Definitions of a cult wine are hardly definable; the interpretation of what makes a wine deserving of cult status depends on what the person making the judgement has in mind. Some would deem any wine made by a boy or girl of engaging, inimitable personality deserving of cult status due to the persona behind the bottles. For others, cult wines must be scarce and hellishly expensive, with desirability and collectability more important than the actual quality of what is inside the bottle.

Thus, one can go on and on, but the fine thing about according a wine cult status is that the only voice that can bestow such a status is the individual him- or herself. Cult is not a collective.

For me, there are only two cult wines in South Africa: the GS 1966 Cabernet and KWV’s 1953 Muscadel Jerepigo. These warrant my use of the word “cult” due to their scarcity, mystery and individuality. And, of course, the sheer incomparable quality and deliciousness found in every glass poured from these rarities.

Thanks to David Finlayson introducing James Molesworth of Wine Spectator to the GS Cabernet 1966 some two decades ago, this astounding wine has attracted international attention. Jancis Robinson, for one, awarded it a full 20 out of 20, with the wine’s backstory adding to its allure.

The other South African great, KWV Muscadel 1953, has not received the same degree of attention. But having sampled it again last week, I would state with assured confidence, and after considerable reflection, that this is the other cult wine from the Cape, one that deserves to be seen as an example of the very best South Africa can produce, as well as an integral part of the nation’s vinous legacy.

While George Spies, the father of GS 1966, sought to emulate Pauillac from a vineyard in Durbanville, the KWV 1953 Muscadel captures the country’s centuries-old commitment to fortified wines, specifically those made from the Muscat de Frontignan grape. But, and this is the kicker, it does so to a superlative degree of distinguished quality one is unlikely to find in any fortified Muscat in South Africa, or indeed anywhere else in the world.

The KWV 1953 possesses a level of uniqueness, as I heard from Gary Baumgarten, who was working at the KWV while this wine was still in barrel.

First up, Gary says, the 1953 vintage was one of the coldest the Cape had experienced, with snow lying on the mountains while pickers made their way through the vineyards. The grapes for this wine were harvested in Robertson, where the juice was fortified before being sent to the KWV head cellars in Paarl.

Another factor differentiating the KWV 1953 Muscadel is that the initial winemaker veered away from the practice of immediately fortifying the juice with spirits. Instead, the juice was given tartaric acid and allowed to ferment on the grape skins to 5°B before fortification took place. This, according to Gary, is the reason for its immense flavour and low pH of 3.5.

The fortified wine was trucked to the KWV, where it was still lying in 10,000-litre wooden vats when Gary arrived to work there in 1980. He and the other winemakers were asked to draw samples of the various Muscadel vintages in the KWV cellars, and the exceptional quality of the 1953 was immediately apparent. The wine was eventually bottled in the 1980s with its distinctive gold label. “By far the best Muscadel ever made in South Africa,” says Gary.

The bottle I opened last week was thus 73 years old, and it was one of the few experiences in my life where silence, thought and wonder seemed the most adequate superlatives. But once awakened from the initial dream-like experience, suffice it to say that any lover and appreciator of the fermented grape would share this admiration.

The wine lies black in the glass, tinged with green, the colour of the dark spots on a live brown trout. Or that of a black mamba that has just crawled through an organic Swartland vineyard. And then the wine makes its commanding presence further known upon entering the mouth. Soft as the stroke of a feather freshly fallen from the wing of an angel bathing in honey. Smooth, sensual and rich as the bonnet of a black Bugatti still damp from the sweat of the Sicilian model who had adorned the vehicle for a Pirelli Calendar photoshoot.

The flavour is shockingly decadent, overpowering and seductive. Jasmine nectar and Colombian coffee beans soaking in Lyle’s Golden Syrup. Pulverised sultana raisins lying under the hot sun of Kakamas. Molasses dripping, running down your mouth and scooped up with a spoon made from Cuban sugar palm.

Dark, rich, intoxicating, heady and funk-filled as a Miles Davis riff at full throttle. Yet quiet and dreamlike, leaving an indelible mark of cult status and that mysterious void only mystery can create, only secrets can hold. Not so much a wine as an experience, deserving of those who seek to remember a life well lived.

Being the leading arbiter of unsighted wine judging in South Africa, the Investec Trophy Wine Show’s uncloaking of a Trophy-winning Pinot Noir at this year’s show hopefully adds impetus and reason to those believing that, yes, Pinot Noir and the Cape of South Africa do match extremely well and with enthralling brilliance.

