MICHAEL GREEN’S WINE NOTES #238

Four Cousins Light Natural Sweet Rosé recently placed on the market.

Four Cousins is an unusual brand name for wine but, as many consumers know, it is the name of some of the most successful wines ever produced in South Africa. The name goes back only ten years, and it is derived from the four Retief cousins who own and run Van Loveren Vineyards in the Robertson valley. It was only in 1980 that the first bottled Van Loveren wine was launched. Today Four Cousins is claimed to be South Africa’s biggest selling bottled brand and Van Loveren is South Africa’s largest family-owned winery, turning out a million cases of wine a year.

This is a major success story by any reckoning, and the formula is very simple: a wide range of good quality wines at reasonable prices. Van Loveren, named after a Dutch ancestor of a member of the Retief family, has five wine brands, Van Loveren, Wolverine Creek, Papillon, Five’s Reserve and Four Cousins, and they offer a total of nearly 40 different wines.

The Four Cousins range, named after Hennie, Basil, Neil and Philip Retief, consists of six wines, and rosé is one of the big sellers here. The latest version, Four Cousins Light Natural Sweet Rosé was placed on the market a few weeks ago and is said to be the first wine of the 2010 vintage to be released. It is 80 percent white muscadel and 20 percent pinotage, and it is described as a fruity wine with an aromatic muscat nose and an abundance of sweet cranberry flavours. The wine is only 9 percent alcohol, and it has been endorsed by the Weigh-Less organisation, which was established in 1975 by Mary Holroyd and today has 47,000 members.

Another endorsement comes from Mark Norrish, wine buyer at Ultra Liquors, who says: “Notwithstanding the low alcohol of 9 percent it has a wonderful balance and a long finish – just a delicious wine and superb summer drinking”. The Four Cousins Light Natural Sweet Rosé retails at R25 to R30 a bottle.

Van Loveren, which is 160 km from Cape Town and has a beautiful garden, is open for sales and tastings daily with free sweetcorn fritters on Saturday mornings. Phone 023 615 1505. – Michael Green