One of the more frightening examples of South Africa’s decline is to be found in the demise in quality of Nando’s, the ubiquitous chicken franchise whose colourful, omnipresent logo and quirky television commercials have catapulted it into the realm of purporting to be a South African institution, one which has also gained traction outside local borders, feeding chicken peri-peri and other creations to fast-food lovers in 30 countries.

Nando’s once had few keener supporters than myself. Founded in Johannesburg in 1987, Nando’s takeaways bleeped onto my Cape Town radar in the early 1990s, and from the outset I sought out a branch so as to partake in one of life’s great culinary pleasures: namely, peri-peri chicken and chips. And for years — decades — Nando’s did not disappoint.

My standard order of a full chicken, hot peri-peri, nourished me in times of hunger and sustained my soul when things were beating downwards. Arriving home with my brown-bagged chicken, I could not wait to release it from its wrapping, the fragrant wafts of perfectly grilled chook, garlic, peri-peri and lemon drifting through the house. Half the chicken would be plated next to a mound of golden-fried chips, and I would look at the blistered, flame-grilled skin, rivulets of fatty drops running glisteningly over the char, and thank the peri-peri heavens before digging in with a gusto that had my cat staring at me with curious eyes of wonder and concern, and hope for a leftover.

Then, the chicken had structure and texture and, above all, taste. The cooking process had allowed the flesh to remain tender, with an authentically flame-grilled fibrous structure that allowed the bird’s own tasty fat and the peri-peri sauce to find purchase in the depths of the flesh. I’d eat the marble-coloured breast first before removing meat and skin from the wings and legs, alternating the devouring of flesh with a delicious crunchy chip, the potato interior cleansing the palate and preparing it for the next bite of chicken.

Those were the days.

The past two years have, tragically, left me with a hollow, hurtful feeling of nostalgia for those days of pleasure provided by Nando’s, replaced with a set of experiences that can only be described as abominable. Still a keen and eager supporter of establishments doing chicken peri-peri, it pains me to state that Nando’s today offers the worst rendition of this dish to feature on my extensive reference points.

Friday past could only reaffirm this when I hopefully ordered a Nando’s delivery, an order I wished would erase the memories of the horrendous experiences of late that had accrued from the same franchise. It was not to be.

Despite the menu offering a range of diverse chicken dishes ranging from livers to wraps, kebabs and burgers, I stuck to that on which Nando’s reputation was built: namely, a whole peri-peri chicken and chips.

A hint of the downward spiral in quality was the lack of any aroma emanating from the Nando’s-logo-emblazoned brown paper bag, about the only aspect of the franchise that has remained intact. The bag’s contents were emptied into a white casserole dish, and I baulked at the sight, having to pinch myself. Was this the Nando’s I had come to know? What on God’s earth had happened?

The viewing of that thing sliding into the dish was almost as miserable as that of Kallie Kriel’s face during a podcast fighting for the cause of disenfranchised, supposedly genocide-fleeing Afrikaners — just without the facial hair and pursed lips. For here was a thing insulting anybody with the slightest predilection for a simple dish of grilled chicken.

Colour-wise, the butterflied bird had a hue that is almost impossible to describe in its ugliness. Grey comes instantly to mind, but coupled to the grey was a mysterious brownish yellow on the skin, some sort of attempt to present the chicken with a flame-grilled façade.

Now, I am by no means expecting Nando’s to pump out millions of 100% flame-grilled barbecued chickens per day. As a skilled cooker of poultry over open coals, I know the process takes at least an hour, impossible to replicate on a large scale. But in the past, Nando’s par-cooked chickens had been given sufficient time on the flame, allowing for the much-needed imparting of texture and flavour.

The 2025 version of Nando’s whole “flame-grilled” chicken looked like it had been boiled in a basin filled with the post-match shower water from a third-league football team in Bonteheuwel, before being reheated with a sputtering blowtorch.

