MICHAEL GREEN’S WINE NOTES #205

Annual Vinimark and Wine Worx trade show visits Durban.

I am always looking for good wines at reasonable prices, but I must admit that very often you get what you pay for. Top quality usually means top prices.

The annual Vinimark and Wine Worx trade show, sponsored by big marketing organisations, visited Durban recently and offered for tasting something like 250 wines from 45 different estates and cellars with which they are associated. Faced with this embarrassment of riches, one has to taste selectively and cautiously, and I restricted myself to a few items that were more or less unfamiliar to me.

The outstanding wines among these were two reds, Jordan Cobblers Hill 2004 and Warwick Trilogy 2006, both of them classic Bordeaux blends, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc.

The Jordan Winery at Stellenbosch is owned by the Jordan family who used to be in the shoe business, hence the “cobblers” name of this wine. This is their top item. The blend is 46 percent cabernet sauvignon, 33 merlot, 21 cabernet franc, and the wine was matured in French oak barrels for two years. It is a rich, dark colour with cherry, blackberry, chocolate and mint features on the nose and palate. Absolutely outstanding, but you have to pay for it: about R190 a bottle.

Warwick is a long-established estate at Stellenbosch, owned by the Ratcliffe family and presided over for many years by Norma Ratcliffe, whom I suppose one could describe as the first lady of the Cape wine industry, or at least one of the first ladies. Trilogy is the estate’s flagship. The blend here is 65 percent cabernet sauvignon, 24 cabernet franc and 11 merlot. The wine has blackberry and raspberry aromas and flavours, plus a delicate and delicious coffee taste on the palate. Lovely now, but it will probably improve with two or three more years of correct cellarage.

The retail price is about R170 a bottle. These two wines are not for everyday quaffing.

Among the white wines I sampled was the Glen Carlou Chardonnay 2007 from the highly regarded Glen Carlou cellar at Paarl, owned by a Swiss company and guided by cellarmaster David Finlayson. This wine was fermented in French oak barrels and matured for ten months sur lie, on the lees, or sediment of dead yeast cells and grape skins. It is fruity and complex, a wine to savour. And, for a white wine, it is not inexpensive: about R80 a bottle.

Moving to more accessible regions, I tasted the Blouvlei Sauvignon Blanc 2008 from the Mont du Toit Cellar at Wellington, which has been bottling wine for the past ten years. This is a crisp, fresh, greenish kind of wine with touches of grapefruit and lemon in the taste. Very pleasant at about R36 a bottle.

A different kind of fruitiness was apparent in the 2007 chenin blanc from Laroche L’Avenir Wines at Stellenbosch. This was formerly known as the L’Avenir estate, and the name has been expanded since its sale in 2005 to a well-known French wine producer, Michel Laroche. The chenin is smooth and well-balanced with flavours of pineapple, melon and apricot. Price: about R45.

There were plenty of old favourites on the show, for example Boland Kelder chenin blanc 2008. I think the wines from this long-established cellar at Paarl offer particularly good value and here is a lovely dry white full of flavour, fig, guava, tropical fruits, and all at about R25 a bottle. – Michael Green