Sumptuous fare for millionaires at springtime auctions
Lord Tennyson held that in spring “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”. In SA, however, spring is auction season. On September 7 and 8 Nederburg hosts the opening salvo; three weeks later the Cape Winemakers’ Guild wraps up proceedings.
It would take a very distant relationship with the truth to describe the wines on offer at either sale as vinous bargains. Prices — even in these dark times — will average between R600 and R1,000 a bottle.
While Nederburg combines an ever-smaller array of older wines with younger, current releases, the Cape Winemakers’ Guild’s focus is pretty much freshly bottled stock.
The auctions operate with a similar culling system to ensure a rigorous quality standard. Nederburg employs the services of independent experts (of which I was one, with several brought in from abroad) to sift their submissions in a blind tasting; the guild’s members perform a similar function — also tasting blind.
While neither process is methodologically perfect, it is safe to say that the average quality at both auctions has never been higher.
A fair number of producers have stock on both sales: Groot Constantia, Boplaas, Delaire Graff, DeMorgenzon, Kanonkop, Le Riche, Rijk’s Spier/Frans Smit.
Since the guild itself is a bit of an elite club (guilty of excluding some of the country’s best young talent) the range on auction is limited to the 40 or so members, making the offering much smaller than Nederburg’s. So are the total volumes, which is a strategy guaranteed to produce a pressure-cooker sales environment.
It’s likely that average bottle pricing will be lower at Nederburg, which means that here there may be better value (the term is used only in the relative sense of the word) for astute shoppers.
But the strong upward movement in the guild wine prices (2017’s average was double that of 2012 despite a slight dip compared with 2016) will certainly bring an aphrodisiac effect to the auction hall.
If you are seeking some maturity, your chances are better at Nederburg (though Miles Mossop’s decision to hold back some of his Maximilian Merlot 2013 and 2011 suggests that the more thoughtful guild members are looking to provide something more complex than primary fruit). But when it comes to really old wine, it’s a one-horse race: Nederburg has reds going back to 1968 and fortifieds to 1948.
This year’s Cape Winemakers’ Guild line-up is the most sumptuous to date, with an evenness of quality that suggests the peer-review system has served its avowed purpose. There are so many good — though youthful — wines that it’s impossible to do them justice in a single article: for more detailed tasting notes go to https://winewizard.co.za/article/537.
There are two very fine MCCs: the Graham Beck 2009 105 MGA, bone dry yet intensely bready, and the Silverthorn Big Dog IV 2013, which is seductively delicious. There are also several very polished chardonnays: the Waterford 2017, the Delaire Graff Banghoek 2017 and the sublime Ataraxia 2017.
Of the other whites, the DeMorgenzon Grenache Blanc 2017, the Mullineux Semillon Gris 2017, the Raats Chenin 2017, the Rijks Chenin 2016 and the Hartenberg Riesling 2016 were all standout examples.
It’s just as difficult to shortlist the top reds, given the high average quality: Jan Boland Coetzee’s Vriesenhof 2015, Gottfried Mocke’s Wine Projects 2017 and Newton Johnson’s Windansea 2017 were the most striking pinots, Miles Mossop’s Maximilian 2013 the best merlot, Etienne Le Riche’s 2015 Reserve Cabernet a fabulous farewell to his time at the guild, and the Kanonkop Paul Sauer 2015 the top bordeaux blend.
There were three very different but equally worthy shirazes: the Cederberg Teen die Hoog 2015 (a perfectly managed blockbuster), the Boschkloof Epilogue 2016 (utterly Rhone-like) and the silken textured and wonderfully perfumed Boekenhoutskloof 2016. There is plenty of choice for millionaires wondering what to do with their moollah.