Kanonkop has made a virtue out of flying under the radar

The Kanonkop wine estate has been a force in the Cape wine world since the early 1970s. This may not seem very long in an industry that has been around for more than 350 years, but it does date back to the beginning of the modern era.

The first commercial bottlings of Kanonkop were produced in 1973. Before that the entire production was sold to wholesalers, whose brands represented more than 95% of all packaged wines sold in SA.

The wine of origin legislation that came into law that year played a key role in breaking the virtual monopoly enjoyed by wholesale merchants.

Kanonkop has always been the insider’s outsider in the wine industry. Owners Johann and Paul Krige inherited the vineyard through their mother, who was the daughter of Paul Sauer, a larger-than-life personality and politician who served as a cabinet minister from 1948 and continued as a senator until 1970.

The decision to bottle some of the property’s wine in the 1970s could not have been undertaken lightly: the wholesalers were conscious of the threat posed by the growing independence of the growers who supplied them with fruit and bulk wine. Typically, they threatened to cease buying entirely from anyone who so much as offered a single wine for commercial distribution.

While Kanonkop may have been in a stronger negotiating position than some of the cellars — partly because of the quality of the fruit and partly because of the family’s political connections — it was strategically important enough to stay under the radar.

The Krige brothers have made a virtue of this necessity. They keep a low profile, hosting an annual roadshow to introduce new wines, mainly to members of the estate’s mailing list. Kanonkop is present at the occasional regional wine show and it appears occasionally at WineX.

There’s no drum-thumping, no above-the-line advertising.

The tactic has served the estate’s image well: the market buys the rarity, the low-key commitment to quality, the outof-the-limelight approach.

Behind this facade, however, the Kriges have been growing the business. Focusing mainly on their Kadette brand (a kind of poor man’s Kanonkop, made mainly from bought-in fruit, but still crafted and finished at the cellar), they have increased production dramatically.

This has necessitated a major cellar upgrade, which has allowed for an increase in the estate wine production as well as a technology upgrade designed to manage quality in a higher-volume environment.

An up-to-date bottling line costing several million rand has been installed that is as important for the top-of-therange Paul Sauer blend as it is for the Kadette wines.

Kanonkop has only had three cellarmasters since its first bottled wines appeared in 1973, each one something of an industry legend: Jan “Boland” Coetzee (now the proprietor of Vriesenhof), Beyers Truter (Beyerskloof) and current incumbent Abrie Beeslaar.

The wines have changed very little over this 45-year period. In line with climate change, virus-free plantings (and perhaps some pressure of fashion, though this isn’t certain) alcohols have risen a little, but far less than most Bordeaux estates over the same period.

Pretty much everything in the estate range gets a healthy dollop of new French oak, always from the same coopers. Johann tells how his father bought their first new barrels for the 1973 Cabernet at a cost of R78 each; they now cost more than R15,000.

The wines are consistently good, slow-evolving (20 years at least for the cabernet-based bottlings) and truly age-worthy. They come in various large formats, which make them ideal purchases for people who want something to serve two decades hence at a celebration.

They are not priced for the faint of heart (R375-R595 for standard-range wines in 750ml bottles), but I’ve never heard anyone complain that Kanonkop wines underdeliver.