Dear Tim

I was honoured to receive mention in your illuminating article on obscure grape varieties and their origins, as so eloquently penned by you on winemag.co.za. Furthering our offline communication re the grape variety Brakboseiland to which you alluded in winemag, and your fervent wish to get to the bottom of this weirdly named grape, I am just letting you know that I have gone to unwavering lengths to be in a position to offer an answer, sort of. As the Gen Z crowd will say over their glasses of orange wines made from regenerative vineyards, I’ve pulled you a solid.

Right, to it then.

Upon hearing your query, I pulled a few solids myself. I know the way of the Orange River wine region, from where the mythical Brakboseiland grape originated, and put in a few calls. And drew a few blanks on the first round, I’ll have you know. Not even a former viticulturist of Orange River Cellars had a clue, dismissing my request with blunt churlishness implying I was going down a non-existent meerkat hole.

But then, a friend of a former biltong-maker’s step-sister’s niece living outside the town of Kakamas put me on the spoor. Thus, I had oral interaction with one Eksteen de Waal, who resides in the town of Keimoes on the banks of the mighty Orange River. I had to call Eksteen to pursue my quest and he’s 800 km away and is talkative and has a slight speech impediment, so getting the story – I’ll have you know – drained more Vodacom airtime than Cyril Ramaphosa’s weekly call to his proctologist to announce the latest anal blockage.

But, Tim, for you I stayed on the line and the story goes:

Eksteen grew up on the farm Rozenburg outside Keimoes, on the Orange River. They grew wine grapes for the local co-op, and in the late 1960s, when Eksteen was some 10 years old, he remembers great excitement among his dad and his friends. No, this had nothing to do with the virility of the new Brahman bull the family had purchased or the rising costs of veldskoens, but that a grapevine of unknown origin had spontaneously sprouted in front of the farmhouse.

This single vine began bearing bunches, and the grapes were of unknown origin, being neither Muscadel, Hanepoot, Colombar nor Chenin Blanc. “A long green bunch, very tight berries, packed very tightly,” Eksteen recalls. “But no one knew what these grapes were.”

Local talk about this mysterious vine and its grapes ensued, and Eksteen’s dad decided to send some cuttings and leaves to the research institute at Nietvoorbij. Not long after, some guys from Nietvoorbij flew up from Stellenbosch to Upington where De Waal senior picked them up at the airport and drove the 90km to Rozenburg and the unnamed vine.

“The clever blokes from Stellenbosch talked and looked at the vine and made notes and buggered off back to Nietvoorbij scratching their heads,” remembers Eksteen. “But I can’t remember what happened after that. What I did hear was that a neighbour, oom George Brink, made some cuttings from our one vine that didn’t have a name and propagated the stuff on his farm.”

Thus, Tim, this is what led to the 0.75 ha Brakboseiland being recorded by Sawis, disappearing from memory and recall in 2000. On oom George’s farm. Made from the one vine that had surfaced on the De Waal spread. However: what was this variety?

To ensure I field your query with the diligence it deserves, I contacted a previous employee of Nietvoorbij and a leading scientist on grape varieties called Phyllis Burger. She worked at Nietvoorbij as a researcher all her life, recently retired.

And here the light comes shining through our murky minds, providing insight, clarity and closure. The angels sing in harmony, the dogs are fed and the world feels a better place.

Burger was a manager of the vineyard gene-pool resources at Nietvoorbij. And her records show that the grape we are searching for does go by the name of Brakboseiland and originated from – eureka! – the De Waal seedling. This variety was not a cross or an in-vineyard mutation, but popped up from a seed that had found its way beneath the red alluvial Orange River soils, avoiding being pecked by ravenous fowl or hoarding by stealthy field-mice.

Burger goes on to say that human hands must have thought the grape had promise, propagating it to see whether promise is realised. Which, it appears, did not as the vines have all been removed.

Yes, Tim, I am getting to it: what was the genetic backbone of the Brakboseiland grape variety? Before I put you out of your misery, note that the Orange River has many islands, Brakbos (brackish bush – don’t ask before my mind heads for the gutter) being one such island. And with oom George’s vineyards looking over the river at the Brakbos Island, the Nietvoorbij crowd must have given the exclusive variety that name.

And so, at last. The big reveal. Burger says the variety’s DNA fingerprints were checked and found to bear Corinth (a raisin grape) and Muscat d’Hambourg, making Brakboseiland the offspring of those two motherfuckers I have been pursuing for the past three days.

That’s all she wrote for now, Tim, that’s all she wrote. Well done on hauling such a grape variety from obscurity and allowing us to show it to the small bits of the world who might be interested. Perhaps we’ll get the freedom of Keimoes for all this, we will, and the first dop is on me.

Yours truly

Emile Louw Joubert

The Louis Latour show rolled into town a few weeks back, and this Burgundian-themed gig is a star-studded double-header. The first part here is the anticipated opportunity to taste some of Maison Latour’s finer wine offerings, which is always a showing worth pitching for and if I had not been invited, I would have paid full-ticket price. Dating back to 1797, Latour owns substantial parts of Burgundy’s revered vineyards and their bottled monuments, so a not-too-shabby sensorial partaking of vino at this gathering is assured.

The double-header’s other act is an immersion into the role of oak barrels on Burgundian wines, and wine in general, as Latour is itself also a famous cooperage, putting together barrels from staves of seasoned oak for use by winemakers the world over sharing a vision of vinous excellence and provenance for which the Latour marque is renowned. Attendees at the event – predominantly Cape winemakers – were guided by Michael Fridjhon, who has a decades-long personal and professional relationship with Team Latour, the team being in good hands down here in the Africa of South. For besides knowing Burgundian terroir, vineyards and wines like the back of the hands of serial poker-player, Michael’s knowledge of the various aspects of the process whereby grapes are transferred to wine and finished product is exceptional.

Now, I love wood and its role in wine – anyone who has had the opportunity to visit a French cooperage will share this. Oak trees of 150 years and older growing in the vast forests of rural France, lovingly chopped down and falling with crushing sighs that turn to sounds of thunder as the lengthy trunks and spread branches hit the floor. The wood is cut to staves and the staves piled under open skies, exposed to the seasons of three and more years, the weather and exposure allowing greenness and oils to leach out. Then the staves are brought to the cooperage, where burly skilled coopers hammer and ply them together with steel hoops, until one is left with a marvellous vessel that has a profound role in the aroma, taste and structure of the wine it will hold for months and years.

