Special Report: South Africa

Regenerative and creative farming, old vines, new frontiers, 80 recommended current releases and braai brekkies

By Michael Godel

Braaibroodjie, aka Braai Brekkies, Franschhoek

The phenomenon known as “seeing stars” is a common description for disturbances of vision, in seeing bands of light, prisms, sparks or flashing lights. The scientific name is photopsia, a fleeting state most often caused when temporary pressure is placed on the eye, like what happens when you sneeze or bump your head. Seeing stars has also become a symbol of positivity, happiness or renewal. A recent trip to South Africa’s Cape Wine 2022 brought about the literal meaning of the saying as it pertains to celebrity. Wine celebrity that is — and while most Cape personalities carry themselves in complete opposite character to that of an Afrikaans bekende persoon (famous person), their wines on the other hand might bring on that condition called photopsia. The individual flashes of light called phosphenes may cause dreaminess, giddiness and being weak in the knees. Spend nearly two weeks in South Africa for the Cape Wine fair and you are more than likely to find yourself seeing Western Cape stars.

Arniston, Cap Agulhas

The Old Vine Project

In today’s Western Cape, discussions must begin with the entity known as The Old Vine Project. Over the past 20 years viticulturalist Rosa Kruger has focused on discovering, classifying, cataloguing and certifying heritage vineyards. It was a great pleasure to chat with Kruger at a Wines of South Africa ceremony and tasting at Cape Wine 2022, which celebrated her 2022 Decanter Hall of Fame Award. And also with the legend André Morgenthal, orchestrator of the tasting of old vines wines. It is remarkable to see how many estates and producers have come on board — to celebrate and show off the wines they are making from 35-year-old (and older) dry-farmed bush vines. Many vines are even pushing or exceeding the century mark.

“The old method is always the best, because…how did it get so old?” The words of La Motte’s Edmund Terblanche — and yet South Africa is really all about balancing the past with the present. This is why the PIWOSA group — Premium Independent Wines of South Africa — chose the thematic “something old and something new” for their event at Klein Constantia. Old will always be new again, reiterates Andrea Mullineux when she describes the Leeu Passant Old Vine Cinsault Lötter as “a national monument — that must be ripened. Either that or it’s sauvignon blanc and apricots.” Or worse — just apricots.

Alheit Vineyards’ Chris Alheit, Zoo Crü

Preservation is key to the South African wine industry and heritage sites are the assets and the advantage. Chris Alheit is adamant about protecting heritage sites. “I mean, how can you not see this as a Cape treasure? As an ancestral site?” Thus, Alheit’s sémillon, once called La Colline, is also worthy of “monument” status — and though it may not seem to represent the literal definition of a “memorial stone or a building erected,” it does pay homage “in remembrance of a person or event.” In this case, the farmer — and every season of sémillon attempting to seek its fruition for the past 85 or more. Francois Haasbroek of Blackwater uses the term zeitgeist and, yes, the definition is equivocated through the idea of Western Cape single-vineyard wines from off the beaten path, small-parcel sites.

So why are old vines important? Simply put, they are valued for acumen and complexity. They have moved past the imbalance and gawky stage, having achieved life experience, and now possessing profound things to say. Ten years ago, the Old Vine Project considered one per cent of planted vineyards as old, but the truth is 50 percent of old vineyards can be rejuvenated. Most are set into decomposed granite soils, in some instances colluvial as well. These tracts are really old and weathered, predating microbial life. The vineyards dot a landscape occupied by granite plumes exposed above the surface; where below the surface magma cooled ever so slowly and so there is now much more diversity in the life and texture of the rock. Some will wonder how the wines grow on the granite. Physically, the decomposed granite is very friable, and the soils are sandy, two to three meters deep. Roots can dig down, resulting in a bigger canopy — and under that dappled light (as opposed to daytime/nighttime sun), the grapes are able to retain acidity.

FMC Vineyard, Ken Forrester Wines

Chenin blanc and decomposed granite soils

The artist formerly known as Steen, now simply “chenin,” is as complex as chardonnay, with acidity like sauvignon blanc but never searing. For a passionate winemaker like Andrea Mullineux, the grape holds nostalgic qualities. In the Western Cape there are 17,000 hectares planted, more than double that of the Loire. From the 1960s to the ’80s, Lieberstein (a mass market, kitsch wine that launched a sort of South African renaissance) was the most successful wine brand. So much so the government put out a call to plant more chenin in the 1990s.

