Lunching with Jem 13 December 2007

Kevin Arnold traces for Melvyn Minnaar the vinous roadmap to Waterford's smart new wine

Over a carefully-plotted tasting and testing lunch, one wasn’t going to be nasty or silly and make comments about naff names. Rather sit back and treasure a tinge of self-satisfaction when Kevin Arnold’s eyes light up as you risk a remark about the new wine reminding somewhat of Rust-en-Vrede of those days.

To get to this point, the winemaker of Waterford Estate had conducted a gentle tasting performance through the increasingly higher-rated range of top wines. On hand was sommelier Khuselo Mputa to pour, and Jonathan Steyn – co-owner of that V&A Waterfront den of red meat decadence, Balthazar – to order required cuts and grills to suit the wines as the performance unfolded. Good company, good setting – and no chance of escaping the bravura of fine wine and smart meat.

To get to this point in terms of The Wine, Arnold explained, had been a process that started nearly ten years ago. When work began on establishing Waterford in 1998, he convinced his partners to allow plantings of the ‘alternative’ (to Bordeaux) varieties likes mourvèdre, barbera and sangiovese. Shiraz, too, was nurtured.

It was, in fact, a journey that start just over the south-western hill from Waterford, at Rust-en-Vrede some twenty years ago, when the young winemaker moved from Delheim to Jannie Engelbrecht’s grandly Cape-Dutch wine farm. The then unusual blend of shiraz with cabernet (polished for sales by the Aussies much later) established the well-known Helderberg estate’s fame.

Waterford’s The Jem 2004 is a red blend in a postmodern version of that curious recipe which edged the ‘cool’ Bordeaux frame of mind closer to the ‘warm’ Mediterranean reality of Stellenbosch’s summer slopes. The wine has been launched as Waterford’s flagship at a seriously high price (R680 at the cellar door) and the funny name is because the wine is, to quote the media release, ‘dedicated and named after proprietor, Jeremy Ord, who is fondly known to his family and friends as Jem’.

Such statements and high flying, of course, is a set-up for a shoot-down. But Kevin Arnold holds on comfortably to the story of the dedicated journey and history of the wine. After all, he can claim two decades of expertise and precision knowledge of the valley. So the set-piece of the lunch tasting plays out with conviction: the classiness of the wines finessing cynicism, the flavourful cuts (like the so-called ‘Chicago’ chunk) from Balthazar seducing the senses in a pleasurable double-act.

The tasting of the pre-prandial whites includes a delicious in-house bubbly and the now quite famous Waterford Chardonnay (the 2006 is elegantly restraint, stylish). With a variety of game and individual cuts from the kitchen, Arnold navigates his audience towards the apotheosis by showing his ever-smart Shiraz (2004) with its spicy perfume, as well as his two recent CWG auction wines – the 2003 wildly aromatic and spicy, from the blend of the so-called Mediterranean varieties; the 2004 restrained in the Bordeaux vein. The gem in the Waterford crown, you see, aims to be in the delicate balance and perfect pitch between these.

And so it turns out. So it is. In such circumstances, the intrigue lies in the fact that the personality cannot be summarily placed, the personality of the lavish and yet coy, complex red, easily labelled. This Jem number is a captivating character despite the name, aiming for the world stage. And at the long, senses-testing lunch, it made a great grand finale.

• Link to Waterford's website