Getting here took some time. Fifteen long years had to pass before Trophy Show chair Michael Fridjhon and his esteemed local and international judges found a wine from this category worthy of anointing with a trophy – in this case the Paul Clüver Estate Pinot Noir 2024 from Elgin. Gazing from the outside, and being a fervent fan of Pinot Noir, this is, for me, a big deal, and the recognition from this show’s notoriously stringent judges will hopefully allow the wine fraternity to cut local Pinot Noir producers some slack by admitting that it is, too, an accomplished category of Cape wine, worthy of more serious attention than it is getting.

Too many scribes, commentators and industry figureheads tend to execute that bored, dismissive eye-roll when one mentions Cape Pinot Noir. The tedious reaction is driven by emotion and nostalgia. And who cannot blame these folk for being seduced by the red wines from the variety’s ancestral home, the mythical beauty that is Burgundy? However, really, this seduction does not have to be so overwhelming as to limit one’s vision with blinkers, causing all other nations’ Pinot Noirs to suffer by comparison with the wines made in this grape’s regal ancestral home.

With some 1,200ha of Pinot Noir planted in South Africa, only about 600ha finds its way into bottled still wines, the rest being used in Cap Classique. Yes, top Cape Pinot Noir is few and far between, but then access to fruit is limited. A general survey of the local Pinot Noirs on offer will lead one to admit that the quality varies from steady to brilliant, with ghastly examples being few. Yet try some tannic entry-level village wines from Burgundy and the rot-gut quality of this stuff will be a wake-up call to the crowd claiming all of Burgundy is great.

Looking at the Trophy-winning Paul Clüver Estate 2024, I see an example of South African Pinot Noir with a distinctive veil of Cape cool-climate originality. It does not taste of France, Oregon, New Zealand or Tasmania: it is this country’s very own, very brilliant interpretation of the story the great grape of Pinot Noir wishes to tell.

And while my limited wine-judging skills would not even allow me access to the Trophy Show judges’ tea room, I’d wager that some aspects I see in this wine were experienced by them, too.

The overriding impression of this wine is one of purity and clarity, a lucidity, an overall impression of various components joining to create a Pinot Noir of struck tuning-fork precision. Yet, in the vast tomes of rapturous commentary on the great Pinot Noirs, it is the cultivar’s tendency to veer off the track of balance and precision that appears to muster the greatest appeal.

Here, it is the murmured whispers of damp autumnal forest floor apparent in wines deemed so impressionable, together with that “unique” feral, fleshy, sensual aroma. Brushstrokes from the wilderness, the clichéd garrigue, also define Pinot Noir’s greatness, egged on by a clod of mushroom earthiness. When regal Pinot Noirs – aka Burgundian – are spoken about, these are the sensorial aspects highlighted to trumpet their superiority.

Paul Clüver Estate Pinot Noir 2024 has none of these. The aroma is refined and clean and devoid of wet leaves and thigh-sweat. There is just sun, fruit and pure mountain air. The aromatic introduction extends to the palate. Like a sliver of Carrara marble, it captivates, allures and charms with relentless, life-affirming natural beauty. Bright red fruit warms in the mouth to provide a tantalising glow. A shudder of blackcurrant offers comfort to the senses, with soul and nature combining with winemaking skill to create something where deliciousness, wonder and culture unite as one.

On the mid-palate, where it’s make-or-break for Pinot Noir due to the thin-skinned grape’s wont to deliver uncomfortably jarred layers of tannin, this Paul Clüver Pinot Noir is as seamless as a Jannik Sinner backhand stroke, acidity, fruit and sugar wrapped in a silk bracelet and tied with a secure, confident bow.

This wine’s overall harmonious, settled and unfettered nature will lead to questions seeking that Pinot Noir “edge”, the unexpected drama and broodiness that swims against vinous convention, for which the grape is so famous. Well, as Paul Clüver’s Pinot Noir shows, classic beauty and brilliance can also lie in the egalitarian harmony and accuracy of straight-lined clarity.

Will anyone dare say that the art of David Hockney, with its sunlit brightness, crisp ruler-lines and vivid colours, is incapable of creating wonder and thought? So too the luminous prose of Raymond Carver and a long, brassy blow from Chet Baker.

To me, it is this precise, respectful interpretation of Pinot Noir that gives great South African wines made from this grape a signature of individuality and distinction. A nation of sun, fruit and soil we are. Put a human soul, understanding and skill set behind it, and the result is a rendition of Pinot Noir truly worth shouting about. Clearly.

From Die Burger, 26 June 2026

Although South African winemakers are currently producing the finest wines in the country’s history, the same level of expertise is, unfortunately, not shared by the industry bodies responsible for the regulations and legislation these highly skilled and respected producers are required to follow. A recent spate of absurd decisions emanating from the country’s wine authorities should serve to illustrate this point to anyone still in doubt.