Fridjhon’s Latour tasting is not to celebrate oak, but rather to ask what we actually taste – and what we do not taste – when really fine oak is used well for the maturation of wine. During the recent show, his starting point was our collective history with the barrel.

“For a generation in wine, oak became the platform, then the crutch, then the enemy,” he said. “At first, oakiness imparted value in the mind of the consumer. Buy a bottle at R200 or R300 and you expected no oak to show when tasting the wine. Pay R500 or R800 and you expected the wood to send you a subliminal message: this is more expensive.”

Fridjhon likened it to buying a new car. You sit inside, you smell the leather of the new seats, and you know why you paid over the top.

Times have changed, however, and for good reasons.

“There was the Anything But Chardonnay swing, and with it a swing against over-oaking,” he said. “If the oak interfered with the fruit, people asked, what was the point of wood? Oak was never supposed to interfere. It was supposed to complement.”

Properly understood, he said, barrel ageing does three things. First and most important is micro-oxygenation, the slow, gentle ingress of oxygen that helps a young wine settle and find its shape. A side benefit is that it complexifies flavour, particularly in younger wines. And thirdly, in a curious way with particular cultivars, it fills in the gaps.

“That leaves the practical question every serious producer must answer: what is the optimum investment, and what is the optimum cost?” he said. “What is clear,” Fridjhon said, “is that people who are serious about wine at international level have become increasingly obsessive about the oak they use.”

Although Bordeaux was using new barrels from the 1980s – mostly in the First Growths – Burgundy was another world entirely. New wood was almost unheard of. At Bouchard Père & Fils, where Fridjhon was visiting some 50 years back, new wood was used only for the Grand Cru whites. The second fill of those barrels then went either to the Grand Cru reds or to the premier cru whites, and many wineries used little or no wood at all.

Michael tells a cute anecdote: after seeing new wood in use at Bouchard Père, which was very unusual for Burgundy, he walked across the courtyard at Bouchard Aîné and asked Paul Bouchard what they did about new wood.

“Come, I will show you,” Bouchard said.

They walked past pallets and crates to a shed a little larger than a double garage, where an old cooper sat repairing leaking barrels by fitting new staves where they leaked. Bouchard pointed to a barrel with one new stave.

“That is the new wood in this winery.”

The wines laid out were all Latour, all oaked and – of course – all Burgundy.

On the white side a Meursault Château de Blagny Premier Cru 2021, Beaune Aux Cras Blanc 2023 and – the whopper – Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2023. Going red there were Château Corton Grancey Grand Cru 2020, Chambolle Musigny Charmes Premier Cru 2020 and Corton Perrières Grand Cru 2020.

Most of the audience being winemakers, they are obviously regularly exposed to such an abundance of vinous riches, but I was like a Catholic farm-boy attending his first wet T-shirt competition. The six wines were, in the glass, absolutely astounding, a general observation being that young red Burgundies can be brilliant wines whose vibrant, lusty youthful health are wont to out-bewilder their older senior versions. And no new wood was used on the red wines lined up.

Speaking of wood, I can still taste the whites and recall the message on their oaking. Like all the wines, Meursault Château de Blagny 2021 showed not the faintest signs of a smoky edge, but its broadness on the palate, the comfort of depth and warm personable charm, the bit of sun-baked hay, made me see this wine as the “most wooded”.

Well, turns out, it only saw 35% new barrels.

On the other hand, there was that little thing of Corton Charlemagne, for me the greatest Chardonnay vineyard in the world outside Montrachet. Latour Corton Charlemagne 2023 was – despite its commanding presence and assured, argumentative structure – the wine that had for me not a touch of woodiness. Well, it was the only wine in the two flights that had been subjected to 100% new barrels.

This confirmed my assumption that wood cannot make a wine great, but great wines need wood to expose their full gambit of excellence, and without oak, these elements would remain unknown. And for us wine-lovers, we wouldn’t be able to see the wood from the trees.

Signs of a heave-ho power struggle in the hallowed halls of South African wine officialdom are emerging, and if the potential consequences were not so severe, a bowl of butter popcorn and a glass of cool, brisk Chardonnay could be procured to watch the show. But hold that thought, as it ain’t pretty for any wine producer or anybody concerned about the reputation and status of the country’s wine industry.

The deal concerns SAWIS, arguably the most efficient, effective and reputable arm of the multi-pronged officialdom that makes up the aforementioned hallowed halls of South African wine administration and management. SAWIS is the backbone and the heart of the wine industry. Without it, the industry wouldn’t be able to stay standing, nor would it have the irrepressible internal organ to keep it alive, 24/7.

SAWIS fulfils a supporting and administrative role that is essential for a well-informed and functioning wine industry. By turning industry data into usable information, administering certification processes and providing inspection services, SAWIS helps to support informed decision-making, traceability and trust in South African wine. All information and statistics recorded about the industry, all certification, inspection, wine of origin verification….and much, much more – this is what SAWIS does.

And for the 25 years plus of its existence, SAWIS has quietly, efficiently and diligently gained an international reputation in a field of which it is a world leader. Yvette van der Merwe, executive manager of SAWIS, is the current president of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), a position to which she was not elected on account of her proficiency in Afrikaans and love of Chenin Blanc. It is because she and SAWIS run a show the rest of the wine world deems as of the best in the business.

One would therefore think that while other wine industry organisations went about their own way – South Africa Wine holding meetings producers and growers, Wosa sitting back and seemingly watching the wine world go from the aisles and Vititec effectively analysing new clones of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc – SAWIS would be left to do what it does so well in relative peace.

Not on the watch of one Olivia Poonah, executive manager of the Wine Certification Authority (WCA) and the kind of gal in whose presence you don’t leave the ice-pick lying around while your back’s turned mixing the Martinis.

She’s got power, see, the WCA being a different puppy compared to the other wine industry bodies. WCA has muscle, and not necessarily of the right kind. For this is a statutory body, reporting to the National Government of South Africa. Established under the Liquor Products Act, 1989, WCA is responsible for administering the Wine of Origin (WO), Integrated Production of Wine (IPW) and Estate Brandy schemes, which support certification, origin and production standards.

