The JamesSuckling.com tasting team rated more than 800 South African wines this year, and it's fair to say that chenin blanc outperformed all the amazing varieties popping up across the country. In fact, South Africa is turning into a great white wine producer overall, and is perhaps even better with modern chenin blanc than the holy grail for the grape, France’s Loire Valley.

We were lucky this year to visit South Africa and drive around its main wine regions, talk to winemakers, study terroirs and literally taste soils. The country welcomed us with incredible landscapes and diverse wine regions: stunning Constantia, beautiful Stellenbosch and breathtaking Franschhoek. Yet our Top South African wine of 2022 comes from Swartland, like many of the other top-scoring wines on this list. At first look, the extreme conditions of the region would not seem to invite easy winegrowing. But the array of successful and open-minded viticulturists found there have their boots firmly planted in the arid and wild land, and the extraordinary terroirs can result in exceptional wines.

No wine reflects this better than out Wine of the Year for South Africa, the David & Nadia Chenin Blanc Swartland Skaliekap Single Vineyard Wine 2021. The owners and winemakers, David and Nadia Sadie, work mainly with old bush vines, organically farmed in various locations throughout Swartland and on different soil types. Their Skaliekap vineyard in Paardeberg sits on shallow shale soils above granite bedrock and has been designated a Certified Heritage Vineyard, with its chenin blanc vines planted in 1985.

The exceptional 2021 Skaliekap has a complex and concentrated character while showing the freshness and elegance of crunchy stone fruit, white tea and citrus peels. It’s also long and silky with a nutty aftertaste. David Sadie said he was aiming to make a wine that exudes textural expression while reflecting its terroir, boosted by precise work with lees and exact aging. He has achieved that here, with a seriously world-class wine.

Our No. 2 South African bottle is from the Klein Constantia winery, a pearl sitting amid the  foothills of Constantiaberg mountain, where winemaker Matthew Day and viticulturist Craig Harris took us through a winery that makes a dessert wine that is among the best in the world. The Klein Constantia Constantia Vin de Constance Natural Sweet Wine 2019 is exceptional – complex and balanced with such a broad spectrum of flavors, from dried sweet stone and tropical fruit to spicy, floral and even earthy notes. It’s dense and energetic, with clean and precise acidity, and will live for decades.

Wine No. 3 is another chenin blanc from the Swartland – the Mullineux Chenin Blanc Swartland Granite 2021. Chris and Andrea Mullineux produce excellent chenin blanc and syrah from various types of soils, granite, schist and iron-rich clay, and the couple is now firmly on our radar. The Granite Chenin Blanc 2021 is crystalline and complex and shows an impressive balance that binds together its fresh and delicate fruit character, vivid acidity and seamless, chalky texture leading to a long mineral finish.

READ MORE TOP 100 WORLD WINES 2022 AND OUR WINE OF THE YEAR

Another wine from Mullineux also landed at No. 10 on our list. The Mullineux Chenin Blanc Swartland Olerasay 3 is a crazy non-vintage, solera-aged dessert wine based on Mullineux’s chenin blanc straw wine. Their solera project began in 2008, and since then each vintage has contributed to the quality, and the latest offering is a dense, essential sweet wine with 2,000 to 3,000 bottles made each year.

The No. 4 South African wine, the Kaapzicht Chenin Blanc Stellenbosch The 1947 2021, is from the second-oldest chenin blanc vineyard in South Africa, planted in 1947. This wine is dense and lingering, with much hidden behind its complexity and tightness. It shows aromas of stone fruit, beeswax and crushed stones, and is layered and concentrated with good potential for aging.

The A.A. Badenhorst Chenin Blanc Swartland The Golden Slopes 2021, which came in at No. 5, is one of South Africa’s best value wines – a great budget offering for around $25. It's aromatic, expressive and refined, with an impressive textural component and a gentle tannic grip, and is made from old vines planted in 1968.

Another great producer that caught our attention was Donovan Rall, the owner and winemaker at Rall Wines. His Rall Swartland AVA 2021, made yet again from chenin blanc, is our No. 6 wine. It comes from schist soils and is a flavorful and mineral white that carries length and complexity and offers exceptional value, at just $14 a bottle. That’s sort of unreal for such a fantastic wine.

A trio of great chardonnays from Stellenbosch continues our list with the Leeu Passant Chardonnay Stellenbosch 2020 at No. 7, Uva Mira Chardonnay Stellenbosch The Single Tree 2018 at No. 8 and Capensis Chardonnay Stellenbosch Fijnbosch 2018 at No. 9. They all show how expressive and vibrant Stellenbosch chardonnay can be, with all three wines coming with a freshness and elegance at the same time. These are complex and layered offerings, each with a subtle mineral backbone.

We have not forgotten syrah, and one that’s high up on our Top 100 list comes from Porseleinberg, a Swartland hilltop winery. Its vineyard is covered with shiny and glittering pieces of schist that almost invite you to pick one up and take it home as a souvenir. Their syrah from this schist, the Porseleinberg Swartland 2020, possesses a unique character making it hard to compare with other classic wine regions. It is such an ethereal style of syrah and impresses with its texture and the quality of tannins – you can go on in describing the latter for minutes.

We had a vertical tasting from 2016 through 2020 with Porseleinberg winemaker Callie Louw, with the 2020 vintage rising to the top. Its tannin structure is velvety and pleasant, with an almost silky edge. The wine runs smoothly and seamlessly through your palate, juicy and delicious. It also has great potential for aging.

A great example of a syrah-driven blend is the Sadie Family Swartland Columella 2020, which is No. 16 on our list. It has a complex, dark-fruited nature that pops with classic varietal characteristics, from spiced plums and dark berry to peppery and earthy undertones. But it will also need some time for its tannins to soften and will be best after 2025.

READ MORE SOUTH AFRICA’S WINE SOUL: CHENIN AND CHARDONNAY LEAD A VARIETAL EVOLUTION

I also have to mention Hemel-en-Aarde (which means “Heaven on Earth” in old Dutch) – one of my favorite wine regions in South Africa. It’s located in Walker Bay and is home to some of the best pinot noirs and chardonnays in the country. Perhaps the best from here is the Bouchard Finlayson Pinot Noir Hemel-en-Aarde Valley Tete de Cuvée 2020, which came in at No. 15 on our list. It is produced by one of the leading wineries in the area – Bouchard Finlayson, which impresses us more and more each year with its high-quality, terroir-driven wines. The 2020 Tete de Cuvée is complex, layered and long, and plays beautifully on the palate for minutes, delivering a broad spectrum of flavors.

There are many other great wines on the list below, like Mike Ratcliffe’s Vilafonté Paarl Series M 2020 (No. 13), which is an elegant and delicious merlot-malbec blend, as well as the Boekenhoutskloof Cabernet Sauvignon Franschhoek 2020 (No. 14), a full-bodied and velvety cabernet from Franschhoek. And despite the dominance of chenin blanc on the list, the range of excellent-quality wines South Africa is pumping out year by year means it’s a country to keep your eyes on, and the JamesSuckling.com tasting team will continue to taste this broad and wild place's many unique offerings.

– Andrii Stetsiuk, Associate Editor