The first concerns the production of wine from old vineyards, a category that has captured the imagination of both local and international wine lovers over the past decade. South Africa is blessed with an abundance of mature vineyards whose age and accumulated experience are key factors in producing distinctive wines of character.

Producers who make wine from these veteran vineyards are entirely justified in drawing attention to this fact on their bottles. “Old Vine” or “Old Vines” frequently appears on labels, or “Ou Wingerd” in Afrikaans, alongside the usual vintage, cultivar, region and other required information.

This year, however, the country’s wine authorities have decided to interfere with this long-established practice. The Afrikaans term Ou Wingerd remains acceptable. But producers using English on their labels – by far the majority, given the importance of export markets – are now required to alter their wording when referring to old vineyards.

The term “Old Vine” may only be used on a label if the wine in the bottle is made from a single vine. Otherwise, producers are required to use the plural, “Old Vines”. This ruling has caused considerable frustration among producers who have long used “Old Vine” on their labels, as it now forces them into costly and time-consuming label redesigns.

The absurdity of legally enforcing the distinction between “Old Vine” and “Old Vines” becomes evident when one considers the realities of viticulture and winemaking—subjects about which those responsible for drafting this regulation appear to know remarkably little. The simple fact is that no wine is made from a single vine.

On average, one vine yields approximately 4.5 kilograms of grapes. Depending on the winemaking process, this quantity produces roughly five bottles of wine.

Which raises the obvious question: who on earth is going to produce a commercial wine consisting of just five bottles? Because only a wine made from a single vine would qualify to use the designation “Old Vine”. Such microscopic logic renders the rigid distinction between “Old Vine” and “Old Vines” entirely incomprehensible, leading one to conclude that officials occupying desks within South Africa’s wine industry bodies have little more worthwhile to occupy their time.

To date, the relevant authorities, namely those within South Africa’s Wine Certification Authority, have been unable to provide any explanation for this official distinction despite repeated enquiries from the media.

What makes the situation particularly ironic is that South Africa’s entire old-vine movement is driven by the Old Vine Project, known in Afrikaans as the Ou Wingerdprojek. It will therefore be interesting to see whether the organisation now feels compelled to rename itself the “Old Vines Project”.

The second peculiar piece of proposed legislation relating to wine labels lies ahead, and it demonstrates the same lack of logic and industry understanding as the first.

The authorities are now advocating that descriptive terms be placed prominently on the front labels of producers’ wines, such as “Dry White Wine” or “Dry Red Wine”.

The first question is why these obvious descriptions need to be emblazoned across the front label when they can quite adequately appear on the back label without compromising the appearance and integrity of the brand. And once again, one has to ask what practical purpose these arbitrary front-label descriptions are meant to serve.

Just as BMW or Mercedes-Benz are not required to print the words “Fast German Car” across the bonnet of their vehicles, it surely cannot be necessary to tell consumers buying a Meerlust Rubicon or a Kanonkop Paul Sauer, via the front label, that the wine is a “Dry Red Wine”. The brand and the wine’s name already say everything that needs to be said, and if further explanation is required, the back label is precisely where such information belongs.

Indeed, placing “Dry White” or “Dry Red” prominently on the front label strips a wine of its premium image, since these types of generic descriptions are generally associated with inexpensive boxed wines where only the most basic information about the contents is considered necessary.

Like every wine-producing nation in the world, South Africa faces numerous challenges. One would hope that the relevant authorities would devote more of their time, resources and intellectual energy to developing meaningful strategies, offering support and providing practical guidance to producers, rather than concerning themselves with bureaucratic trivialities. South Africa’s wine producers deserve better, because they are the ones doing the hard work and carrying the industry forward.

It was one of those days in the wine industry when one wondered: just what the hell are you doing here? Parked at the gate of a winery called Mont du Toit outside the town of Wellington was a brand that – despite my having heard its name and seen the label – had not succeeded in piquing even the remotest amount of interest.

The only factor that had persuaded me to make the journey, midweek on a grim Boland winter’s day, was Philip Costandius, one of the Cape’s most seasoned and interesting winemakers, who has been at Mont du Toit’s vinous helm since 2019. Philip’s CV includes stints at Delheim, Neethlingshof and Oldenburg and, prior to our first meeting two decades ago, I had asked wine merchant and overall wine grand dame Caroline Rillema what he was like.

“Oh, Philip’s an intellectual, you know,” she said. “He reads history and stuff.”

As befits an interesting and understated bloke, Philip’s invitation to a farm previously unknown to me turned into a welcome and enriching experience, the name Mont du Toit now firmly attached to my weathered cranial faculty.

