Special Late Harvest seldom comes up in serious wine company. We’re missing something - as the lush Nederburg 2009 proves.

That something is enjoyed by a lot of other people around the world, that’s for sure. According to Tariro Masayiti, who makes the whites at Nederburg, some 13 000 cases of the Nederburg Special Late Harvest (in the ‘Winemaster’s Reserve’ range) is produced and there is no letting up on the demand. So someone is drinking it, if it is not the wine fundies.

Over an Indian food-and-wine lunch at the new Taj Bombay Brasserie in Cape Town, Masayiti also explained a little more of the sophisticated viti- and vinicultural background to a wine which, especially in that spicy table company, shone deliciously. The flair and structure of the wine were simply gorgeous. (Another testimonial to the brilliant 2009 vintage.)

Masayiti says they treat the vineyards with the grapes destined for Nederburg’s famed Edelkeur and Eminence Noble Late Harvest wines with great care, monitoring the yield (5 t/ha) and degrees of botrytis and then directing parts to SLH or NLH, whatever the case. The proof is certainly in the pudding, with this SLH showing intense grape purity. There is no dominating varietal in the mix, except for the delicate whiff of muscat on the initial sniff. (This seamless, sit-up-and-think blend is, of course, a Tariro Masayiti thing, as demonstrated in the top-of-the-range Ingenuity White.)

Made from chenin blanc (79%), riesling (4%), muscat d’frontignan (4%) and gewürztraminer (13%), the Nederburg SLH 2009 palate offers a fruity, but nonsticky, richness with a fresh tanginess that balances the obvious sweetness (residual sugar, 83,0 gm/l; pH 3,42; acidity, 6,5 gm/l).

Sweetness seems to be one of those baffling aspects of local wine. It rarely - especially on this level, that of the SLH, - comes up for discussion or even evaluation. Perhaps it is because we don’t really know how to handle it or when to drink it.

Nederburg has a long history of producing glorious SLH wines (chiefly under Günter Brözel). In the 1970s a number of them were awarded those famous golden ‘Superior’ stickers - and lived on for decades. Then, like now, those wines are amazingly inexpensive.

The Nederburg Special Late Harvest 2009 was great with the Indian dishes. (Together with the excellent riesling 2009, the finest match.) But a nice cool glass in the late afternoon garden on these hot late-summer days cannot easily be surpassed.