“When you have old bush vines, you’re going to get chenin blanc that harnesses sunlight, a thickening of the skins and an accumulation of full phenolic character — a taste of sunshine,” says Mullineux with that wry and sly smile. “Granite is the only soil that can give you this super reductive style with great energy,” explains Donovan Rall, who picks his chenin blanc early. “What we learned through the drought years is you don’t have to pick things as you were traditionally taught.”

Chenin Blanc, Kleine Zalze, Stellenbosch

As for recent vintages, 2019 had warm days and cool nights, allowing vines to relax and recover acidity. Then 2020 was very temperate with little diurnal temperature fluctuation, leading to quick yet relatively even ripening. In 2021 the season was cool but dry, though not with drought-like conditions seen in 2018. Veraison only finished in the second week of — quite opposed to previous years when picking was completed by the second or third weekend of that month. Yet 2021 allowed for more precision picking and quite a relaxed harvest.

In 2021 and 2022, vineyards in the Swartland achieved that elusive ideal of full phenolic ripeness. “We say phenolic ripeness, but we call it psychological ripeness,” notes Mullineux. “At least with respect to basing on numbers.” The ripening schedule follows a path starting in Roberston (which is inland), followed by Paarl, Franschhoek and the Swartland, then the coastal regions with Stellenbosch being one of the last, just ahead of Elgin, Wellington, Hermanus and Hemel-en-Aarde.

Godello in Hemel-en-Aarde

As for the Hemel-en-Aarde and chardonnay, Chris Albrecht from Bouchard Finlayson indicates that elevation on their side of the valley where fog and humidity settle at the lower levels play a direct role in viticulture and especially the ripening seasoning. Shallow shale soils overlaid with heavy clay is also a factor in determining grape maturity. The Valley has a plateau with an underbelly delivering unique sets of tannin, structure and acidity that, when mixed with sandstone and clay soils, makes for this aspect of how chardonnay sets up for individualistic display.

Winemaker Natasha Williams, Bosman Wines and Lelie Von Saron

The Venn diagram of organic, biodynamic, sustainable and regenerative farming

Soils in South Africa are ancient and varied. There are three main types along with derivatives:

Decomposed granites (oakleaf, tukulu, hutton and clovelly)
Malmesbury, bokkeveld or witteberg shale (glenrosa, swartland, klapmuts and estcourt)
Table Mountain sandstone (fernwood, longlands, westleigh and dundee)

Still other soils are major contributors to farming styles and the wines they beget. Alluvial, koffieklip, silica quartz, kaolinite clay, river gravels, klipheuwel conglomerates and shales, limestone and malmesbury clay are but a few. Then there are the plutons, dome-like intrusions of igneous magma into the earth’s crust which occurred at great depths and consequently cooled slowly, resulting in a coarse crystalline (granitoid) texture. These plutons have subsequently been exposed by erosion, resulting in mountains or hills such as those in Paarl and Perdeberg and the hills in Darling. In some cases, the exposed domes have been flat-topped by erosion and then covered with sandstone deposits, and have then again been eroded, resulting in sandstone on a granitic base, such as can be found in the Table and Simonsberg mountains. We must also point out the incredible Breede River Region’s characteristic calcareous loam soils and their association with bokkeveld and witteberg shales, dwyka tillite and enon conglomerate. In this part of the Cape it is Malgas that is the only South African wine area with significant alkaline soils.

Fynbos, Vergelegen Wine Estate, Stellenbosch

Between the 1970s and ’90s, many of the old vineyards in the fancy regions like Stellenbosch and Costantia were ripped out to plant cabernet, merlot and pinot noir. This was not the case in the “sleepy” Swartland where many old vines, especially of the bush variety, remained untouched. Today a less obtrusive pruning method is employed on “goblet,” which means smaller canopies, lower yields and less water requirements. This method reduces susceptibility to wood rot and also Esca, one of the complex of “trunk diseases” (along with Botryosphaeria dieback, Eutypa dieback, and Phomopsis dieback) caused by wood-infecting fungi.

Porseleinberg is found in the southeast corner of the Swartland, above the Berg River. The Porseleinberg vineyard is a bit older so some sandstone exists with the granite and schist below. It’s sedimentary-metamorphic with weathered, worn-away soils, and hard, harsh and poor growing conditions.

