The wines you can turn to, that mean something
UNIVERSALLY, beverage columnists are asked their favourite tipple. As a wine writer, the question is about the favourite estate; that go-to wine when the chips are down, or what can never be out of the cellar/fridge/ household?
These are loaded questions. How can anyone have a favourite that never changes? It is akin to choosing between your children.
However, there are always favourites – even among children. There is always that one to which you turn when you require support or that one that keeps you awake at night, because the cards dealt just seem unequivocal. The same applies to wines – there are always those to which you turn for comfort; because they are safe or because there is a history.
You can’t be objective about wine and the best wine in the world is not the one that wins all the awards or scores the points at the international competitions, but the one for which you are prepared to open your wallet a second time and purchase another bottle.
It is the one you drank when the question was popped or the inspiration for that award-winning painting, script or life-changing decision.
It is never about the objective; the classic that walks away with the awards year after year or the one you are told you have to love/ like or appreciate.
There is merit in awards, but there is always merit in personality – and consumers are those personalities, because they are the ones who keep wineries and retailers in business with their bread-and-butter purchases.
Nearly 30 years ago my parents induced a sense of South African culture by taking us to Cape Town for a fortnight.
My sister was awaiting her matric results; my first-year university results were hovering unspoken and the laat-lammetjie brother had virtually no input to the conversation.
An unseasonably wet and cold January lunch pointed this unlikely wine-educated family towards an unknown Stellenbosch winery called Hartenberg. Given the parents spent nearly R3 000 that day on the farm when a bottle of the Hartenberg Weisser Riesling cost R8.50 in the restaurant, the rest is unnecessary history.
Recently came the personally nostalgic opportunity to revisit that farm, filled as it was with sentimentality and unashamed subjectivity. Following a dismissive indication to the assistant that explanations about the wines were unnecessary, came the exemplary tasting – that one where the tasting fee covers a mere fraction of what came to the table, and our glasses were graced not only with the reserve editions of various varietals, but with the “under the counter” wines where pulling out of the personal cellar after purchase has been preceded by a serious consideration of the guests consuming the proffered gift.
In this case, it is the Hartenberg Eleanor Chardonnay, the Mackenzie (a cabernet sauvignon-led red wine blend) and the Stork Shiraz. Each of these wines is exceptional; worthy of its own column, but three decades ago it was the riesling that called us to the farm – and the riesling that spoke its greatest volumes that day.
This week came the opportunity to share the Hartenberg Occasional Riesling 2016 (cellar door price: R120) among friends. Local wineries no longer differentiate between Rhine Riesling and Cape Riesling as the latter has been established as being crouchen blanc, but my friends would have been none the wiser.
What was critical was the universal pleasure they experienced in tasting that wine – and the unequivocal joy personally experienced in presenting it. None knew the history that had brought that wine to the table, but each enjoyed the savage beauty of a well-made, worthy wine.
The lesson – bring your favourite wines to the table; present them with enthusiastic passion and unbridled joy and never lose the pleasure of sharing subjective, emotive moments with those with whom life is important. Never feel wine is too serious to express your highlights, because there comes a time when living for today has a hard-core ring to its knell.