The WCA operates independently in carrying out its statutory responsibilities, with its governing authority appointed by the Minister of Agriculture. And as the situation stands, WCA contracts SAWIS to provide all those essential certification and inspection services on which the industry so heavily depends.

And it is this contract that is causing the current tsunami of concern within the South African wine industry, as Poonah and her WCA compadres have decided to end the service agreement with SAWIS. Yes, just like that. Out of the blue.

As a result of this humble journalist having cursory knowledge of the industry as well as of the vital role of SAWIS, I immediately reached out to Poonah for further enlightenment on the issue. As other journalists and I have, however, learnt to expect, no reply or attempts to communicate were forthcoming from this voice of authority, and this instance proved to be no exception.

Rico Basson, head of South Africa Wine, did however communicate on the issue in an e-mail letter circulated to Cape wine producers and grape farmers. Although admirably diplomatically worded, any reader with an eagle eye can see that Basson is as pissed off about WCA’s hard-headed decision to pull the SAWIS rug as his producers are, and who have every right to be.

He writes: “The decision to terminate the agreement was taken without prior formal consultation with South Africa Wine or the broader industry, including those who pay for certification and inspection services (namely producers – Editor). We have also not yet received sufficient information to understand why an earlier transfer is necessary, what it would cost or how it would work in practice.”

This needs to sink in: A powerful wine industry body, mandated by government, makes a rash decision with the potential of having massive ramifications for the South African wine industry. And does so without engaging with another industry body – South Africa Wine – which acts as the conduit between the country’s producers and grape growers and the statutory arm of the very same industry named WCA.

The letter continues: “We have asked for more information about the reasons for the proposed changes, the expected costs, the possible effect on services and the arrangements for transferring responsibilities. We have also obtained independent legal advice to ensure that we understand the relevant processes and the industry’s interests.

“Because important questions remain unanswered, we have raised our concerns with the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Willie Aucamp. The WCA is a statutory authority established under the Liquor Products Act and operates within the Minister of Agriculture’s oversight framework. We therefore believe it is appropriate for the Minister to be made aware of the industry’s concerns, particularly where decisions could affect the cost and continuity of essential services.”

The fact that South Africa Wine has – quite rightly – overshot WCA by going straight to the Minister of Agriculture, as well as seeking legal advice, subtly hints at Basson and his crew not going down without a fight, hence my initial stating that the gloves are off in the corridors of power within South African wine.

Concerning the last sentence, continuity is a major issue. The chances of Poonah assembling a team with the competence, industry knowledge and logistical acumen currently overseen by SAWIS within the next two to three years are about as likely as eradicating leaf-roll virus in the next decade. What, for example, happens when wine certification and the monitoring of wine stock levels grind to a halt in South Africa?

The other important ‘c’ word is cost. Growers and producers pay for SAWIS’s invaluable services and SAWIS lets them know what they are in for. Fly in a snappy bunch of WCA cronies with government connections, raise the current pay model for these services and Mayday is complemented by pay-day.

Of course, there will be two sides to any story. Industry insiders told me that Poonah and WCA’s homing in on SAWIS is in reaction to South Africa Wine’s bully-boy playground tactics. By stacking the Wosa board with its own chosen representatives and demanding authority over Wosa’s agenda and operations, South Africa Wine has stripped the international marketing arm of its independence. A similar attitude towards SAWIS has irked WCA who are taking on a “to here and no further” approach in regard to South Africa Wine, with SAWIS being the first scalp in a show of force from the side of Poonah and co. 

Yet, Basson’s communication to his producers is commendable and strategic: with Team Poonah lurking and scheming in the dim, dank secretive corridors, South Africa Wine has given the SAWIS matter airing, thus placing itself, its growers and producers on the front foot at this stage of what could turn out to be a major internal battle among the forces running the industry, and with far-reaching consequences.

When facing a blank computer screen in an attempt to approach the topic of South African Sauvignon Blanc, I get the same feeling as when asked to write an essay on Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban period or the correct techniques for preparing a Karoo dish of sheep offal: where does one start?

Sauvignon Blanc largely falls outside the corridors of serious wine commentary and critique compared to the tomes and voices on old vineyards, regenerative farming, Chenin Blanc, Pinotage and far-flung, hardy wine regions. Yet Sauvignon Blanc is in many ways South Africa’s key grape variety, in terms of commercial success and — when the scribes wish to give it attention — critical acclaim.

For the record, Sauvignon Blanc is now the second most planted grape in South Africa, coming in at 10,442ha, which is 12.1% of the country’s national vineyard of 86,525ha. With farmers keenly uprooting vineyards due to their unprofitability, Sauvignon Blanc plantings are increasing — 293ha were planted in 2025.

The reason for this continued investment in Sauvignon Blanc is, obviously, commercial. Here the variety is the top-selling varietal wine in the country, with sales of 14.1m litres in 2025. Sauvignon Blanc also leads the way in terms of exports, the 49.3m litres shipped in 2025 representing 19% of the 263.8m litres of Cape wine making its way to other shores.

The important thing is that Sauvignon Blanc’s robust commercial showing is backed up by the fact that South African Sauvignon Blanc is a category of incredible quality. Dime-a-dozen clichés can be wheeled out in an attempt to add spice to the statement, such as “among the best in the world”, “sunshine in a glass” and “Cape Sauvignon Blancs straddling New Zealand and Sancerre”.

The bottom line is that, for anybody appreciating good white wines — no matter the variety — Cape Sauvignon Blancs provide a multi-speckled palette of taste, texture and aromatic nuances that are simply dazzling when the appreciator takes a bit of time to go through a selection of these wines.

Last but not least, in Sauvignon Blanc SA, the producers of the variety have an exceptionally well-run outfit to promote the variety, its wines and the cellars themselves. I, for the life of me, cannot see why South African Sauvignon Blanc is not being represented on the global stage at next year’s Sauvignon Blanc conference in New Zealand, something I hope the organisation can organise with Wines of South Africa, but for this I am not holding my breath.