A bit of prying into the flesh with my trusty Opinel knife and a fork revealed a mass of sogginess, congealed fat converging with a mysterious oiliness that gave the chicken an unhealthy-looking sheen promising to stop a pacemaker at three metres. Once again, the total lack of aroma alerted one to the fact that the meal was to be devoid of flavour and taste, and in this it did not disappoint.

Eating the breast meat was akin to consuming a piece of dense cardboard that had been simmered to a pulp in a pot of water containing a few crumbs of a chicken-stock cube. Slimy, flaccid meat slid from the leg and wing bones without the slightest hint of the comforting flavour one gets from an accurately cooked chicken. The skin, my favourite part, was alarming in its tastelessness, hanging shapelessly from the fork like a pre-Covid autumnal booger.

Unfortunately, the accompanying chips were not able to offer respite from this terrifyingly bad experience. Gone was the carefully deep-fried brittle coating, now replaced by pale potato shreds struggling to defy gravity, uninspiringly hanging from one’s fingers like stale, dead caterpillars. The taste was oily and bland, with an uncalled-for sweetish edge.

Having experienced exactly the same from Nando’s over the past couple of years, I am surprised by my continuing to be startled by the depths to which this once efficient chain of eateries has descended. All that is left is memory and nostalgia. But nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be.

So, without not even a whimper from the South African wine industry bodies, South Africa has withdrawn from the Great Wine Capitals, an important global network of wine tourism institutions. No communication here from the usual organisations who have over the past few years have – quite rightly – made a huge hoopla about the importance of the countries wine tourism sector, one that is a major contribution to the country’s vinous image. Yet a fact confirmed by international diplomats. South Africa pulled-out of the Great Wine Capitals in June, slyly deciding not to inform the industry players and public at large.

South Africa’s withdrawal from Great Wine Capitals (GWC) network is a move as perplexing as it is damaging. On the surface, it may seem like a bureaucratic adjustment or a budgetary trimming. In truth, it represents a strategic blunder that will undermine one of the country’s most dynamic and globally resonant industries, namely wine tourism. Wine tourism is not just about providing international visitors with experiences in the diverse and majestically scened winelands. It is about creating a relationship with these visitors, one seeing them lifelong proponents and supports of South African wine once they have returned to Idaho or Liverpool and Antwerp, Hong Kong Denmark and Cologne. And support, memories and conviction resulting from a South African winelands experience leads to continued wine purchases and sales. An emotional take-out.

Since joining the GWC in 2014, Cape Town and the Cape Winelands have enjoyed membership among a league of the world’s most celebrated wine regions incljding Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Mendoza, Verona, and others. The alliance offered far more than prestige; it provided access to shared expertise, marketing reach, and global recognition. Through initiatives such as the Best of Wine Tourism Awards and international networking events, South African producers found themselves on a global platform that consistently translated into real economic gain.

To put it plainly, wine tourism is not an indulgence for South Africa, it is a lifeline. The Western Cape’s vineyards attract more than a million international visitors each year, injecting around R36 billion into the regional economy and sustaining tens of thousands of livelihoods. From cellar-door sales in Stellenbosch to boutique hotels in Franschhoek and farm-to-table restaurants in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, this ecosystem thrives on the world’s curiosity about South African wine. GWC membership amplified that curiosity; it connected the Cape’s producers to global conversations about sustainability, marketing, and consumer trends.

The decision to walk away severs those connections at a time when they are most needed. Around the world, the leading wine regions are doubling down on collaboration and shared learning — from climate adaptation to digital engagement with younger consumers. South Africa, by contrast, risks receding into isolation. Without access to the GWC’s global forums and data networks, the Cape’s producers lose not only visibility but also the collective intelligence that drives innovation and resilience.

The implications extend well beyond prestige. Wine tourism operates as a multiplier: for every visitor to a tasting room, there are hotel bookings, restaurant reservations, and local art and craft sales. The loss of even a modest percentage of international visitors could ripple through rural economies, eroding job security and community development. For small producers already contending with the pressures of climate volatility, rising input costs, and a fragile currency, the GWC connection offered a bridge to markets that value authenticity and quality over volume.

