handtomouth

The Durbanville Hills producers have stumbled into an annual event, the Season of Sauvignon. It culminated in this last weekend’s program of music, food and wine at the wine farms, plus the launch of a nine bottle box of sauvignons.

I attended a press dinner on this last Friday night, and found that the acronym that the season uses was quite appropriate – nine courses of food paired to the nine sauvignon blancs, and no warning of the TA attack I was in for.

There’s no denying that Durbanville are onto something with SB. Theirs show good freshness and also that element of minerality that marks a fine example. The styles do range quite widely, however, with the Durbanville Hills standard bottling a very fruity, open wine and a bottle like the Nitida or the Bloemendal on the other end of the spectrum, tight and racy. I was reminded of Steve Thurlow’s visit and his assertion that he could not really find a “South African” style of sauvignon, never mind an Elgin style (this region held a tasting for him, to “prove” its typical SB fingerprint). I think you could say the same for Durbanville. Only a taster imbued with a necessary dose of suggestion would swear they come from the same or similar “terroir”.

One of the best wines on the evening for me was the Diemersdal Single Vineyard 2006 with its stunning combination of fruit and palate weight. The Bloemendal 2005 was also a cracker, these wines absolutely need a year or more to shine.

But nine courses with SB? And some of these dishes like pork belly and roast pear tarte tatin? I do admit that I am not the world’s first and biggest SB fan, but I so think it’s range and food synergies were rather stretched by this experiment. There’s good reason why wine is as diverse as modern cuisine.