Of course, the local highlight of the year for those with a taste for this variety’s wines is the annual FNB Sauvignon Blanc SA Top 10, which this year was held for the 20th time. Some 159 wines were entered, and as usual the judges whittled the line-up down to 20 wines, of which the Top 10 were selected and announced at a stylishly festive shindig in the middle of the Welgevonden Wine Estate.

My previous point on the sheer scope of brilliance the Cape Sauvignon Blanc category offers was, once again, vindicated by tasting the Top 20 finalists. Most were from the comet 2025 vintage, and the full force of South African white wine greatness bearing a Sauvignon Blanc typicity was on display: cantaloupe and grenadilla from the inland regions such as Breedekloof; pyrazine-driven edges of cut grass and tinned peas from Darling; kelp and sea-grass salinity in Durbanville and Elgin; and on it goes. But more importantly, all 20 wines showed the winemakers’ intuitive understanding of the Sauvignon Blanc grape variety through purity and clarity, as it is only through an unblemished prism that terroir can truly show.

An important aspect of this year’s Top 10 results is that the majority of the winning Sauvignon Blancs are wooded wines, namely six — an indication that the makers in this category are definitely not just going through the motions and resting on the laurels of success the variety offers in terms of inherent grape quality together with regional differentiation. Vision and creativity are here as discernible as in any of South Africa’s wine categories, and more so than in most of the others.

Herewith the FNB Sauvignon Blanc SA Top 10 for 2026 with a few personal comments.

Carmen Stevens Sauvignon Blanc 2025 (wooded), Cape Town, Coastal Region

A quietly confident white that unfolds, slowly, in the glass. Meyer lemon zest brightens the calm entry, while a whisper of white blossom softens the edges. The palate feels supple rather than sharp, with chalky texture carrying through to a long, saline close. There is a feminine warmth here, but it never slips into post-Ozempic heaviness. Beautifully balanced.

De Grendel Koetshuis Sauvignon Blanc 2025 (wooded), Cape West Coast, Coastal Region

The best wine farm in Bothasig, here De Grendel delivers a perennially iconic Sauvignon Blanc, poised and coastal from the start. Lime leaf fragrance drifts across crushed oyster shell, giving the nose a cool marine lift. The palate is as taut and focused as the Table Mountain cableway, acidity drawn like a fine wire through citrus flesh. A polished, quietly maritime expression of the grape perfected by a veritable champion of the variety.

Groot Phesantekraal Marizanne 2025 (wooded), Cape Town, Coastal Region

Made by the second-best-looking winemaker in Durbanville, this Sauvignon Blanc has a distinctive savoury pull. Green fig skin meets lemon thyme on the nose, earthy and inviting rather than overtly fruity. The palate shows real grip, phenolic texture framing citrus flavour with gentle persistence. Acidity is fresh but integrated, allowing a slow, mouth-watering fade. There is something farm-grown and honest about it; this is a hallmark of Groot Phesantekraal.

Iona Elgin Highlands Sauvignon Blanc 2026 (unwooded), Elgin, Cape South Coast

From cool Elgin heights, this is all delicacy and mountain air. White peach perfume hovers above lime blossom, light-footed and pure. The palate glides, fine-boned acidity lending shape without aggression. A stony undercurrent gives focus, drawing the flavour out long and clean. Nothing feels forced; everything feels lifted. It finishes with a breath of herbs and sea mist. Exquisitely poised and youthful now, it will reward patience.

La Motte Pierneef Sauvignon Blanc 2025 (wooded), Cape South Coast

A Franschhoek classic marque, grapes from breezy Elim. Quince aroma opens gently, edged with fresh fennel that keeps it lively. The palate is rounded and softly textured, lees contact lending creaminess around a vibrant citrus core. Balance is the story here, richness held in check by neat acidity. The close is mellow and lingering, with a trace of honeyed warmth. Approachable yet considered, it feels made for the table.

Lomond Seven Rows Ben Nevis Sauvignon Blanc 2025 (wooded), Cape Agulhas, Cape South Coast

Cape Agulhas coolness shines in this single-vineyard bottling. Blackcurrant leaf scent mingles with wet stone, wild and windswept. The palate is vivid and tensile, acidity crackling through grapefruit flesh with real energy. A chalky mineral line steadies the finish, long and mouth-watering. There is tension and drama without excess weight. Striking in youth, it should settle beautifully. For lovers of edgy, Atlantic-influenced whites, this is compelling and full of place.

Quoin Rock Nicobar Sauvignon Blanc 2025 (wooded), Western Cape

A Simonsberg white of polished intent. Passionfruit perfume is muted, woven through with orange blossom and soft spice. The palate feels layered and silky, barrel maturity rounding the edges while citrus drive remains. Texture leads rather than aroma, creamy yet fresh. The finish is broad and gently warming, with lingering flavour. Luxurious in feel but not heavy.

Steenberg Black Swan 2025 (unwooded), Constantia, Coastal Region

From Constantia’s cool slopes, this has immediate allure. Fig leaf fragrance lifts above lime cordial, green yet refined. The palate is sleek and concentrated, acidity bright and beautifully judged. Flinty texture adds intrigue, carrying flavour with quiet momentum. The close is pure and enduring, with a saline flicker. Elegant rather than showy, it whispers instead of shouting. A graceful, vineyard-driven white of real finesse and poise.

Tokara Reserve Collection Sauvignon Blanc 2025 (unwooded), Elgin, Cape South Coast

Clear and precise, this Sauvignon Blanc has a composed power. Nectarine skin aroma deepens into lemon curd with air, rich yet precise. The palate is dense and finely structured for an unwooded wine. Acidity runs through like citrus pith, keeping the richness vibrant. The finish is long and creamy. Serious and age-worthy, it asks for time in glass.

Wildeberg Terroirs Sauvignon Blanc 2025 (unwooded), Stellenbosch, Coastal Region

A Franschhoek mountain farm, this is a Stellenbosch Banghoek bottling full of energy. Pear skin scent meets fresh lime, bright and unforced. The palate dances, juicy acidity lifting stone-fruit flavour across a fine, dusty texture. There is a herbal whisper underneath that adds interest without weight. The finish is clean and thirst-quenching, inviting another sip. Joyful yet precise, it captures high-country freshness. Perfect for sunny lunches and simple seafood. An expressive, effortlessly drinkable mountain white.