One struggles to see the rationale. Whether the decision stemmed from administrative friction or funding constraints, it is difficult to reconcile with the broader strategic goals of South African tourism and export promotion. In an era when partnerships and global storytelling define competitiveness, the withdrawal reads less like prudence and more like retreat.

There is still time to correct course. The industry’s key bodies such as Wines of South Africa, South African Wine, Wesgro, and the Cape Winelands District Municipality must work together to reopen dialogue with the GWC and pursue reinstatement before the 2026 conference cycle. South Africa’s wine narrative, grounded in resilience and renewal, deserves a place at the global table.

To withdraw now is to silence a voice the world has only recently learned to hear. A voice shaped by centuries of craft, adversity, and extraordinary landscape. The world’s great wine capitals are in conversation; South Africa cannot afford to stop speaking.

Words: Lafras Huguenet

There’s no glamour in the Swartland. Just rock, wind, and a kind of hard light that makes you squint even when you’re not looking at the sun. It’s the sort of place where vines have to earn their keep, clinging to slopes of schist and quartz on Kasteelberg Mountain like they’ve made some long-term, bad-idea pact with survival.

This is Roundstone, the Mullineuxs’ patch of seriously bold dirt. One hundred hectares of stubborn, stony hillside that’s been beaten into giving up some of the most honest, well-structured and quite frankly statuesque wines in South Africa. Nothing here is easy, nothing is dressed up. And that’s exactly the point.

Chris and Andrea Mullineux don’t do fashion or shortcuts. They farm like they cook:  with precision, patience and the heartfelt need to provide something tasty that is as good for the soul as it is for the sensorial apparatus. The kids also like offal, which is a good thing. Offal-detesters are hard people to trust. And winemakers need all the trusting they can get.

Since 2008 they’ve been pushing toward organic, regenerative farming, not because it’s cool but because it’s the only way the land makes sense long-term. The soil’s alive, the vines are tough, and the fynbos –  that wiry, aromatic bush scattered through the vineyards – is part of the system. It keeps things balanced.

The wind here is relentless, a local enforcer that scrubs disease out of the canopy and slows the ripening to a crawl. That’s why the wines have a taut, reverberating tension. Because they’re forged under pressure.

Known for Syrah and Chenin Blancs, the Mullineuxs recently off-loaded two new harmoniously blended wines onto the market.

The Roundstone Blanc 2023

If white wines were people, this one would be the quiet type who doesn’t talk much but always has the last word. It’s a mix of everything that shouldn’t work together but somehow does: Macabeu, Chenin Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Clairette Blanche, Roussanne, Verdelho, Vermentino, Assyrtiko. A Mediterranean fever dream that’s been through Swartland boot camp, caressed by the sleight hands of Andrea and the sinewy cool direct approach of Chris.

The grapes are picked at dawn, when the air still has a bit of mercy in it, and pressed whole into barrels. No lab yeast, no sterile stainless-steel babysitting, just wild fermentation doing its slow, slightly dangerous thing. Seven months on the lees, eleven in oak, and then it’s bottled without filtering. What you see is what you get.

The 2023 vintage was a long, cool ride, and it shows. This wine doesn’t shout. It hums. From the heart, through the belly and the tune is crystal and sweet. Think white pear, fynbos, chamomile, and that faint mineral whiplash you get from stone and salt. It’s textured and firm, like a handshake from someone who’s worked for a living, and it finishes clean and long. The kind of white that makes you stop talking mid-sentence because something on your tongue just clicked into focus.

Only 1 770 bottles exist. If you’ve got one, don’t waste it on a hot-tub crowd. This thing will age twenty years easy, maybe longer. But if you’re opening it young, decant it and let it stretch its legs.