Philip was Philip – sporting a dense, well-groomed silver moustache of which Inspector Hercules Poirot would be proud – and our mutual humorous engagement was complemented by the creasing of his forehead and the glint in a pair of eyes that always appeared bright and inquisitive.

We had hardly had time to swap notes on facial hair and intellectual literature before I found myself ensconced in a bakkie next to a distinguished gentleman I had never met before. He was Stephan du Toit, a senior counsel from the Johannesburg Bar who had bought Mont du Toit in 1996.

Leaving Philip behind to attend to cellar matters, Stephan and I headed for the farm’s vineyards. The Hawequa Mountains overlooking the spread looked dramatic and surly beneath a gun-grey sky sheeted with low clouds. The soil was wet, red and rocky in places. The vines were almost bare, only a few russet leaves hanging forlornly from tired shoots, their energy depleted after the 2026 harvest.

Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier and others: some 22 hectares set on drifts and subtle slopes.

As usual, I pried Stephan about his wine-farming ambitions and how these fitted within his legal career. It turned out his father had owned a wine farm in Stellenbosch, and fond memories have a way of burrowing into one’s consciousness until one decides to get as close as possible to reliving them. Like buying your own wine farm.

Being proudly and fiercely attached to his French Huguenot heritage – like myself – the idea of a Wellington farm appealed to Stephan. Franschhoek has laid claim to Huguenot legacy and culture, but the truth is that, a century after the Huguenots set up shop there in 1688, Wellington had the largest number of people descended from the refugees fleeing various forms of persecution in France.

It was when we started talking about wine and various wine-producing countries that things became really interesting. Portugal came up and, when regions, grape varieties and wineries were mentioned, I could not help but note that, although we were speaking Afrikaans, Stephan pronounced the Portuguese names with authentic accents.

It turned out that Stephan’s father had been South African ambassador to Portugal in the 1950s and, due to his schooling in the Land of the Big Bacalhau, my host remained fluent in Portuguese. In fact, he had just translated a seminal work by the 16th-century writer Luís Vaz de Camões from Portuguese into Afrikaans and was busy with the editing process.

Back at the cellar for a quick look around, Philip added that Stephan’s father had, after Portugal, also been ambassador to Paris and that, yes, the Mont du Toit owner was fluent in French as well.

Whether Mont du Toit’s cultural and intellectual gravitas had motivated Philip to work on the farm is unknown, but it is precisely the kind of environment in which one could expect him to continue his winemaking career.

A tasting of the wines with Stephan and Philip took place in a tasting room that also serves as the owner’s part-time office, for when we returned from the cellar he was working through an intimidating pile of paperwork. Well into his eighties, Senhor/Monsieur/Meneer is still at it.

The visit focused on red wines, and I was given the impression that Shiraz is a grape for which Stephan and Philip have a particular affinity. Not a bad call, considering that Wellington’s geographical position has, over the years, proven itself a piece of earth conducive to distinctive expressions of this Rhône stalwart.

The line-up included Mont du Toit Shiraz from the 2021 to 2025 vintages and, looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I am inclined to think of Thys Louw of Diemersdal fame describing wines as “honest”. These are wines made with minimal fuss, devoid of showiness and – honestly – crafted simply to express the earth, climate, aspect and soils in which the vines are rooted.

Estate fruit is vinified in a cellar that uses gravitational flow. Ageing takes place mostly in used barrels, with a 20% new oak component providing polish and tightening the wine’s backbone.

The standout vintage for me was 2023. Here, the Shiraz drifted away from its plush, dark-fruited sappiness towards that delicious Shiraz character of mocha and Havana cigar-box cedar, attributes the variety reveals only in certain vintages. And an effect of oak it is not, given the minimal use of new wood.

The 2021 vintage was arguably the most complete wine, with five years of age providing a settled calm beneath which compote notes of blackcurrant, mulberry and pine needle lay brooding, dark and moerig within a frame of firm tannins. The Mont du Toit Shiraz 2025, meanwhile, was bright and randy, overflowing with voluptuous juiciness that whetted a dry, maritime reef of oyster shells.

I loved the earnest nature of these wines, especially in a world where – due to having fallen out of commercial and critical favour – Shiraz and Syrah are increasingly becoming over-stylised showpieces in which the emphasis on perfume and upfront fruit dulls authenticity and, well, honesty.

Mont du Toit is open for tastings by appointment and, by the way, the tasting room is worth visiting for the splendid Cape Dutch furniture alone. Now I certainly know what I was doing there.

The major reason why I do not believe in imposing numerical scores on wines is that my – obviously limited, barely educated – palate cannot determine a link between something that presents itself sensorially as tasty and delicious and a number between one and 100. Scores and ratings are limiting when the pleasure of taste is, truly, infinite.

