South Africa Annual Report: Finding Beauty in the Extremes

It looked as though a giant claw had slashed the mountainsides in Franschhoek. Great gashes ran down the slopes, exposing the bedrock underneath soil and vegetation. These were caused by landslides and severe flooding from a rainstorm at the end of September that made headlines and wreaked havoc on farms, roads and infrastructure, just three weeks before we arrived in the Western Cape. 

The chaotic weather of 2023 has been a brutal reminder of the difficulty in predicting or managing extreme climate events, with some regions of South Africa’s Western Cape already having seen twice the average annual  rainfall amount through mid-October – an abrupt change from recent vintages, dating from 2016, that have mostly been characterized by drought. 

A third of our tastings were from 2022, a difficult season because of heat spikes beginning in early January. For ocean-moderated districts in the Cape South Coast, the effects were minimal, with few days in excess of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). But it was challenging for most traditional wine-producing areas like Stellenbosch and the Swartland.  

“2022 totally humbled you,” said David Sadie, who runs David & Nadia in the Swartland. “We lost up to 15 percent in some of our vineyards due to sunburn.” 

That’s not to say that great wines were not made in 2022 by producers who laboriously sorted through their grapes. The David & Nadia Chenin Blanc Swartland Skaliekap 2022 is again one of our top five South African wines this year. Produced from bush vines planted in 1985, it exudes tension and brightness, seemingly defying the hot and arid growing and ripening conditions. 

“It came down to the fact that you had to intervene in terms of sorting and more pickings,” Sadie said. “In 2022 we sorted everything. To blame the vintage on extreme warmth is easy, but you have systems in place to still bottle fresh wines with a focus on longevity from an extreme vintage.” 

The Sadie Family Swartland Rotsbank 2022 – from the winery founded by Eben Sadie (no relation to David) – is another 2022 wine in our top five. It’s their new bottling of pure chenin blanc from 35-year-old bush vines planted in extremely rocky soils in the decomposed granite slopes of Paardeberg, Swartland, and is stunningly long and aromatically complex.  

Sadie Family winemaker Paul Jordaan said that due to “quite a bit of stress” in 2022, pH levels were a little higher. But they have been pre-empting the effects of climate change by experimenting with different varietals as well as using cover crops and mulching in the vineyard “to try to trap as much moisture as possible in the soil,” he said. 

“There's a shift in climate and we have to adapt; that's why we are trying new varietals,” Jordaan added.

The Sadie Family Swartland Columella 2021 is an example of this: what was formerly a syrah-dominated blend with some mourvedre is now a blend of syrah, mourvedre, carignan, cinsault, grenache and tinta barroca. We were also impressed by the sophisticated 2021 Palladius, a wild blend of 35 percent chenin blanc with equal parts of 11 other white varieties like marsanne, roussanne and clairette. Another fascinating white from Sadie Family Wines that holds its freshness is the 2022 Skerpioen, made from co-fermented chenin blanc and palomino. 

Nearly all the South African producers we spoke to emphasized a new focus on their soils in the last five to 10 years. Producers like David & Nadia have stopped tilling their soils over the last eight years for the sake of better moisture retention and general soil health, while Adi Badenhorst of A.A. Badenhorst is emphasizing the importance of cover crops.  

“Most important is the vegetation between the vine rows in years like this,” Badenhorst said in an email, referring to 2022 in particular. “You’ll notice we have most of the soil covered with cover crops – cooler soils, less reflective heat.”  

Gottfried Mocke, the chief winemaker for Boekenhoutskloof in Franschhoek, which uses both Swartland and Franschhoek fruit in its wines, told me that there has been a strong movement in the country in terms of soil management. 

“There wasn’t that much talk before the droughts,” he said. “Now, winters are more wet; we have to plan for that. Drier, extreme summers, so keep your soils covered. And there is more talk about mycelia and microorganisms for root health.” 

In contrast to 2022, winemakers agreed on the excellence of 2021.

“2021 was a really nice vintage,” said winemaker Callie Louw of Porseleinberg, which is based in the Swartland. “It was super cool. Normally we don’t have much time at picking, but in 2021 we could pick when we wanted to. 2022 was a late harvest for a bad reason –because of the heat waves the vines stopped and went yellow. But 2021 was late for a good reason.”

The Porseleinberg Swartland 2021 is one of their best wines ever, on par with their 2018. It is beautifully structured with so much freshness and an explosion of iron, peppercorn and black fruit on the palate, and is made from 100 percent whole-bunch syrah fermented with grape skins continuously submerged (this is known as the “submerged-cap method,” which Louw has employed since 2018).

Three other 2021s were in our top 12 South African wines besides those from Sadie Family and Porseleinberg. The Mvemve Raats Stellenbosch MR De Compostella 2021 is a cabernet sauvignon-led Bordeaux-style blend, with fruit coming from the Polkadraai Hills, Simonsberg and Helderberg areas of Stellenbosch. It’s deep yet weightless with super fine tannins.