The closer one gets to the Stellenbosch town itself these days, the harder it becomes to believe this is South Africa’s wine capital. Vineyards, which should be the lifeblood of the town and the region, have been ripped out at a rapid pace over the past two decades to make way for box-like housing units and shopping centres. And it is not as if this slow erosion of Stellenbosch’s centuries-old wine-land identity is levelling off, far from it. Even now, looking for the block of Chenin Blanc vineyard I was so used to seeing on the road into town from the north, a billboard advertising another housing project commands the bare ground where the vines once stood.

The old wine farm Blaauwklippen, on the town’s southern side towards Somerset West, is therefore for me a deeply important piece of land. Together with Kleine Zalze across the busy R44, Blaauwklippen serves as a sort of last stronghold where wine country and Stellenbosch’s commercial and residential chaos meet. Where the earth of vines and wine culture ends and is swallowed up by overcrowded roads, unchecked commercial excess and the permanent sight of building sites.

The history of Blaauwklippen is interwoven with the Stellenbosch wine industry, and with an official founding date of 1682 it is the oldest wine farm in the area. Well, that is the date officially given, which makes it three years older than Groot Constantia which lays claim to being the oldest.

Many colourful VOC officials and French Huguenots have lived on the homestead, and even the genial imperialist Cecil John Rhodes had laid his hand on Blaauwklippen. For less than a day. In 1898 Rhodes bought the farm at auction for £3 500, only to sell it later that same day for £3 000, a transaction that is not quite the kind one sees today from Stellenbosch’s slick property developers.

Like most of the celebrated Stellenbosch wine farms, Blaauwklippen paved the way for making good wine in the 1970s. That was when a certain Graham Boonzaier bought the farm in 1972, a businessman from the old Transvaal and Orange Free State who sought a country lifestyle and the following of agricultural ambitions.

Boonzaier’s trump card was the appointment of Walter Finlayson as Blaauwklippen winemaker in 1975. Finlayson, one of the most gifted winemakers the country has ever seen, grew up on his family’s Montagne wine farm in Bottelary. Finlayson embraced the challenge of restoring Blaauwklippen with both arms seeing he and Boonzaier essentially had a clean slate to work from. Until the Transvaaler’s arrival, the place had been neglected, the earth covered with neglected old vines that had not been pruned or picked for years.

New vineyards were planted, Finlayson began to work his intuitive magic in the cellar, and things started happening for Blaauwklippen on the wine front. Especially when Finlayson won the Diner’s Club award for South African Winemaker of the Year in 1981 and 1982, first with a Zinfandel and a year later with his Cabernet Sauvignon.

From the beginning of the new millennium, however, Blaauwklippen – despite its rich heritage and commendable vinous track-record – struggled to maintain its wine status in the post Boonzaier and Finlayson era. The explosion in wine tourism and the expansion of Stellenbosch brought various developments to the farm, something bearing its own danger for a traditional estate’s reputation for wine excellence. Namely: with all the picnic spots, visitor amenities and commercial noise, where is the focus on making good wine? And, at the end of the day, a wine brand’s reputation rests and falls on the wine and the quality thereof.

The answer is that, despite a few stumbles over the past 25 years, Blaauwklippen’s wine quality is now worthy of the farm’s tradition and provenance. New vineyard plantings of clean, virus-free material and the ingenuity of winemaker Narina Cloete, who has occupied the cellar for the past ten years, have ensured that the farm’s wines are not only of exceptional quality but also faithfully convey the character of Blaauwklippen’s soils, slopes and climate in an impressive range.

The soils here have always been suited to good red wines, being situated at the foot of Stellenbosch Mountain. Here weathered granite reigns supreme, the cradle of the region’s red wine heritage, and the reputation of any winery located in this area is made or broken by the quality of the Cabernet Sauvignon that is sent out into the world.

Blaauwklippen’s 2024 Cabernet Sauvignon, the current vintage in the market, is guaranteed to make those who remember the classic old-world Cabernets from Stellenbosch feel thoroughly nostalgic. The winemaking is, of course, modern: whole berries fermented in gleaming stainless steel, with pump-overs instead of the traditional hand-plunging. And 18 months of ageing in small oak barrels, 42% of which are new.

Yet from the smell of the wine to the lingering aftertaste, one tastes Stellenbosch, tradition and Cabernet Sauvignon in all its visceral purity. The wine’s tannins are perky and command with a knowing grip on the palate, tannin the leader for flavours of blackcurrant, cedar and pine needle, and a wine seamlessly combining regal elegance with a supple, sensual richness. It is classic Stellenbosch, classic Blaauwklippen, and among the best in the area.

Cabernet Franc, one of Cabernet Sauvignon’s parents alongside Sauvignon Blanc, is currently highly fashionable in the industry. And Blaauwklippen’s version, also from 2024, stands out for me as it contains all those textbook elements that characterise Cabernet Franc and sets it apart from Cabernet Sauvignon. The aroma is overwhelming in a most lovely way, and on the palate there is a sense of nature and freshness. You get fruit, but also fynbos and pencil shavings, extremely complex, and very classic and refined.

Narina is also known for her skill with white grapes, and the Blaauwklippen Chardonnay underlines the fact that this Burgundian grape variety has over the years found a comfortable home in Stellenbosch. The grapes do not yet come from the farm itself, as the young vineyards still need to develop, so the fruit is sourced from another part of Stellenbosch. The wine is aged in barrels, 28% of them new, for 11 months. No malolactic fermentation was carried out to give the wine body, but in the barrels the lees were regularly stirred to ensure the final wine conveys the full heart of Chardonnay.

The result is a lovely, soul-elevating freshness with the first sip, leading to the seductive Chardonnay flavours of citrus, nuts and clean, wet stone. Once again, the precise expression of the grape’s inherent character is present here, as is found throughout the Blaauwklippen range. Those, like me, who have not yet fully gotten to grips with the Malbec grape will be convinced by Blaauwklippen that this variety also thrives under the farm’s label, and within the overall Stellenbosch spirit that hangs over its wines.

And may that spirit live on from the vineyard, without the slightest whiff of building-site dust, freshly mown golf course and diesel exhaust fumes.

