
South Africa's most exciting wines, vineyards and vintners
In the Noughties a bunch of young winemakers became enthused by the amazingly varied soils and altitudes of the Swartland, a large, hot swathe of South Africa's hinterland 45 minutes north of Cape Town. They found hitherto neglected vineyards (and planted others), fermented the grapes with naturally occurring yeasts and intervened as little as possible. The wines were so gorgeous that many people, like me, who had loved South African whites but few reds, were obliged to change their minds. And changing hearts and minds is, surely, the point of a revolution.
South Africa has been producing wine since the 1650s, but initially only in Constantia and Stellenbosch. By the time political isolation ended with apartheid, in the early 1990s, the co-operatives that had made more than 90 per cent of the country's wine, and focused primarily on quantity, were losing their power and quality-focused private wineries were appearing.
In 1999 the Swartland Revolution began when Eben Sadie set up Sadie Family Wines amid a sea of wheat. Soon he had company: young adventurers who, like him, had learnt from older makers and were ready to try doing things differently. Adi Badenhorst, white-bearded but boyish, has the energy and charm you need to create a bohemian oasis (complete with pizza oven on the shady veranda) in a place that looked, when he arrived, 'like the Gobi Desert'. His glorious wines include single-vineyard cinsaults and Raaigras, from the country's oldest grenache plot, which has a lovely violet note and a freshness that comes, he says, from the granite soils: 'Grenache is one of those grapes that listens to where it's planted.'
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The David & Nadia vineyard nearby is a very different operation: David Sadie (no relation) produces about 55,000 bottles in a winery the size of a pea. He has, as yet, no vineyards of his own. But judging from his citrus-pure, moreish chenin blancs and headily perfumed grenache-syrah blend, Elpidios, the work he puts into buying top-quality grapes is paying off.
Today there are about 30 wineries in the Swartland. Prices aren't the issue here, thanks to the weak rand — a top wine can cost about £60, with some under £30. But quantities are tiny. Most vines are untrellised, which allows the leaves to shade the fruit from the brutal sun, and these tousled bush vines are an important part of the region's wild beauty.
Yet its wines can be as sophisticated as the outstanding chenin and syrah trios by Chris and Andrea Mullineux, which showcase the different Swartland soils: iron, schist and (my favourite) granite, the red an elegant blend of black tea and red fruit.
Before heading further inland to Tulbagh, I dropped in on Callie Louw (although 'dropping in' hardly describes bumping miles up a dusty track). Louw's vines are bushier, the soil beneath them drier and the man who somehow farms them organically even more stubborn than his fellow revolutionaries. Porseleinberg is part of the Boekenhoutskloof group, and much of what Louw grows is for The Chocolate Block, a hugely popular Swartland blend. Porseleinberg itself is a superb single-vineyard syrah, its tobacco-leaf and blackberry notes a vindication of everything Louw believes about how to grow grapes on a wind-battered hillside.
• Swap Stellenbosch for this underrated South African wine region
At first sight, the perfect lawns and large-format artworks of the estate where Rudiger Gretschel makes Krone premium sparkling seem as different from Porseleinberg as tiny-production syrah is from South Africa's premium fizz. But Gretschel is just as serious about his amphora-aged and supremely elegant single-site blanc de blancs as Louw is about syrah. As for a wild element: Gretschel drives me north, up into the Citrusdal mountains, to his property, Swartberg Wingerde, which is so remote he has to deliver weekly groceries to his workers. He shows me bush vines planted in deep sand, which seems an unlikely home for them. But his Holism Grenache, with its notes of plum, spice and white pepper, is exceptional. It is, I realise, as I look out across these wild slopes towards the Atlantic, something more: revolutionary.