These particular areas in Stellenbosch are worth seeking out for cooler growing conditions in an otherwise warm district, thanks to a combination of south-facing slopes, higher elevations and/or sites overlooking False Bay a few kilometers away, which are exposed to afternoon ocean breezes. In the Polkadraai Hills, Mvemve Raats co-winemaker Bruwer Raats focuses on chenin blanc and cabernet franc for his own label, Raats Family Wines. The best chenin we found outside of the Swartland this year was the super-fresh and mineral Raats Chenin Blanc Polkadraai Hills Eden High Density Single Vineyard 2022.

“We are cooler because of our slight altitude and proximity to the coast, so in drought seasons the vines don't suffer as much,” Raats said. Despite cooler temperatures, grapes ripen earlier than in other regions in Stellenbosch because of higher gravel content in the soils. Raats even prunes earlier in the season to encourage early budding, enabling harvest before the hottest part of summer.

ALTITUDE AND A FRESH OCEAN BREEZE

The Helderberg is diverse and is not classified as a ward of Stellenbosch, but look out for wines like the Leeu Passant Chardonnay Stellenbosch 2021 and Uva Mira Chardonnay Stellenbosch The Single Tree 2020. Both are produced from fruit grown at 400 meters elevation on the Helderberg foothills nine kilometers from False Bay and have “a more climatic maritime expression,” according to winemaker Andrea Mullineux.

“With global warming, high-altitude vineyards are highly sought after, as are vineyards close to the ocean,” explained Uva Mira winemaker Christian Coetzee. “But there are very few places in the world where you have both altitude and proximity to the ocean.”

From the cool, maritime Hemel-en-Aarde area, two pinot noirs from Hannes and Nathalia Storm caught our attention. The Storm Ignis 2021 is light-footed and elegant, from the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, while the Storm Vrede 2021 is seductively spicy and more powerful, from the slightly lower Hemel-en-Aarde Valley. Check out their graceful Ridge Pinot Noir 2021 from the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge, too, along with their 2022 Ridge and Vrede chardonnays.

Not all the wines in our tastings were outstanding, with 140 out of the 848 wines tasted scoring under 90 points. And bear in mind that packaged wines, while representing 77 percent by value, are still at only 38 percent of export volumes. The rest is exported in bulk, often ending up in supermarket and chain wine stores in the United Kingdom and Germany (South Africa’s top two markets). Yet we are inspired by the best viticulturists and winemakers in South Africa and we hope that even more rise in the future.

As for the 2023 vintage, we tasted just over 90 young wines, but many top wines will not be ready until 2024 or 2025. Multiple winemakers told us that 2023 comprised “two seasons”: moderate temperatures and rainfall in spring and summer before a deluge of rain in late February and early March, particularly in southern coastal regions like the Hemel-en-Aarde.

“To put it mildly, it was extremely inconvenient,” said Kevin Grant, the winemaker for Ataraxia in Hemel-en-Aarde. “For 2023, if you had early ripening cultivars, you had a stellar year. But the late-ripening cultivars struggled to ripen, and the last part of pinot noir ripening on cooler sites was problematic.”

There are plenty of exciting wines from 2022, 2021 and 2020 (a relatively warm and approachable, but low-crop vintage) in the notes below. We tasted some stellar wines from areas further inland at higher elevations such as Piekenierskloof in the Citrusdal Mountains, which is 50 kilometers north of Swartland and home to a significant proportion of the Cape’s grenache plantings. Ungrafted old bush vines planted at around 700 meters above sea level now make stunning wines like the Sadie Family Piekenierskloof Soldaat 2021, a pure and ethereal wine made from grenache vinified and aged in concrete, using about 60 percent whole clusters.

Also check out Lourens Family Wines’ dry-farmed grenache from Piekenierskloof, the Lua Ilse 2022. Excellent whites and Rhone-style reds are also produced by Donkiesbaai, Rall Savage and Alheit Vineyards.

And a few producers are focusing on cinsault as a varietal bottling rather than as part of a blend. Look out for old vine cinsaults like A.A. Badenhorst’s Ramnagras 2022 and Ringmuur 2022, the Leeu Passant Cinsault Wellington Old Vines Basson 2021, and lovely expressions from Rall, Savage, Scions of Sinai, Stellenrust and Wildeberg.

Well worth a mention are South Africa’s limited but exceptional bottlings of semillon. Franschhoek is still home to an impressive collection of old semillon vines. The Alheit Vinyards Semillon Franschhoek Monument 2022 (86-year-old vines), Leeu Passant Semillon Franschhoek 2021 (around 60-year-old vines) and Boekenhoutskloof Semillon Franschhoek 2021 (from vines planted in 1902, 1936 and 1942) are stunningly concentrated examples. Check out those from Damascene, too, as well as exciting wines from Benguela Cove in Walker Bay and The Garajeest in Elgin.

Last but not certainly least, Klein Constantia’s Vin de Constance 2020 continues to be a sensational sweet wine from muscat, with intense citrus and floral character. Seek out the rare and luscious Mullineux Swartland Essence 2020, too, if you can. It’s made only in select years from the most concentrated air-dried chenin blanc grapes used to make their sweet straw wine. These and the other top wines below show that despite the weather extremes and other challenges, the best winemakers of South Africa are still finding ways to produce exceptional wines.

– Claire Nesbitt, Associate Editor

Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.