Heading into the hills south-east outside the town of Stellenbosch, the road winds up the Devon Valley, a pastoral spread of oak trees, gentle slopes, horses and stunning views. Vines, yes, although despite its pleasing aesthetics reminiscent of outtakes from an Evelyn Waugh novel, Devon Valley has never truly shot out the lights in its role as an officially demarcated Stellenbosch wine ward.

Local cellar Clos Malverne built its name on good Pinotage, and Louisvale regularly features as a top Cap Classique producer. The sparkling wine behemoth JC le Roux called Devon Valley home with an imposing and well-frequented visitor centre and cellar space, but since the brand exchanged Méthode Cap Classique for Méthode Carbon Dioxide, the brand allure has been lost.

I am thus keen not to mess around and to state that, from this personal vantage point, there is a winery making some of the best red wines in all of Stellenbosch, and this is Le Grand Domaine. The boutique project of Swiss wine maestro Bernard Fontannaz, better known for his formidably massive project Origin Wines, Le Grand Domaine began in 2015, vineyards were planted a year later, and by 2022 it was making Cabernet Sauvignon that is as good and as distinctive and as beguiling as anything Stellenbosch can offer.

One could say that if Fontannaz’s plan was to make things at Le Grand Domaine happen quickly, it has worked. There is the confident, unmissable packaging reminiscent of a Montparnasse cabaret showroom in the 1930s. Entering awards from the get-go, Le Grand Domaine has amassed enough silverware to boost sales for Brasso, winning heaps of gongs, including two Top 10 Pinotage trophies and the IWC biggie for Best Cabernet Sauvignon in the World, plus an FNB Sauvignon Blanc Top 10.

Marketing-wise, these awards have been splashed about all over the show, and a partnership with the vivacious, ever-charming Irish chef Liam Tomlin in a Stellenbosch restaurant has provided a lively platform to showcase the Le Grand Domaine wines.

From afar, the presence and advent of this winery have been rapid and eye-catching. But an opportunity last week to enter Devon Valley, head along to its very end to where Le Grand Domaine sits atop a hill looking south-east, stirred this realisation of a place making truly great wine.

Le Grand Domaine is planted to 10.7 ha of vines, south-east and south-west facing: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. These are used in the wine range, with other grapes purchased from outside – the Le Grand Domaine range is Stellenbosch only, while the winery’s The Pledge line uses fruit from anywhere deemed good enough.

Former Simonsig grande dame Debbie Thompson heads up winemaking, together with Mosima Mabelebele and Yolande Laubscher. The cellar is gravity-fed and, by the look of things, the ladies get a lot of cool stuff to play with. Two types of amphorae, smart foudre and a couple of Georgian qvevri outside, waiting to be deployed next year.

But seeing that Debbie admitted to Cabernet being king at Le Grand Domaine, as well as my fervent support of the Stellenbosch Cabernet Collective, Cabernet Sauvignon was the wine I had come to check out.

The vineyards lie beneath the winery, gazing out towards False Bay some 30 km to the south. Soils are decomposed shale with a substantial 20% clay component. The vineyards’ aspect sees the vines bristling in the spring-summer southerly breezes during the growing and ripening season, and sunlight radiation is full-on. And whether it is the location of the vines, or the quality of the plant material, the Cabernet Sauvignon from Le Grand Domaine shows the somewhat understated joy and beauty that is evident in young vineyards.

Focussing on the Le Grand Domaine Cabernet Sauvignon 2022, experiencing the confidence and easy brilliance of this wine made from six-year-old vines reminded me of the late, great Jan Boland Coetzee who believed in the potential that lies in youthful Cabernet Sauvignon plants. His legendary Kanonkop Cabernet Sauvignon 1973, the estate’s maiden Cabernet which is still in splendid condition today, was made from vines planted in 1969.

Making the Le Grand Domaine Cabernet Sauvignon is calm and methodical: crush and destem, two days of cold soak before inoculation, fermentation peaking at 28°C with regular pump-overs kept under control. Colour and tannin were drawn out steadily, then extended maceration before a gentle press. Malolactic conversion finished across tank and barrel. Thirteen months in 100% French oak followed, with 16% first fill, 61% second fill and 23% third fill.

One of the finer things about writing about a great wine is that it comes easily, seeing that the wine in question parks itself in the memory bank, ready to be called upon at the smack of a keyboard. Le Grand Domaine Cabernet Sauvignon 2022: sun and fruit evident in the offering of juiced berry-fruit of the dark kind, all gliding over the palate, sumptuous and delicious, allowing the senses to wallow and drift in this luxurious offering from nature.

The Cabernet Sauvignon grape’s deeper, thoughtful features are, too, present in this wine. A sliver of broken graphite and an edge of pine needle. A blooming patch of purple fynbos in the wine’s perfume, as well as on the palate. The sensual, seductive grasp of a glove laced with finely embroidered tannins. A sculpted mouthfeel and tuning-fork-precise balance on the palate.

In closing, I shall revert to my native tongue, Afrikaans, stating that this wine is totally “befok”.

On the Pinotage side, Le Grand Domaine sources grapes from a block out Bottelary Hills way, planted in 1995. The wine from vintage 2022 scored an Absa Top 10 in 2025, while the one from 2024 won another trophy this year.

I only got to taste 2024, a wine that saw a 70% new wood component after some stern manual punch-downs during four days of fermentation. Different grape, different terroir and different handling in the cellar, but the Pinotage shows the same kind of stylistic magnificence as the Cabernet Sauvignon.

In the glass, a deep garnet core. The nose leans into sweet plum and mulberry. With air, black cherry comes through, laced with just the right amount of perfumed oak spice. Tannin is rich, but flows without grabbing you. Dark fruit lingers, and underneath there is that dry fynbos note that roots it firmly in the Cape. It is not new style or old style or any style other than very, very good Pinotage.

Newly arrived it may be, but Le Grand Domaine truly is King of the Hill.

Last time I checked, us carnivores were quite happy to allow vegetarians, vegans and worshippers of the vegetable to go about their business unassailed. So why, then, do lovers of tomatoes, mushrooms and baby marrows struggle to leave in peace those of us who simply want to enjoy a juicy piece of dead hoofed animal? Because our – meat-eaters – creations, terminology and dishes are continuously being abused through their deployment in meatless alternatives.