It is always a bonus when such persuasions are validated through interactions with people far more qualified in this field. Such was the case this week when I teamed up with Alastair Rimmer, a seasoned and well-travelled winemaker, for an impromptu lunch at 96 Winery Road. The day was all about taste: an immense chunk of grilled T-bone beef the size of an Alsatian’s head, as well as bottles of sumptuous wines, including a Shiraz from the Barossa Valley, a bright, waxy and gritty Riesling from the same region, and Alastair’s own Genesis, a red blend bottled under a label sporting a colourful beetle of some kind and the brand name Six Legs.

Schalk-Willem Joubert, the winemaker as beefy as the 96 Winery Road T-bone, joined the table, and soon the conversation turned to wine, taste, industry matters and the rippled rhythms of the wine world.

What I deduced from these two experienced and knowledgeable winemakers was that accessibility, tastiness and delicious drinkability are becoming far more prominent in today’s wine discourse than ever before. Six or seven years ago, the three of us would have engaged in anally repressed diatribes about terroir, site specificity, varietal authenticity and alcohol levels. Now, perhaps driven by the rapidly changing demands of the wine market, the talk is of flavour, satisfaction and immediate sensory joy. These are the primal – yet too often dismissed – reasons wine was made in the first place.

Of course, the conversation was helped by the bottles and glasses on the table. Alastair had brought a Rockford Basket Press Shiraz 2005 from the Barossa, a wine that was – as Schalk-Willem expressed it – Barossa Valley in a glass. Old vines and 21 years in bottle had helped turn this gluggable example of classic juice into a dollop of intensely flavourful wine. Laden with dense autumnal black fruit, the wine exuded a Burgundian forest-floor note, while drifts of graceful tannins lent a plush exuberance, providing a palette of vinous delights to stimulate an array of human senses.

Alastair’s own Genesis 2024 is the result of his vast experience with the vineyards and producers he came to know during his stint as winemaker at Kleine Zalze, coupled with his vision of making a wine in which flavour and deliciousness are paramount, with terroir and varietal composition neither determining nor confining the result.

The blend is expansive: Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and a splash of Sangiovese adding the sixth leg. The Six Legs Genesis 2024 marketing bumf reads: “Each piece of the puzzle sourced from a producer or site that lends a unique character to the blend, with the ultimate goal of producing a wine that transcends the conventional yet appeals to those who just love a great glass of wine! No Jargon, No Fuss, Just Flavour.”

All the fruit is “cobbled together” from various Stellenbosch vineyards. Some new oak is apparent, while most of the wine goes into older barrels – as one would expect from a wine intended to be drinkable from the outset.

Tasting the Genesis alongside the amply fruited, mature Rockford Shiraz was illuminating, as the richly expressive Shiraz amplified the more austere, classical flavours evident in the Six Legs. My first impression of Genesis was an alluring savoury note. I was not going to attempt to identify the cultivar responsible for this new-leather tease, but my money is on the Syrah and Sangiovese. As true arbiters of taste know, certain fruits taste far better when anointed with a dab of salt, and so it is with Genesis.

That charcuterie-like, gamey touch in Genesis alerted the palate, making way for notes of prune, damson and sour cherry that combined to make a joyous glass of wine. The palate weight was effortless: neither coy nor promiscuous, but alert, life-affirming and lavishly bright.

The conversation turned from deliciousness to the determinants thereof in the making of wine, and here I was chuffed to hear both Schalk-Willem and Alastair agree that balance is key. Balance is an easy word to use, but far harder to achieve in a winery. Yet once attained, the result is deliciousness – the only true indicator of a good wine, and a term far more deserving of a place in the general wine conversation.

And perhaps that is where wine finds itself today. Not in pursuit of points, nor imprisoned by technical jargon, but in the far simpler quest to offer pleasure. The wines on our table differed in origin, style and philosophy, yet they shared one thing: each made us want another glass. No score could explain that. Balance can. Deliciousness certainly can. And, in the end, that is the only rating that really matters.

There was a time when South African wine sought validation by measuring itself against the world’s great benchmarks. Bordeaux for Cabernet Sauvignon. Burgundy for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The Rhône for Syrah. That era, according to two of the wine world’s most respected voices, is over.

Speaking at the Trophy Wine Show judges’ feedback session, Master of Wine Heidi Mäkinen and veteran British wine writer Oz Clarke delivered an enthusiastic assessment of South African wine’s current standing. Their message was clear: South Africa is no longer trying to find its place in the global wine landscape. It has found it.

For Mäkinen, who last judged at the Trophy Wine Show in 2017, the progress has been striking.

“It’s very exciting to be back after nine years,” she said. “I do think that this country has gone miles forward since last time I was here.”

