean, pure fruit, quite heavily extracted, with a good tannic structure, palpable sweetness, and a chewy substantiality working together with 14.5% alcohol to give quite a bit of power. The oaking is intelligently restrained (just 25% new oak, the rest older barrels) and the blend (half cab) works well, the 40% pinotage not dominating too much. It is still tight and young, and deserves to benefit from a few years of being tamed in the bottle. – TJ
Môreson If every bottle of Cap Classique is different (given the wine remains in the same bottle from initial bottling until it is sold) then so are the many styles (as this and the Twee Jongegezellen below) illustrate. This Franschhoek property's fizz is also a blend of red and white varieties, but here the red is pinotage (80%) with 20% Chardonnay. The colour is also more youthfully emphatic, a clear purple-tinged ruby, partially due to the local grape's generosity but also thanks to a day's skin contact prior to pressing. The strawberry fruit freshness we found is exactly the Môreson team's goal and the assertive, brisk bubble complements this more forward style. So don't expect it to display the depths of a long-aged MCC – a shortcoming noted by CvZ and RP – although the year it did rest on the lees has imparted the sort of harmonious texture that sets this method apart. If you're looking for an invigorating, lightish and dry bubbly, this should fit the bill, even if it is on the pricy side for what it is. – AL
Stellar Organics Stellar Winery is located 275km north of Cape Town in the semi-arid Namaqualand region. It is South African’s largest organic winery, as well as the world’s first organic accredited Fairtrade producer. Under this accreditation the consumer is assured that the products purchased are produced under ethical conditions at a fair price. Stellar assures no chemicals, pesticides or herbicides are used in growing the grapes; only compost and organic materials with indigenous vegetation are used for mulching. Sulphur additions are claimed to be no more than half of the permitted amount and certain chemicals are forbidden. New from this 5000 ton winery is a Reserve range from specially selected, handpicked grapes. The Sauvignon Blanc has a smoky nose perhaps more reductive than mineral, blowing off with some time in the glass. The palate is simple and fresh with little obvious fruit and while extremely acidic it is still dull. A whiff of the sea is the first noticeable aroma on the Chardonnay, CvZ suggesting it reminds her of green seaweed. A caramel character with slightly burnt finish appears to derive from the oak; these and rather over-generous acid negatively downplay more typical apricot characters. Not a wine that will benefit from keeping. Heaven on Earth, a dessert, straw-wine (from dried grapes), gave us all a lot more pleasure; it is rich, clean and textured with fresh apricots and orange marmalade. The glycerol texture is balanced by firm acidity leading to an un-cloying finish. It is not extravagant or too serious; perhaps more the fun side of Heaven. The difficult and time-consuming practice of straw-wine-making does warrant praise though, especially when this Muscat is dried on a bed of organic rooibos! – RP
Twee
Jongegezellen
Anticipating trends is a difficult and fine art but if
you're not the innovative, forward-thinking leader and first out in the
market with the latest buzz style, it's all too easy to miss the boat.
The trouble with Cap Classique is that it's not something that can be
produced overnight; good bubbly takes time – sadly, much local fizz is
being released too early due to its popularity – not this Rosé from the
Krone family who've been producing MCC bubbles for the past 20 years. It
might not be the first MCC in the current fashionable pink shade but
certainly shows the benefit of having spent six years gaining complexity
on its lees. A classic blend of chardonnay and pinot noir, the delicate
salmon hue has plenty of eye appeal. Whiffs of ginger biscuit, yeast and
honeyed toffee apple provide an authentic glimpse of the traditional
Champagne method of production; the sigh of the feather-light, creamy
mousse and harmonious refreshing quality on the palate yield a texture
of pure seduction, completed by the gently dry, rounded finish. TJ had a
small niggle finding a suggestion of phenolics, while RP thought the
finish a bit short. But as we reminded ourselves, with this method of
creating bubbles, each bottle ends up as an individual, really bearing
out the old saying ‘there are no great wines, only great bottles'.
Uva Mira To complement their widely acclaimed Chardonnay, this farm high on the slopes of the Helderberg (the highest of them all, in fact) has brought out an excellent blend of cabernet sauvignon with 18% merlot, and a little cab franc and shiraz. Alone of their range, the handsomely packaged wine carries nothing other than the estate’s name on its display label, suggesting that it is to be the flagship – a status it looks well set to deserve, judging by this maiden vintage from mostly younger vines. It’s in the modern idiom – deeply coloured, big, confident, emphatic, ripe, but the bordeaux-oriented subtlety in the cellar of young winemaker/viticulturist Matthew van Heerden means that it has a fresh elegance, and is untrammeled by heavy extraction or oak – just 30% new, for 18 months. There’s confidence, a fairly formidable but approachable structure, freshness, and no overstatement. Really, it deserves to rest in bottle for another half-decade at least, but if it is to be drunk soon it should be splashily decanted well in advance – even then you should notice evolution in the glass. I sampled our bottle with pleasure over three days, during which, if anything, it gained in interest of flavour, presaging a fine future. Another sign that this is a winery to watch with pleasure and expectation.