The current vegetarian hijacking of meat dishes was underscored yet again the other day while I was listening to a radio chat about a new Cape restaurant. The owner, a former winner of the TV programme Kokkedoor, was talking about one of the standout dishes on his menu, namely a pumpkin “steak”. I could hear thousands of braaiers and hundreds of cattle groaning in anguish at this abomination of calling a roasted slice of yellow, soulless pumpkin a “steak”.

“Steak”, cut from the matured carcass of a cow or bull who dutifully and proudly sacrificed her or his life for man’s rightful primal lust for meat, does not come from something kept alive with water, sun and compost. That life, one devoid of emotion and soul or any lifeblood pumping through the veins, belongs to a pumpkin and is, with respect, not worthy of the name “steak”. Just as a bowl of crispy pork crackling can never be muesli or a piece of venison droëwors never a carrot be, pumpkin is not “steak”.

Pumpkin, though, is by far not the only vegetarian ingredient being hijacked by faulty food terminology. For years now we have had the monstrosity called “tomato carpaccio”, which is merely a plate of tomato slices drizzled with piquant sauce.

Like “steak”, carpaccio should only be used when it is made with beef. And that’s a fact.

Carpaccio originated in 1950 at Harry’s Bar in Venice. The owner, Giuseppe Cipriani, had to make a plan, as one of his upmarket clients, Countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo, was for health reasons only allowed to eat raw meat – a Countess and Lady who must truly have been close to a man’s heart. Giuseppe thus created a dish of his own for his lady, namely paper-thin slices of raw red beef fillet covered with a mustard-and-mayonnaise sauce. And the dish was named after the Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio, who liked to daub his canvases with bright scarlet paint.

Yes, a good ripe tomato may well be red in colour. But that does not entitle it to the name carpaccio. The Countess’s craving was for pure raw animal flesh, and to use the name carpaccio for a tomato salad is not only incorrect, but disrespectful to her memory. Vegetarian bad manners and aggression, therefore, at their worst.

Another vegetarian absurdity, one made to truly rouse the suspicion of meat eaters, is this thing of mushroom biltong. Biltong is surely South Africa’s proudest preparation of meat, and to give something made from salted mushrooms the name “biltong” makes me wonder how those responsible for the New South Africa’s Constitution could allow such a thing.

Luckily this seems to be a Cape thing, for should the meat farmers and eaters up north hear of this, civil war does not seem too far-fetched an impossibility. Perhaps one bloodless event I can handle.

Of my first childhood visit to Paris, recalling the earthy smells mingled with burnt coffee and strong cigarettes, the language’s musical flow, the continental roar of life and the people’s clothes, what I especially remember is our last morning, a Sunday. My father and I took one of the Metro trains, one of the old 1970s versions with wooden floors and hard benches with horizontal slats, off to Montmartre, the peak of Paris where the basilica-cathedral of Sacré-Cœur stands. The rest of the family had gone to the Champs-Élysées to buy tourist souvenirs.

To reach the cathedral from the Métro station, we walked through narrow alleys up the hill towards the imposing white, elegant dome-shape of the church. The smell of aforementioned coffee and black cigarettes hung in the air, with stout uncles with dark unshaven cheeks already drinking small glasses of cognac with their coffee early in the morning.

Inside the church my father was quiet, and pointed out the decorated stained-glass windows to me, the weak winter sun striking the red and blue and orange glass from outside and then pouring the light in a bewildering range of coloured rays into the dark space of the cathedral. Christ looked on.

We each lit a little candle and then walked back down the hill of Montmartre, this time through a different maze of alleys from the one that had brought us from the Métro to the church.

It was here, in Paris, far from the ocean, that I had my first encounter with the oyster.

I had often heard my parents talk about oysters, these some edible things from the sea. If I think back carefully, I can also remember that it had been conveyed to me somewhere that the oyster lived in a shell, and that it was a sought-after, expensive eating affair. Eating this thing, as seen on TV, apparently required drinking Champagne. I probably also read about oysters and Champagne in some James Bond book, since from my arrival in England I had made short work of the stories about Ian Fleming’s flamboyant hero.

And there he stood, the man selling oysters. Here in the heart of Paris. On the narrow pavement outside a shop where sullen-looking housewives queued to buy fish lying, as in London, on beds of shaved ice.

My father stopped in front of the oyster man while I looked at the flat green-grey shells stacked in the basket on the ground. Beside the man was a table with a few bright-yellow lemons the colour of pale morning sun. A chalked blackboard showed numbers. I remember the “6” and the “12”. My father’s finger came to rest on the six while the man watched. Then the man picked up one of the shells from the basket and showed it to my father. My father nodded, and I watched as the oyster man pushed his short, thick little knife with the triangular point through the opening of the shell and, with a nimble movement of the hand, snapped it open.

Right there my father grabbed one of the lemon wedges, squeezed juice onto the shell and, good heavens, lifted the shell to his mouth and sucked it out.

When he asked why I was looking at him so strangely, I said I thought the oyster — the thing he had just sent into his mouth — surely had to be cooked first. He smiled, shook his head, and when he looked at the oyster man, the fellow was already ready with the next opened shell. My father indicated that the man should give the thing to me, and the old chap bent down and held the oyster shell out in my direction and said something in French I did not understand, though I could hear the kindness behind it.

I took the shell and peered into it. Something that looked like a white-grey, flattened snotty ball lay in the shell, light dancing on the wet, slimy object. From the round fat piece in the middle, strands of translucent slime ran to the edge of the shell, the edges of the slime bordered by a fine ridged thread that looked like minute curls of black cotton. The old man’s hand moved between me and the oyster, the flash of the yellow lemon wedge catching my eye. When the juice struck the oyster, the ball of slime actually drew in its little muscle, as if the burn of the lemon juice irritated it.

Christ, a raw gooey blob – no wonder it required the accompaniment of Champagne.

But, I decided, it was now or never. I was not going to chicken out before the old man and the and burly French oyster-seller. I put the shell to my lips as I had seen my father do, threw back my head and felt the cold wet ball of sea creature slide into my mouth.