Abercrombie & Kent can organise tailor-made trips to South Africa's wine country, including Swartland, abercrombiekent.com
By Jane MacQuitty
Dazzling prestige blanc de blancs chardonnay champagne with taut, intense citrus-blossom and almond elegance.£148, thefinestbubble.com
Glorious greeny-gold, steely, stony chablis with a long lemony finish. A real charmer from northern Burgundy.£29.95, finewinedirect.co.uk
Magnificent magnum from a tip-top walled vineyard, with lots of tangy umami and mineral oomph.£255, bbr.com
Thrilling white burgundy from century-old vines, with soft, honeyed, floral, yellow-apple elegance.£85, armitwines.co.uk
Bright and beautiful Aussie chardonnay bursting with mouthwateringly herbaceous, zingy, flinty fruit.£63.95, nywines.co.uk
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Telegraph
3 days ago
- Telegraph
I pity people who have no interest in culture
The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published almost a century ago, defines 'hinterland' only in a literal sense. It is from the German hinter, meaning 'behind', and Land, meaning, unsurprisingly, 'land'. Thus, the dictionary says it is 'the district behind that lying along the coast (or along the shore of the river); the 'back country'.' It found no use earlier than 1890; but new scholarship has turned up a usage from 1879. Lexicographers have also found that a book on psychoanalysis from 1919 used the word in a figurative sense, in the excellent quotation 'unexplored territories full of mystery and danger in the hinterland of their own minds'. D H Lawrence, shortly before his death in 1930, wrote that 'we are mostly unexplored hinterland'. Almost exactly 10 years ago, I started writing the weekly 'Hinterland' column for the Telegraph's Saturday Review in which, throughout the decade since, I have sought to 'explore' aspects of culture that enrich one's existence. It has often entailed re-reading books, or re-watching films, or returning to look at buildings, or listening again to music that I first encountered 30, 40 or 50 years ago, and evaluating them afresh before sharing my findings with readers. Few things have benefited me more in life than being told by a teacher or friend that I should read, see or hear something that will enlighten me or make me think; I hope my column has provided a comparable service. The feedback from readers has been highly intelligent, and I am sincerely grateful for it. We do not always agree but, if the columns have stimulated thought and triggered curiosity, they have achieved their purpose. I think of 'hinterland', for the purposes of the column at least, as the region of my mental life that contains those enlightening and engaging aspects of culture that have pleased or, sometimes, provoked me. Occasionally one meets people, even highly educated ones, with no interest in culture. 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Medieval churches, many with Saxon foundations, were all around me. The second oldest church in England, St Peter-on-the-Wall, at Bradwell on the Blackwater estuary, was a few miles away. It was the chapel of a long-vanished monastery, all built by St Cedd within the walls of the Roman fort of Othona in 653. I recall staring at this strange, barn-like building about 60 years ago, as a little boy, and my father saying that the sight before us, of the chapel in front of the sea, hadn't changed for about a thousand years. Now, the panorama includes a distant wind farm. Like many children of the 1960s, an early acquaintance with beautiful music was the Berceuse, or lullaby, from Fauré's Dolly Suite, It was the theme music of Listen with Mother, broadcast daily on the radio by the BBC and designed to soothe toddlers for their afternoon nap. It gave me, as doubtless many others, the awareness that music could summon up specific associations. If I hear the Berceuse now, I am again three or four years old, and sitting comfortably waiting for the story to begin. But my real obsession with music – which, of all the arts, is to me the most indispensable – came at school. In those enlightened times, my state primary made every child learn the recorder. My father quickly taught me to read music, and the recorder is the only instrument in which I achieved any competence. We learnt to play tunes, mainly English folk songs such as were the staple of the BBC schools' programme Singing Together, which ran from 1939 until 2001, though predictably ruined from the 1980s by relentless dumbing-down. By the time I was 11, I had soaked up the English folk-song tradition; and not long afterwards, at my grammar school, I heard Vaughan Williams 's Sixth Symphony for the first time, and my life changed for ever. It became, and still is, the piece of music I would take to the proverbial desert island; and as I explored that composer's music in my teens, I went on to explore his contemporaries (notably Holst), his teachers and predecessors (including Parry and Elgar) and his pupils (Butterworth, Bliss, Moeran and, eventually, Ruth Gipps and Stanley Bate). No avenue of British music remained unexplored, with my discovering Walton, Britten, Arnold, Finzi and John Foulds, the last of whom has a claim to be the only musical genius this country has produced apart from Britten. There are some who still think of us as a land without music: they are wrong. I love European music – especially Ravel, Beethoven, Wagner, Respighi, Tchaikovsky and Janáček – but there is something in British music that speaks directly to me, doubtless because of all those folk songs as a child, but also because of associations with landscapes and society. I am a professor of British history, and my devotion to my academic discipline is shaped by my cultural interests. My father told me that if you wanted to understand the history of a locality, you started with its church: and although the difference between Saxon, Norman, Early English, Decorated, Perpendicular, Tudor, Baroque, Georgian and Victorian had been instilled in me by the age of 10, the exploration of a church or any old building is always a revelation. My mother loved what even then were old films, and I caught that bug. I think most of us are particularly fascinated by the period before we were born. My own interest in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s was fuelled by films, including those made in France and America. I am not a brilliant judge of acting or cinematography, but I know a good story and I understand the context: and the films of those decades now seem to me first and foremost historical documents more than entertainments. All culture, whatever its other intentions, gives us a clearer idea of where our country and indeed Europe and the world have come from, and why we are where we are. Having a hinterland means having a permanent opportunity for enlightenment. That, as well as the joy of the cultural experience, is why it is so important.


The Independent
5 days ago
- The Independent
South African cooks join forces to make 67,000 liters of soup to fight hunger on Mandela Day
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Telegraph
5 days ago
- Telegraph
How ‘sunset wines' are transforming traditional cocktail hour
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