Durbanville Hills ten years on 25 March 2008

The winery’s maiden sauvignon still evokes enthusiasm, says Angela Lloyd – which is more than some more recent developments in the area do

Shining beacons seldom appear in the guise of nine year old sauvignon blancs; but then South African wine growers have learned the hard way about the grape's viticultural requirements. Until the early 1990s, when the lesson began to sink in, few sauvignons did duty from one harvest to the next, if at all.

One area which has proved its sauvignon bona fides and today regularly produces among the best examples is Durbanville. Cooled by breezes off both the nearby open Atlantic and more distant False Bay, it is ideal sauvignon territory. Traditionally, much of the Durbanville ward's crop was sold to the wholesalers, with just a handful of private cellars producing wines under their own label, sauvignon blanc among them. The arrangement with the wholesalers meant the area lacked promotion and the wines lacked due recognition.

A wake-up call, in more ways than one, arrived with the construction of a new 8000 ton cellar, which handled its first crop in 1999. Durbanville Hills, (the use of the ward name caused some irritation among the local wine fraternity) was a joint venture between nine local wine growers and the forerunner of Distell. (In 2000, workers of the producer members and the cellar workers obtained a  five percent BEE equity stake in the business. In 2007, Durbanville Hills became a company rather than just a Distell brand, with a board of directors including producer members – ‘which allows us to make decisions quick quick,' says cellarmaster Martin Moore..

Right: Excavations for the winery began in 1998, in preparation for the 1999 vintage

Ten years on

Despite his tenth vintage proving extraordinarily tricky, Moore maintains nothing beats the problems of that first year, when building was going on all around them. One can imagine that only his sense of humour saved his first vintage from being his last.

Thank goodness for that, as Moore, his cellar team and the growers have seen Durbanville blossom; if Durbanville Hills stirred initial excitement, the other cellars have joined in the pursuit of quality. Sauvignon blanc and merlot might be the area’s trademark varieties, but shiraz, cabernet, pinotage and chardonnay also turn in worthy wines.

That inaugural Durbanville Hills sauvignon, labelled Biesjes Craal, a blend of 20 tanks rather than the single vineyard wine it is today, stirred much excitement among member of the media nine years on at the recent tenth harvest celebrations. Moore and some of his colleagues seemed rather bemused at our enthusiasm for this brilliant pale gold-shot wine, with its almost fumé bouquet, rich texture, freshening Seville marmalade acidity and great length. It seems just as likely to pick up a double gold or similar as it did at Veritas in its youth. Further endorsement came in Platter 2000, where the four-star wine was described as: 'A very different, attractive sauvignon,' with the prophetic view, 'good now and potential for 2-3 years (or longer?)'

Right: Martin Moore making sure the grapes of that first harvest get down into the crusher

Visitors, media among them, to Durbanville Hills' cellar comment on its size and ask whether it is among the largest in the country. 'An illusion,' Moore confirms, 'simply because all the tanks are visible under the one roof; we're minuscule in comparison with cellars such as Namaqua Wines in Olifants River.'  Never lost for a joke or a good quip, he adds, 'You could describe us as a 'big boutique''.

If there was an initial feeling of 'big and bad', among the smaller producers when Durbanville Hills started, the talk at the convivial 10^th harvest celebrations, was of another newcomer causing anxiety for the same reason.

The recent purchase price of R105 million paid by Tokyo Sexwale's Mvelaphanda Holdings for Bloemendal has raised fears among the community that a housing development is in the offing on at least part of the land: 'As a going concern as a wine farm, R55 million would have been a more realistic figure,' was the opinion of Durbanville Hills folk at the lunch. Although the new owners of Bloemendal are under contract to deliver grapes to Durbanville Hills until 2013, the talk suggests no time is being lost in ensuring no more valuable farming land succumbs to urban creep.

As an initial back-up in their defence, the Durbanville farmers have strong ammunition in wines such as that 1999 Durbanville Hills Sauvignon Blanc.

COMMENT

From Krige Visser (now of Avondale):

I remember how, almost ten years ago, we took into battle, amongst others, two special bottles of Durbanville sauvignon blanc – one a veteran, the other an upstart with lots of potential.

We were entertaining representatives of Percy Fox of the UK, and had the task to convince them that sauvignon blanc wines from cooler climate South African sites and specifically Durbanville, could age like German rieslings.

They would not buy it, until Martin Moore and I lined a blind tasting with a 1989 Bloemendal Suiderterras, (then 12 years old) which Jackie Coetzee kindly fished from his stash. That wine was almost as fresh as the maiden Durbanville Hills Biesjes Craal 99 Sauvignon Blanc (made rather non-reductively as opposed to the ‘ergere’ Australasian ascorbic acid trip of those days – bless Martin for that foresight).

That, I believe, was one of the first steps in the war to convince media, trade and consumer that South African sauvignon blanc has legs beyond the thin, rapier-like, acidic rendition from New Zealand, which took the mind of the UK.

I opened (and had it tasted blindly) the last bottle of 99 Biesjes Craal from my stash little more than a month ago to thrill, amongst others, a departing sauvignon ‘yster’, Pieter de Waal.

The verdict: Blue Durbanville blood!