The Roundstone 2023

Now for the red. This one’s got muscle and manners in equal measure being a blend of Syrah, Grenache Noir, and Cinsault, all raised on the same stone-cut slopes. It’s the kind of wine that smells like the landscape it came from, all dark berries, fynbos, pure-earthed dust and sun, and tastes like someone decided restraint was the real flex.

Everything’s done by hand. The grapes are picked in the cool hours, whole-bunch fermented in 500-litre barrels, stomped the old-fashioned way, just enough to keep the cap wet. No stainless, no pumps, no over-extraction. You could call it minimal intervention, but that makes it sound trendy. It’s really just winemaking with a conscience and knowing when to do nothing.

After six weeks of slow fermentation and maceration, the wine goes back into barrel for 22 months. That’s where it pulls itself together. The tannins smoothing out, the structure tightening, the fruit taking on that clean, stony edge that only quartz and schist can give.

When you finally pour it, it’s got presence and the kind of texture that grips your gums but never bites. There’s a flicker of wildness, but it’s contained, disciplined. Best served at 16 to 18 degrees, decanted if it’s young. You’ll get a better conversation out of it that way.

Only 5 040 bottles made. Again, not a wine for the masses, but a wine for people who like things that taste like somewhere, not something.

And Roundstone is somewhere. Special. It isn’t some manicured estate with a tasting room playlist. It’s a working piece of land, and it behaves like one. Every vine looks like it’s survived something. The Mullineuxs don’t hide that, they build on it.

That’s what makes both the Blanc and the Red so damn compelling. They don’t pretend to be perfect; they just tell the truth about where they come from. And in wine, that’s rarer than you think.

If you’re lucky enough to stand on Kasteelberg in late afternoon, when the sun drops and the rocks turn gold, you get it. The wind dies down, the heat releases, and for a minute the place breathes differently. That’s the moment these wines are built on, a balance between beauty and struggle.

You don’t need to know the science of schist or the metrics of regenerative farming to feel it. You just need to taste. Because under all the talk of terroir and technique, what the Mullineuxs are really doing is simple: making wine that respects where it comes from, doesn’t fake a thing, and refuses to bore you.

There’s honesty in that. The kind of honesty that cuts through noise. Like good food, like hard work, like the Swartland itself.

The introduction of a new Sauvignon Blanc to the Diemersdal Estate portfolio is no longer a revelation, as proprietor-winemaker Thys Louw launches these with frequent regularity. A desire driven by curiosity, purpose and enthrallment with Sauvignon Blanc has seen Thys turn Diemersdal into something of a shrine for wines made from this variety, a place where the seemingly limitless potential and hidden secrets of Sauvignon Blanc are found in a startling array of wines.

The latest newbie is no stranger, in that it is a Diemersdal Eight Rows, a tried, trusted and adored wine on the local Sauvignon Blanc landscape. Yet, this latest release – only available in magnum – is the 2024 vintage that was left on the lees for 18 months prior to bottling, as opposed to the standard Eight Rows bottling’s six months. And what a wine it is, and what a difference a long lay on the lees makes.

This isn’t just a wine; it’s a disciplined, nuanced expression of the Cape’s most cherished variety, elevated by extended lees contact and an ode, perhaps, to the more contemplative, slow-burning traditions of fine winemaking found in France’s Loire or Burgundy, but with a distinctly South African soul.

From the moment this wine is poured, its pale gold hue shimmering with subtle confidence, the sense of purpose is unmistakable. A maritime whisper envelops the aroma: oyster shells, wet ocean rock, and a mineral freshness that immediately transports you to the cool, wind-buffeted slopes of the Durbanville terroir.

These vineyards, rooted in decomposed granite and clay soils, sit on south-facing slopes where proximity to the Atlantic imparts a signature salinity and mineral vibrancy. It’s a site of singular character, carefully cultivated through dryland farming, a method that, in my opinion, best captures and elevates the intrinsic qualities of Sauvignon Blanc in this cool, maritime climate.