Her observations were not merely about improved quality. They reflected a deeper confidence she senses among South African producers.

“There’s a lot of belief in what you do uniquely in this country and less of the comparisons to the Burgundies and Bordeauxs in the wine world,” she said. “After a while you just have to have that inherent belief in what you do.”

That confidence, she believes, is now visible across the spectrum of South African wine. Whether working with international varieties such as Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, or grapes more closely associated with South Africa such as Chenin Blanc and Cinsault, producers are increasingly expressing a distinctive identity.

For Mäkinen, the comparison she once made with Spain is becoming increasingly relevant to South Africa.

“I was raving about how my favourite wine country is Spain,” she recalled. “But here am I thinking maybe I should change that topic to saying South Africa is that country.”

The reasons are similar. Spain’s rise has been built on indigenous varieties, innovative young winemakers and exceptional value. South Africa, she suggested, is following a comparable path, while adding its own unique voice.

Her optimism extended beyond the vineyards and into the marketplace.

“I think South Africa has gained that presence already in the premium wine market,” she said. “Be proud of yourselves.”

If Mäkinen’s comments reflected the view of an international observer returning after a decade, Oz Clarke provided the longer historical perspective. Few wine writers have witnessed South Africa’s post-isolation wine journey as closely as Clarke, who first judged local wines internationally in the 1990s and was present at the inaugural Trophy Wine Show in 2002.

Looking back, he described an industry that was once convinced it was producing world-class wine while the rest of the world was less persuaded.

“There was immense goodwill towards South Africa,” Clarke recalled, “but the wine world was largely complacent and thought they knew how to do things.”

The challenge, he said, was that countries such as Australia, New Zealand and California were innovating faster and responding more effectively to consumers.

What followed over the next quarter-century has been one of the wine world’s most remarkable transformations.

“South Africa is now doing as a world leader what it wasn’t doing 25 years ago,” Clarke said.

Central to that evolution has been a willingness to embrace both innovation and heritage.

On the one hand, South Africa has developed distinctive interpretations of global varieties. Clarke singled out Syrah, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir as examples of wines that no longer mimic international styles.

“You’ve come up with a new style of Syrah which France wasn’t making, which Australia wasn’t making,” he said.

The same applies to Pinot Noir.

“It’s not like the French, it’s not like the Californians, it’s not like the New Zealanders. It’s yours.”

Yet South Africa’s success is equally rooted in its history. Clarke was particularly enthusiastic about the preservation of old vineyards and the work of the Old Vine Project.

“You haven’t ripped up all your old vines,” he said. “Those old grapes are precious.”

He spoke warmly of varieties such as Cinsault, Grenache, Carignan, Palomino, Clairette and Grenache Blanc, arguing that in a world crowded with Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, these heritage varieties provide South Africa with something genuinely distinctive.

Perhaps the strongest endorsement came when Clarke discussed Cabernet Sauvignon.

At a time when many regions are producing increasingly ripe, powerful and heavily extracted Cabernet, he believes Stellenbosch is charting a more classical course.

“Stellenbosch is making almost the most classical Cabernets in the whole world,” he said.

More provocatively, he suggested that the best Stellenbosch Cabernets today are often closer in style to traditional Bordeaux than many modern Bordeaux wines themselves.

“It’s a maritime grape,” Clarke said. “It makes savoury wines, beautifully balanced wines that are meant to make your mouth water.”

The maritime influence of the Cape’s vineyards was a recurring theme throughout the discussion. Clarke pointed to the cooling Benguela Current and the diversity of coastal sites as major advantages, particularly for Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir.

Those natural assets, combined with increasingly sophisticated viticulture and winemaking, are helping South Africa carve out a unique identity.

What impressed both Mäkinen and Clarke most was that this identity is no longer built around imitation.

Twenty-five years ago, South Africa was often evaluated according to how closely its wines resembled European benchmarks. Today, the conversation has changed.

For Mäkinen, the defining characteristic of South African wine is confidence.

For Clarke, it is authenticity.

The two themes are closely linked.

South African wine is succeeding not because it has become more like Bordeaux, Burgundy or the Rhône. It is succeeding because it has become more comfortable being itself.

The result is an industry that combines old vines and new ideas, heritage and innovation, global ambition and local character.

As Mäkinen put it: “There is a really good way forward.”

And if Clarke’s assessment is anything to go by, the rest of the wine world is paying attention.

“You’ve managed to catch hold of the good parts of your history,” he said, “and you’ve created an entirely new narrative at the same time.”

For a country once searching for recognition, that may be the greatest achievement of all.

• Trophy Show results due Monday 8 June.