John Szabo MS, Old Vines Project’s Rosa Kruger, Godello and the photo bomber André Morgenthal

“We’re figuring this out and it’s getting fun now,” says Callie Louw. But Louw is the anti-hero, the man who focuses on one large entity. “Working with all these little bits of grapes here and there is not sustainable,” he says, and so 90 hectares produces 850 tonnes of grapes with 85 per cent going into (Boekenhoutskloof) Chocolate Block. “We don’t need to offset climate change with varietal adaptation. We just need to farm better. The problem doesn’t go away. Cover cropping, activate your place, get things growing, the whole profile is run in the top four inches. Below is the bank, the reservoir, the thing that makes the money is on top. Stop tilling! Leave that stuff on the top of soil. It just burns. Keep the active things alive. Increase the carbon in your soil by one per cent and the water will increase by 50.”

At Vergelegen Wine Estate in Somerset West it is environmental manager Eben Olderwagen who shows how abrasive yellow vine trunk wraps are employed to repel geckos and slugs in lieu of spaying. This sustainability action is part of Vergelegen’s track record as a wine estate renowned for its biodiversity and commitment to environmental sustainability. (Vergelegen is owned by mining company Anglo American.) The recent completion of an extensive programme to rehabilitate eroded watercourses is now the stuff of Western Cape legend. Five sites saw the removal of invasive alien species like Blue Gum trees (between 2004 and 2018) and the replanting of some 15,000 indigenous plants that were housed temporarily while the programme was underway. The 12 million Rand project has saved rehabilitated wetlands and Lourensford Alluvium Fynbos vegetation, which could have been badly affected by sediment washing onto the area. In addition, it has halted sediment contamination of the Lourens River, part of which runs through the estate. Rare vegetation discovered by botanists on the property thought to be extinct has been preserved within the hills and valleys of the 2,000-hectare nature preserve. In 2009 a major fore swept through and burned much of the vegetation, but this is actually beneficial to the fynbos which needs a good burn every 12-15 years for proper rejuvenation. No municipal water is used on the property as water from the Helderberg Mountain is captured in two damns. Vergelegen lays claim to now being the most leaf-roll virus free in the Western Cape.

Biodynamic Farming at Reyneke, Stellenbosch

Farming is always a work in progress and “hopefully will forever be,” says Johan Reyneke. Regenerative agriculture, organics, sustainability, and biodynamics at Reyneke Wines in Stellenbosch coexist in the circumfuse of cows, compost, cover crops and creative locution. Reyneke raises a herd of Nguni cows (dating back to 2015), adaptable and well-tempered for a breed that has evolved to suit the Cape’s climate and terroir. They are not for milk or beef but to live in symbiosis with the land and other animals. The nguni eat the grasses and cover crops, bugs fly up to feed the white birds and the birds help keep the cattle free of bites by ticks and other pests.

“Land caring, land sharing and making quality wine” is Reyneke’s tripartite platform and both story and also that of the cows is like a tree with different branches. The animals graze in high density, moving throughout the year from block to block. They graze and return microbes back into the soil, through their waste and create humus. Vines are fed by this regenerative activity. Dandelions are planted to attract pests so they will leave the vines and roots alone. Downy mold is managed with metabolic enzymes of copper, not always successful on its own but fighting alongside the humus offers a much better chance of control. Not to mention brix levels are raised because of this type of farming. Land sparing essentially means that if you have ecologically endangered endemic plant species you must leave them to live in conjunction with your vines. Don’t reduce them. And for goodness sakes don’t till.

Johan Reyneke

Thankfully by this point roughly 90 percent of farmers in the Western Cape have converted to no-tillage systems to improve the efficiency of crop production. Reyneke also plants new vineyards on contoured angles to control winter water flow but also erosion so that the flow will reach the property’s two dams. There are the fynbos “corridors,” between the blocks to allow wild animals a chance to remain in nature. This all adds up to creative farming mixed with regeneration and sustainability. The first seven years of this policy have all been about renewing the soils and each year the goal is to plant between five and seven new hectares, with 30 on schedule to go in over the next five years. “It begins with organics (which is sustainable), then graduate to biodynamics (which is self-sufficiency) but there is a constant struggle between caring and common sense.”

In other words decisions have to be made, economic ones, to support family, workers and the farm. “People have different tools during different epochs to deal with reality. Science is not about being certain and sometimes it’s about being doubtful. I’m never sure 100 per cent.”

These are the words of Jolandie Fouché of Wolf and Woman Wines: “As shared custodians of the lands that house these vineyards, we also ensure that we partner with growers who farm sustainably in order to produce top-quality grapes without compromising the environment, and the vineyards themselves, in the long run.” And there is Marlise Niemann who recreates the taciturn through gestures so befitting her Momento wines. They like so many of the Western Cape endure for their balance between place and adventure, as well as remaining grounded through their maker’s independence and relationship with the tracts they choose to interpret.

