Zoom conversations a few weeks ago with leading South African winemakers like Eben Sadie, Andrea Mullineux and David Sadie only reinforced the terroir-obsessed mindset in the country’s best wines we tasted this year. They spoke of drought-resistant grape varieties, historical vineyard revival and a less-is-more cellar philosophy. Despite the ancient age of their soils and some of their vines, their wines are shaped by a style revolution barely two decades old – one that points to wines with less richness and more salinity and tension.

Ground central for this trend was detailed in our recent South Africa annual report. The Swartland – an expansive and diverse but low-yielding region north of Cape Town – remains the beating heart, where dry-farmed bush vines on granitic and schistous soils speak louder than ever.

Yet, in 2025, our No. 1 wine has its roots in a different century altogether. Standing out amid this wave of new-generation wines, the top spot for our Top 100 Wines of South Africa 2025 goes to a legendary dessert wine that was a favorite of former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson (who regularly bought it in the 1780s), once graced Napoleon Bonaparte's dinner table and still defines excellence in the 21st century: the Klein Constantia Vin de Constance 2022.

This is a fragrant, luscious and concentrated wine made from late-harvested muscat bush vines planted on the Constantiaberg slopes. It’s a naturally sweet wine that unveils apricot jam, orange fruit and crème caramel aromas alongside bright acidity and zesty undertones, leading to an astoundingly long finish.

It's a historical wine that Klein Constantia brought back to life in the 1980s, retaining its original winemaking style. Grapes are picked over a period of four to six weeks, without botrytis, and go through natural fermentation, which stops on its own at about 14 percent alcohol, followed by maturation in oak barrels and foudres.

The latest iteration is from “a year of exceptional quality,” according to winemaker Matthew Day.

“2022 was characterized by a warm, dry growing season and a late, condensed harvest,” Day said. “The season produced smaller berries, lower yields, and greater concentration, resulting in wines with remarkable intensity and depth.”

Many top South African wines still struggle to compete on the global stage – not in terms of quality, but in terms of quantity, as our annual report mentions. The Vin de Constance is an exception, achieving global recognition and distribution through La Place de Bordeaux, as well as a substantial production quantity of 45,000 bottles.

Alongside price, score and the “wow factor,” or the emotional impact of an exceptional wine, the availability of the wines factored strongly into the ranking of our Top 100. All the wines on this list have production quantities of at least 3,000 bottles, with only a couple of exceptions. We also limited each producer to a maximum of two wines.

Several great wines, out of the 900-plus in total we rated from South Africa over the past year – missed this list due to tiny production quantities. David & Nadia’s single-vineyard chenin blancs and Kershaw’s two-barrique Deconstructed Series lead the exclusions, alongside other 95-plus scorers from Donovan Rall, Uva Mira, Leeu Passant, Raats and Oak Tree and auction wines sold at the Cape Winemakers Guild last month, like Rall’s red Noa 2023 and Mullineux’s white The Gris 2024.

Although we wish some were made in greater amounts, South African wines still represent fantastic value for money. Only five wines in this list, including the No. 1, are at or above $100, according to Wine Searcher. Most are well below that level – the average global price of the wines on this list is $43.

The Vin de Constance stands out as one of only two sweet wines in this year’s Top 100. Dry, savory styles now lead the charge, delivering incredible value, particularly the five red and four white wines in our Top 10.

The Porseleinberg Swartland 2023 (No. 2) is this year’s highest-rated pure syrah from South Africa. Deliciously peppery, savory and salty, it’s from a schistous and windy hilltop site in the Swartland. It can easily be found for around $75.

Winemaker Callie Louw, who made the 2023 but has since left to launch his own project, said that “it’s a vintage driven wine” and we agree – the 2023 shows much more concentration, focus and aromatic complexity than the previous vintage. It’s on par with the 2021, which was our 2023 South African wine of the year.

The Swartland made great wines in 2023, in part due to the fact that it escaped much of the rains that other winemaking regions saw. Our No. 3, the Sadie Family Swartland Columella 2023, is a beautifully polished and complex red, firm and fine-grained, that will develop with bottle age. It’s a blend of syrah with six other (mostly Rhone) varietals. It’s our top-rated wine as well as one of the more expensive South African offerings, but widely available.

Another Rhone-style red blend, the David & Nadia Swartland Elpidios 2023 (No. 5), is a value standout in our Top 10. It can be found for under $30 and yet is brimming with savory, peppery elegance and structure. Like Eben Sadie’s Columella, winemaker David Sadie (no relation to Eben) has increased the proportion of Mediterranean varieties like grenache in the previously syrah-led blend.

The Elpidios is followed by the cool, vertical and saline Mullineux Chenin Blanc Swartland Granite 2024 (No. 6), a single-vineyard bottling from granite soils in the high-quality Paardeberg area of the Swartland. It’s a stunningly textured white with a delicious combination of fruit and minerality.

INTRODUCING THE STELLENRUST STELLENBOSCH SERIES RARE THE MOTHERSHIP 2024, OUR NO. 10 SOUTH AFRICAN WINE.

The other pure chenin blanc in our Top 10 is the Stellenrust Stellenbosch Series Rare The Mothership 2024 (No. 10). A more limited production of 4,000 bottles, it has fantastic energy and flavor intensity, produced from old bush vines in a 1964-planted granitic vineyard.

While chenin blanc and Mediterranean varietals play a starring role, the rest of the Top 10 remind us of South Africa’s wider varietal excellence. Our No. 4 is a stunningly elegant, tight and nervy pinot noir from a cool, granitic site in the Cape south coast.

The Storm Pinot Noir Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley Ignis 2023 has beautiful purity of red fruit combined with red tea and floral aromas and can be found for around $45.

Another taut, silky and refined red in our Top 10, the Lourens Family Wines Grenache Noir Piekenierskloof Lua 2024 (No. 9) hails from a higher-altitude area a couple of hours’ drive north. It’s weightless and focused, produced from bush vines grown at 650 meters above sea level, and is also a steal at around $30.

Two more wines that round out our Top 10 are full-bodied but lively whites, and both are widely available. The Savage Western Cape White 2024 (No. 7) is a blend of sauvignon blanc with semillon. Winemaker Duncan Savage “oxidizes the crap out of” his sauvignon blanc in the winery, resulting in a savory, subtly smoky wine with preserved-lemon and oyster-shell notes.

And consistently one of the best pure semillon wines in the country, the Boekenhoutskloof Semillon Franschhoek 2023 (No. 8) combines a creamy texture and rich praline and salted-butter aromas with a minerally, zesty and salty freshness. It’s from some of the oldest vines in the Cape, planted in 1902, 1936 and 1942.

With the Vin de Constance at the helm, the Top 100 wines below capture South African winemakers’ dedication to merging historical depth with redefining their terroir expression and varietal proposition, all delivered with remarkable value.

– Claire Nesbitt, Staff Writer & Critic

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated over the last 12 months by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. 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.