The narrative of the Eight Rows is woven through history, beginning with Thys Louw’s humble yet ambitious start in 2005. Initially restricted to just eight rows of a single vineyard, Thys’s dedication proved that small can be significant. The first vintage in 2006 set a high bar, and decades later, this compact block remains the core of a wine that continues to evolve, revealing more layers each year.

To taste the 2024 in its extended lees-contact magnum is to witness the culmination of this meticulous stewardship, a wine that has matured into an elegant, complex icon, yet remains fiercely rooted in its site-specific essence.

It’s a testament to patience, an act of restraint in a world that often seeks instant gratification. This extended contact imbues the wine with a remarkable depth and a silky texture, integrating the vibrant acidity with a rounded, nectarine-infused palate that is simultaneously fresh and layered. Bottled unfiltered, the wine exudes a natural purity, its turbid, luminous presence a reflection of the vineyard’s pristine fruit and minimal intervention.

On the palate, the mineral core is immediately apparent. Flints and oceanic nuances set the tone for a lively yet refined experience. Touches of gooseberry, granadilla pips, kumquat, and persimmon evoke a tropical spectrum, but it’s the sea-salt finish – a surge of lemon zest and briny salinity – that truly captures the mood. Each sip feels like a gentle yet inexorable tide, ebbing and flowing with precision, evoking a coast where land and sea blend seamlessly. It’s a wine that commands attention without weight, embodying the spirit of modern restraint married to classical elegance.

In my view, the 2024 Eight Rows is more than a superb wine; it’s a statement. It challenges the notion that South African Sauvignon Blanc must be exuberant and fruit-forward; instead, it suggests that true elegance resides within a delicate balance of minerality, acidity, and subtle complexity. It bears the hallmark of a wine made with clarity, purpose, and respect for its origins and the provenance of one of the country’s great wine estates.

With today’s trend of showering chefs and food personalities with praise and accolades, it is surprising that a rotund, moustached man from KwaZulu-Natal named Bill should remain in the shadow. Because the late Bill O’Hagan is still known among the British as the man who brought a “sausage renaissance” to their grey island.

Granted, delivering any form of “renaissance” to Britain’s drab cooking pots doesn’t sound like much of a challenge. But what makes Bill’s story compelling is that he took the Brits’ beloved pork sausage — the “banger” — and, with South African flair and good taste, transformed it into the kind of sausage the locals felt they had always deserved.

Bill, who passed away in 2013, was the son of the legendary Ebbo Bastard, the troublesome Springbok flanker who was part of the iconic team that defeated New Zealand on their own soil in 1937. Little Bill was still a toddler when his father was murdered. Later he took on his mother’s surname. After all, a name like Bill Bastard might well have been something of a millstone in later life.

During his school years Bill worked weekends in a butcher shop, where his love for and knowledge of sausage making began. In 1970, at the age of 24, Bill landed in London to pursue his journalism career, which he had started in Johannesburg. And he was so shocked by his first encounters with the local pork sausages at breakfast that he considered the great British breakfast “a fabrication and cultural deception.”

Since the wartime rationing years, British sausages had largely consisted of scraps of unidentifiable meat varieties and parts, padded out with mouldy bread and old grain, stuffed into a casing. For a sausage lover like Bill, this was unacceptable.

Working night shifts at The Daily Telegraph, Bill spent his days making sausages: proper cuts of meat, no with starches or artificial flavourings, and real pork casings to hold everything together.

For years he sold the sausages to friends and colleagues, but when Bill opened his first shop in Greenwich, London, in 1988, O’Hagan’s sausages quickly entered the national vocabulary. His culinary creations were sold in places such as the Dorchester Hotel and prestigious stores like Harrods and Harvey Nichols. With his frequent appearances in the media and on television in the 1980s and early 1990s as the man who had resurrected British sausage from the dead, Bill was likely South Africa’s first international food personality.