Perhaps we don’t know what they know, but from the sidelines it seems the younger generation is intent on stripping the world of life’s, well, finer and more cultured pleasures. Tastes and fashions change, of course, but viewed through the eyes of someone slightly grey and distinguishedly seasoned, the whole affair leaves a rather sour aftertaste.

My own brush with the youth-led abolition of things long considered enjoyable concerns wine. Fact is, global wine consumption is at its lowest level in 60 years, and the blame is squarely pinned on the under-30s, who have failed to inherit their wise parents’ enthusiastic thirst for the grape. Of course, it could be a case of said parents setting a poor example, but I put all this down to the nerdish rebelliousness of today’s youth.

France, a nation as inseparable from wine as Arabia is from camel milk and air-raid sirens, offers the starkest example of this drought in wine consumption. In 1960, the average French citizen enjoyed 100 litres of wine a year. Today that figure hovers just above 30 litres per person, a dramatic collapse that has dealt a bruising blow to France’s reputation as the World’s Wine Nation, considering that 30 litres is roughly the average annual brandy intake within the borders of Worcester and Rawsonville.

And it’s not just France. Wine is losing seemingly favour everywhere, largely because of younger tastes. The youth regard wine as “old-fashioned”, “not flavourful enough” and — heaven forbid — “uncool, not really suited to pretty Instagram and TikTok posts… right?”

Further grim tidings from the French republic of good taste come in the form of that country’s younger generation now turning its nose up at France’s other gastronomic masterpiece: cheese. Or rather, French cheese. Those ripe, aromatic, full-throttle beauties that overpower the nostrils, seduce the palate and bless the stomach with a sensation of post-coital bliss. (Oh, and apparently the youth are also bonking less these days, but this another story.)

French cheese. Think of the musty blue-cheese jewel that is Roquefort, made from sheep’s milk and left to mould in dark caves filled with mystery and ancient wonder; the earthy Munster and its flavour of freshly dewed compost heap; or the gloriously runny Epoisses, whose brazen, riotous aroma fogs up your spectacles before assaulting your mouth, leaving viciously primal aromatic traces on your breath for three days. All these wonders and glories are being eschewed by the youth that appear to now know no pleasure.

Fewer than 10% of French young adults — aged 18 to 24 — eat traditional French cheeses. Instead, they gorge on Mozzarella and Emmental: cardboardy cheeses lacking in taste, charm and character, but which melt obediently onto pizzas and toasted sandwiches. Cheese is now reduced to convenience food, something to nibble while waiting for the next tattoo appointment, or to wolf down alongside an almond-milk cappuccino before Pilates class. And, of course, the visual of a stringy cord of melted Mozzarella strung mid-air between pizza and its influencer eater makes for great Instagram, the latter being the current determiner of good taste.

Another possible reason for French youngsters rejecting mature, ancient, characterful cheeses is the belief that “right-wing” people are supposedly more inclined to enjoy old-school cheeses than their liberal, left-leaning counterparts. A wedge of blue Roquefort, therefore, apparently signals that the eater thereof is a neo-Nazi or Donald Trump acolyte and, sacré bleu!, which boy or girl in their spring years wants to be associated with this? Pass the processed cheddar slice and skip the tune to Bono or Taylor Swift.

Personally, I accept that every sport comes with its injuries. And I’m perfectly willing to risk my reputation for the pleasure of a proper hunk of ripe, runny and pungently aromatic French cheese washed down with a crisp Sancerre white wine.

In fact, make that a double.

By Lafras Huguenet

There is, I think, a tendency among wine commentators — and perhaps especially among South Africans — to become over-excited whenever one of the Cape’s wines edges towards international distinction. One hears, with exhausting regularity, that this or that bottling is “world-class”, usually after a flattering score from London or New York. Most of the time, the claim is premature. Sometimes it is faintly embarrassing.

The Leeu Passant Chardonnay is another matter entirely.

After a decade of vintages, and after the recent vertical tasting held in Franschhoek, it has become difficult to avoid the conclusion that this wine now belongs among the world’s most compelling expressions of Chardonnay. Not because it resembles Burgundy, nor because it flatters fashionable contemporary taste, but because it possesses that increasingly rare quality in fine wine: inevitability. It tastes exactly of where it comes from and of nothing else.

This is rarer than technical brilliance. Cellars across the world are full of technically brilliant Chardonnay. Stainless steel can preserve freshness; barrels can confer texture; cultured yeasts and reductive handling can manufacture intrigue. None of that, however, guarantees identity. Indeed, modern Chardonnay has often become a kind of international dialect spoken with varying accents but using exactly the same vocabulary.

The Leeu Passant wine refuses this trap.