When the cool, wet raw flesh entered my mouth, something happened. It was as if I swallowed a wave, heard the cry of seagulls. Dived beneath the surface of cool, deep rock pools and entered another marine world, with Jacques Cousteau waiting for me behind a forest of seaweed. The taste of salt and sea air; shell and seaweed. The feeling of fine, soft and delicate flesh between my tongue and palate. It was not food or eating. It was experiencing something through your mouth and taste. As if that one oyster had offered the full power of the ocean to my senses. Here, on the narrow pavement outside a fish shop in Paris.

Now, every time I return to Paris, I put my luggage down in the guesthouse room. With light shoulders and bubbling joy, I join the rolling rhythm of my beloved city. I walk until I find a place, somewhere, where the familiar grey-green shapes lie on carved ice. Someone will pull the shells open with that short blade. I drip my own lemon juice onto the gleaming wet slime-flesh, and watch it pull in its little muscle in irritation at the sour drops. In my mouth, I taste the deliciousness, the senses struck by the flavour of now, and the memory of what was, and always will be.

Variety is the spice of life, and the dreams of many a winemaker. Thus, the geographical make-up of the Cape winelands must be heaven for winemakers with open minds and ambitions to create vinous diversity, unshackled from the restrictions imposed by European AOCs limiting vineyard plantings to official regional boundaries.

For a winemaker seeking it, the canvas here down south is blank. Hence South Africa’s ability to present excellent wines made from a diversity of grape varieties growing, literally, alongside each other. It is an often overlooked blessing that a Cape estate is capable of delivering – for example – brilliant, world-class Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chenin Blanc and Merlot grown on one patch of 80ha soil. This reality might have the tight-fisted Bordeaux and Burgundian minds tipping berets in disbelief, but it is one of the Cape realities to be embraced and showcased.

This multiplicity also finds its way into the personalities of the local winemakers. Take, for example, Johan Jordaan, cellarmaster at Stellenbosch wine behemoth Spier. Fondly also known as Pie, Johan is often marketed by his employer as one of the Cape’s Chenin Blanc maestros, a tag backed-up by his winning the Master Winemaker Top 100 award for best Chenin Blanc – two years running. And in the same breath, Johan is effortlessly presented as a leading and convincing voice for Pinotage and Shiraz, and I am sure he can command authoritative talk on any variety and wine blend under the Spier label. As a cellarmaster should.

Pie’s versatile skill was recently on show around the Grenache grape, another variety he appears to master with effortless ease. The occasion was to introduce three new wines in Spier’s Ideology range of wines, a limited release allowing winemakers to express their creativity and make something outside of the winery’s conventional range. And Grenache is the focus of the latest Ideology set-up, three renditions comprising a Grenache Noir, Grenache Blanc and a pretty Grenache Rosé.

To add creative irreverence to this Ideology range, the Ideology labels include Johan’s doodle drawings and handwritten notes, providing the wines’ aesthetic with a quaint thumbprint of authenticity.

For the grapes’ origin, Johan and his Spier wing-girl Tania Kleintjes went Paarl and they went organic. With Paarl being a tad warmer and muggier than Stellenbosch, this environment is deemed ground zero for a Rhône grape such as Grenache, both Blanc and Noir.

Grenache, reckons Pie, is “the grape that took Cinderella from the kitchen to the ballroom”, words now immortalised on one of the Ideology labels and implying that the seemingly ordinary can – in the right hands – be transformed into a picture of desirable elegance and beauty.

Much of the talk surrounding Grenache is of old vineyards. From Australia, Priorat in Spain to the Rhône, producers fall over themselves to mention their Grenache vineyards being 50 years and older. In the Ideology series, the opposite rings true as the wines are made from super young Grenache vineyards, namely four years old – Blanc – and six years for the Noir. This is, to my mind, a determiner of the stylistic nuance found in all three renditions, namely a deft touch in terms of extraction and tanning management, with little to no use of ageing vessels.

The Ideology Grenache Blanc 2026 sets the tone with its vivid, brisk presence that bears the garrigue and mown hay features of the variety without the dimpled fleshiness that this grape can show when the stocking is pulled aside. The technique is simple: Destemmed and crushed into stainless-steel tanks. Fermented in temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks. Matured for four months on its gross lees.

Here Grenache Blanc shows it has more than enough impressionable fragrance and flavour to deliver a pedigreed dry white wine without skin-contact and old-wood ageing, as is so often the want. The crushed herbs aroma is pulled through to the palate where this flavour combines with sharp citrus, salt-lick and a hint of savouriness to create an immensely charming and satisfying white wine. And the texture is just so very right: none of that crayon-waxiness the variety sometimes shows, yet enough subtle grip on the palate to assert itself.

To the pink, and the Ideology Grenache Rosé 2026 immediately catches the eye with a colour true enough to a Provençal rosé to make one smell the bouillabaisse fumes from the kitchen. Immediately pressed, the juice was fermented in temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks and allowed to mature for four months on its gross lees. With Grenache Noir being one of the universally blue-blooded rosé grapes, including a pink in the Ideology series was a no-brainer. It’s perfect, classic rosé more-ishness: drier than a nun’s seat during confession, the edge of Grenache skins imparts a tasty berry edge, providing the kind of all-day wine-drinking approachability a fine rosé demands.

Compared to the above two wines, the Ideology Grenache Noir 2025 demanded a bit more work. At harvest bunches were hand-sorted, with semi-carbonic maceration methods used during natural fermentation. This took place in a combination of stainless-steel tanks and old oak barrels.

This is Grenache Noir that has had its jacket removed, the young vines and limited use of wood allowing the grape to show an edgy, restless side compared to the plush, deep-fruited styles of Grenache older vines tend to show.

A nose of tomato-leaf and green plums leads to a bright, exuberant presence on the palate with shards of fruit darting about and playfully intermingling with the pricks of thin-skinned Grenache tannins. This is the fun-side of Grenache. Served chilled – as per Ideology HQ recommendation – the wine harnesses dark and red fruit with a deft, balletic palate weight making it finely balanced between austerity and predictable rounded, silked plushness, as so often the case with Grenache. Where, in the hands of Johan and Spier, the Pie’s the limit.