handtomouth

First congratulations to Vergelegen, who have been named the “New World Winery of the Year” for 2005 by America’s Wine Enthusiast magazine. As these tributes go, it’s a note-worthy one, from a leading wine magazine with a very large readership.

At the announcement, Vergelegen put out their new release wines for tasting and they are a uniformly classy squad (with the Chardonnay Reserve being a real humdinger). Add to the fine wines the farm’s magnificent setting with its oodles of history, and Vergelegen really does a great job of being a flagship Cape winery.

On to another Cape banner-waver – or maybe not? A friend recently commented that he still does not “get” the excitement around our Chenin Blancs. Aside from those that are pleasantly fruity and well priced (in other words good quaffers, like the Perdeberg Chenin) the rest he generally finds over-hyped if not over-extracted, over-sweet and over-wooded.

Chenin fruit from young vines is by nature soft and tropical, easily tending to simple fruitiness without much drama or intrigue. This is true. But I do believe that the new wave of Chenin producers who limit yields in the vineyard and pay more attention to the variety are making fascinating wines. Particularly classy are the wines drawn from old vineyards.

Old vines hold the key to complexity in any variety and due to Chenin’s long association with the Cape wine scene, there is a good representation of older vineyard stock. Compared to other varieties, like the new plantings of Sauvignon Blanc, this is Chenin’s trump card. From here it’s up to the winemakers to let it shine.

At the same time, with those typically soft flavours, Chenin is easily turned into an excessively showy wine, with fat residual sugar and rafts of wood. Then the grape itself becomes the raw clay for a manipulated man-made sculpture. Many people like these wines, but not particularly because they are Chenins.

Teddy Hall’s Chenins, now under the Rudera are consistently fine, though I think the super-charged Robusto is a one-glass statement that will suit certain foods more than it will offer joy down the bottle. Raats Family similarly makes two versions and again I am partial to the less souped-up version; but when it comes to Jean Daneel’s Signature Chenin, which has all the bells and whistles, I’m very happy. It may have the wood and the structure, but it retains a classically elegant core.

I tasted the 2005 Fortress Hill Chenin Blanc Reserve recently and initially enjoyed it with some mildly spicy food, but it quickly revealed itself as having little backbone. Better in this big style was the Winery of Good Hope’s 2005 Chenin.