O’Hagan’s remains synonymous with quality sausages in Britain today, although the business itself appears to have been rather on-and-off since Bill’s death.

Little is known about his descendants or the carriers of Bill’s legacy. Yet he deserves to be recognised as an unsung South African food hero, the man who put back the bang in the British banger.

And a good old Bastard, at that.

A termite mound is usually associated with the parched, hard and hot regions of Southern Africa, a strange bulging citadel of soil with countless pale insects seething within. Despite no longer found in the Cape Winelands, this ancient builder of underground worlds may be one of the grapevine’s oldest friends.

We think of termites as inhabitants of the country’s northern savannas, those dry landscapes dotted with russet towers. But thousands of years ago, they thrived across the lands we now call the Cape winelands. Their trace, however, endures. In the remains of millions of insects themselves as well as in the quiet architecture they left behind.

My first encounter with this notion that termite activity once shaped the very soils of our vineyards, came from Danie de Wet of De Wetshof in Robertson. Robertson’s earth carries the highest limestone content of any South African wine region. Chalk and Chardonnay have always been intimate companions, and it is no coincidence that De Wetshof’s luminous Chardonnays found their natural home here. Danie believes the valley’s calcareous richness was forged by countless ancient termite colonies: generations of insects lived, worked, died, their remains enriching the ground, softening it, whitening it.

These fossilised termite mounds, it turns out, are scattered far beyond Robertson. Johann Smit, one of South Africa’s most seasoned viticulturists, known for his tenure at Spier and now at Perdeberg Cellar, has long been fascinated by them. Travelling between the vineyards that feed Perdeberg’s wines, Johann began to notice a pattern: circular patches, faintly discernible from the air, particularly between Malmesbury and Darling. To the farmer’s eye, they’re called heuweltjies or kraaltjies — little hillocks, or small enclosures, like ghostly livestock kraals waiting for a flock that never came.

With the mind of a true soil scientist, Johann began to dig deeper, both literally and figuratively. What he discovered was astonishing: these termite “kraaltjies” have a fundamentally different chemistry from the land around them. For millennia, termites carried organic material such as leaves, stems, bark and animal dung into their underground fortresses. The surrounding earth, stripped of its organic surface litter, became poorer, while the mounds themselves grew rich with carbon and minerals. The termites, in their anonymous persistence, were the first tillers of the Cape soil.

The remains of their work still speak through the spade. The soil of a kraaltjie is soft, friable, almost yielding, while the earth beside it is hard as baked clay. Within the mound zones, levels of potassium, calcium, magnesium, boron, and carbon rise sharply, and the pH is markedly higher. What the termite once built for shelter has become, aeons later, a cradle for the vine.

And vines do respond. Johann, with enthusiasm of reverence awe, describes how plants growing on these circles are different: their foliage denser, their canopy casting more shade, their leaves persisting nearly a month longer after harvest than their neighbours. This, he notes, allows the vine to store greater reserves for the following season, a quiet promise of renewal written into the life of the plant.

Such reverence for these subterranean artisans found its natural expression in a wine: Kraaltjies Chenin Blanc 2025, made from 34-year-old bush vines rooted squarely in these ancient mounds. “You can see the difference in the grapes,” says Johann. “The bunches are larger, the acids brighter as the shade keeps the ripening bunches cool.” To preserve the purity of this termite terroir, the wine was left unoaked, resting four months on its lees before bottling.

Does the ghost of the termite truly whisper in the glass? Perhaps that lies beyond analysis. What can be said is that Kraaltjies Chenin Blanc is another shining example of Swartland Chenin, lovely broad-shouldered yet supple, fragrant with blossom, generous in fruit, and touched by something quietly primeval.

Wine, after all, is not only judged by what it is, but by the story that leads to it. The dialogue between earth and time. In this case, the story reaches back to an age before man, when the first architects of the soil were still at work. Their mounds have crumbled, but their legacy endures tasted now, centuries later, in a glass of Chenin Blanc.