What struck me most about the reports from the vertical tasting was not merely the quality of the wines, but their composure. These are not Chardonnays straining for attention. They are not laden with oak sweetness, nor reduced into flinty caricature. They are calm wines. They trust the vineyard. In an age of vinous theatricality, that restraint feels almost radical.

And the vineyard itself deserves attention. A Stellenbosch Helderberg facing the cool influence of False Bay, it has now crossed that invisible threshold at which vines cease merely producing fruit and begin transmitting place. Young vines often shout variety. Older vines murmur geology.

That, increasingly, is what one seems to encounter in Leeu Passant Chardonnay: geology rendered drinkable.

The 2015 maiden vintage now appears almost prophetic. First vintages are usually earnest things, admirable perhaps, but slightly anxious, as though the wine itself senses the burden of expectation. Yet the inaugural Leeu Passant already carried remarkable assurance. The citrus tension, the saline edge, the refusal of easy generosity, all the essential signatures were already there. One suspects the wine must now be entering that deeply satisfying phase of maturity where primary fruit begins yielding to wax, hazelnut and marine savouriness without losing freshness.

And freshness, here, is crucial. South African Chardonnay has too often struggled with the burden of sunlight. Ripeness comes easily in the Cape; finesse less so. Many producers have therefore oscillated absurdly between excess and denial, first embracing Californian opulence, then pursuing reductive severity with almost religious zeal. The result has frequently been wines more concerned with fashion than truth.

Leeu Passant has wisely ignored fashion.

The 2017 vintage, to my mind, sounds close to profound. Christian Eedes called it his favourite release at the time, and one can see why. The descriptors — grapefruit, blossom, salt, crystalline acidity — suggest a wine in complete equilibrium. Great Chardonnay is never simply rich, nor simply taut. It must possess both breadth and line, both sunlight and shadow. Too much fruit and the wine becomes obvious; too much acidity and it becomes merely intellectual. The 2017 seems to occupy that elusive middle territory where flavour and structure become indivisible.

More importantly, though, it appears to possess energy. This matters enormously. One can drink many technically accomplished Chardonnays and remain unmoved. Energy is different. Energy is what compels another sip. It is what makes wine feel alive rather than assembled.

Then comes 2021, a vintage which increasingly looks set to become one of the Cape’s modern classics. Here, apparently, the wine broadened without softening. The fruit spectrum deepened into yellow citrus and white peach, yet the acidity retained absolute authority. One hears repeatedly of low pH levels in these wines, and thankfully so. Acidity is not merely refreshment; it is architecture. Without it, Chardonnay collapses under its own weight.

What is so impressive about these wines is that they achieve concentration without resorting to sweetness, extraction or oak inflation. There is no attempt to seduce. They ask the drinker to pay attention. That confidence marks the difference between luxury wine and fine wine. Luxury seeks approval. Fine wine simply articulates place.

And this, ultimately, is why Leeu Passant matters so profoundly to South Africa.

For decades, South African wine has existed in a slightly awkward psychological condition. The country possesses extraordinary vineyards, yet has often looked abroad for validation. Burgundy remained the implicit benchmark; Bordeaux the silent authority. The language surrounding Cape wine therefore became permanently aspirational: “emerging”, “promising”, “up-and-coming”.

Frankly, it grew tiresome.

The Leeu Passant Chardonnay renders such vocabulary obsolete. This is not an “emerging” wine. It is not promising. It has arrived.

Moreover, it has arrived without surrendering its South African identity. Too many ambitious New World Chardonnays attempt to erase sunshine, as though ripeness itself were shameful. But the Cape is luminous. It should taste luminous. The genius of Leeu Passant is that it preserves this sunlight while disciplining it with maritime freshness and mineral structure. The result is neither Burgundy nor California nor Australia. It is Helderberg.

That achievement is cultural as much as viticultural.

The broader Leeu Passant project — recovering old vineyards, reviving neglected Cape varieties, treating South African wine history as inheritance rather than inconvenience — may prove one of the most important intellectual contributions to modern Cape wine. The brand has helped reposition South African fine wine not as imitation, but as interpretation of its own landscape and memory.

And memory matters. Great wine cultures are built not merely on quality, but on continuity. A vertical tasting of ten vintages is therefore significant beyond the bottles themselves. It establishes chronology. It creates historical confidence. It allows drinkers to understand that South African Chardonnay is capable not merely of youthful brilliance, but of evolution and endurance.

That, in the end, may be the most convincing argument of all.

Fine wine is time made visible. The Leeu Passant Chardonnay appears increasingly capable of carrying time with grace. Few wines anywhere in the world can truly do that. Fewer still can do so while speaking in such a distinct and unmistakable voice.

South Africa should stop calling these wines “world-class”.

The phrase is too small for what they have become.