Vergenoegd Vergenoegd’s merlot vineyards are planted along Stellenbosch’s Eersterivier on alluvial soils, and so are quite vigorous. To curtail excessive growth, restrict yield and open up the canopy for better sunlight penetration, ripening and colour development, owner and winemaker John Faure oversees an extensive summer pruning programme. His care in the vineyards is usually reflected in his wines; we felt that the difficult 2002 vintage might also left its mark on this particular offering. In the glass, it is dense and dark red, just beginning to show garnet age on the rim. I enjoyed it more than my co-tasters, finding meaty, tealeaf notes on the nose and thinking the palate, although austere, well-integrated and balanced. Oak maturation – 22 months in 53% new wood (mostly French) – has imparted complementary chocolate aromas and tarry flavours. AL found it too old-fashioned and (as TJ did) just tinged with 2002’s dank taint on the nose, and fruit only just managing to hold on. RP agreed it was just a little too austere and tough. There was consensus about its future, though. Drink up before the 2007 vintage is ready for the barrels
Winery
of Good Hope The rugged terroir and dry heat of the Perdeberg are home to many old bushvines that survive by drawing moisture and nutrients from the deep granitic subsoils through roots more than 10 metres long. From these vines come grapes for wines that are writing a new chapter in South Africa’s winemaking history – from the Sadie Family, and The Observatory amongst others. Recognising the area’s potential a few years ago, The Winery’s founder, Alex Dale, and its lead winemaker, Edouard Labeye, added the Black Rock range to their existing list of Radford Dale, Vinum and New World. Grapes for the two blends are sourced from dryland bushvine vineyards under long-term lease to The Winery. Labeye, who has experience in similar conditions in the Rhône and Languedoc, dictates the viticulture practice. The 2005 vintage in the Perdeberg was hot, and the alcohol contents of both these wines are over 14.5%. The White is a blend of chenin blanc, chardonnay and viognier (69/26/5); a third of the chenin, all of the chardonnay, and half of the viognier was barrel fermented; the rest of the juice was fermented on its lees in tank. In all cases, extensive lees stirring to build flavour and mouth feel was part of the regime, and malolactic fermentation was prohibited to maintain natural acidities. The wine fits into the Swartland ‘white’ category of intense, gutsy, blended, terroir-driven wines. The bouquet is initially dominated by toasty oak but this soon gives way to lemon and floral aromas. Lemon is one of the decisive flavours on the palate, where there’s a refreshing acidity, waxiness, weight and a touch of sweetness, possibly from the alcohol. The wine’s most appealing character is that it highlights its warm climate origins without being blowsy. It pleases now, but why not keep it two to three years to let its underlying complexity and minerality come to the fore? The Red includes shiraz, carignan, grenache, mourvèdre and viognier (60/23/9/4/4). The vinification process is complex and includes punch-down in the cement tanks, co-fermentation, free-run juice, pressed juice, micro-oxygenated juice and so on. Two-thirds of the wine was aged in oak, again mostly French. The result is a deep mulberry hue with enticing nose of red and black fruits, pepper and floral notes and a savoury, liquorice-tinged palate. Granted, the style is ‘big and bold and ripe’, but the fruit has been well-handled and the oak used judiciously. The drawback is, of course, the hefty alcohol; AL also thought it lacked weight or ‘development’ in the mouth, despite its intensity, and TJ wondered how easily the sweet charm sat with the fairly ambitious aims of the wine. In fact, I found that a few hours of air contact seemed to give the more gravitas and certainly had curbed its exuberance. If you’re a fan of bold and flamboyant, well-crafted wines, you’ll like this. – CvZ
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Scoring Grape’s interpretation of the 20-point rating scale 0-10: Faulty or just unpleasant 10.5-11.5: Dull, uninteresting but sound 12-13.5: Pleasant enough, decent but basically simple quaffer 14-15.5: Good and enjoyable, but no real excitement 16-16.5 Very good wine, offering something special 17-17.5 Fine and beautiful world-class wine, among the best in SA 18-20 Truly excellent, some even among the world’s finest !!! indicates especially good value
Prices Tasters
TJ – Tim James IRP – Guest taster Roland Peens; MW student and retailer (WIne Cellar, Observatory, Cape Town) For more information regarding the tasting procedures, tasters, etc, see the Recent releases contents page |
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