Related – Around the Cape in 50 wines

With Winemaker Charla Bosman, Sijnn Wines, Malgas

Appellative blends in red and white

There are reasons why many Western Cape winemakers increasingly turn to accounts spoken in stacked varieties through appellative blends. Not because it can be a French thing to do in the ways of Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe but because it makes for wines possessive of immense character.

“We need these wines and to pay a lip service to them is essential,” says Adi Badenhorst. “As a winemaker or in any homestead job you are always influenced by where you grew up and who you worked with. In the Swartland these are the varieties that were there.” Badenhorst’s ideas are echoed and expanded upon by Duncan Savage. “All the wines are directly connected to their sites,” he says. “That shouldn’t change too often. The farms are big here so you can’t afford to own 50 hectares.” Thus, a winemaker and producer like Savage picks their plots and develops their relationships with their fruit over long periods of time.

Hemel-en-Aarde

After the Cape Wine trade fair, we rode over dirt and dust to what felt like The Western Cape’s version of the outback, to arrive near Malgas up above the Breede River just 15 kilometres in from the Indian Ocean at South Africa’s most southern tip. This is the remote and “insane” home of Sijnn Wines (pronounced “sane”) where visionary David Trafford saw the future a few hours away from Arniston and Cape Agulhas. The beautifully shaped and hued river stones (aka, puddings) and Bokkeveld Shale are perhaps the world’s greatest impetus for developing Rhône varieties à la Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe

Yet this is South Africa and so chenin blanc, verdelho, touriga nacional, trincadeira and cabernet sauvignon also thrive despite the poorest of soils. Winemaking in the hands of Charla Bosman sees a prodigy and savant at one with the land so that the progression from 2015 vintage through wines resting in barrel today may as well be a decades long discovery.

At Cape Wine 2022, With Anthony Hamilton Russell and Johan Reyneke

Why South African producers must sell their wines abroad

There can be no begrudging people who might imagine South Africa as a growing area of sunshine, heat, and potentially high-alcohol red wines. That is why they must be shows how so many phenolically ripe red wines lock in at a low, low 11.5 to 12.5 percent alcohol that seemingly only the Western Cape can affect for grape varieties like cinsault and grenache.

“I’ve never worked with conversion rates this low,” says Donovan Rall, and his cinsault is a testament to the excellence and magic of vintage. “With no compromise to flavour, tannin, acidity and length.” The low alcohol at 11.8 is brilliant, as no push to ripeness was needed to achieve these heights. Mick and Jeanine Craven manage to create this impossibility with cabernet sauvignon, while still delivering ripeness, generosity, and peace of mind. Another bit of voodoo magic from a place and a maker that knows what’s what.

Winemaker Shawn Mathyse, Ken Forrester Wines

The need to export, to reach as many new customers in as many countries as possible is the challenge for South Africa’s producers. The Cape Winelands are oceans and continents away from most markets and that remains a serious obstacle, not to mention being situated at the southern-most tip of Africa. The isolation was devastating during Covid, compounded by governmental decisions rooted in prohibition, isolationism, and fear. But the world has re-opened to South Africa and seeking representation beyond Europe is necessary, including finding markets in Canada.

Says Eben Sadie: “There is now a healthy competition between producers. There are vineyards that I planted 10 and 15 years ago that I can now say great things about. It’s in the glass. It’s kind of our time now. We have 3,000 people in this country buying fine wine. Guys who are willing to pay $50 to $60 a bottle for wine. We are all selling locally to the same group of guys. The local market is brutal.”

With Sadie Family Wines’ Eben Sadie and John Szabo, MS

How the Western Cape was won

Cape Wine 2022 was my third trip to South Africa’s winelands between 2015 and 2022. That first congress in 2015 opened my eyes to the possibilities of a wild west experience where the planet’s most ancient soils and geography were able to host grape varieties from all over the world. It seemed like anything could ripen anywhere agriculturalists chose and winemakers wished for. Three years later it was understood that what and where you plant was the key to producing great wines of a sort being made nowhere else in this world. This last journey changed everything again and now it is the coalescence of heritage vineyards, magical conversion rates, sustainable and regenerative agriculture that separates South Africa from all the rest. The Western Cape may be an isolated wine industry and exporting the most challenging of any wine producing nation, but these wines must make it onto our shores. They are too good to miss, not just a handful but hundreds of outstanding examples. Quality has risen exponentially, virtually across all places of origin, including new frontiers. The stars are out, and they are aligned.