Victoria Moore Why South African syrah is the next super-wine

Having lunch in Soho the other day, I happened upon the South African wine producer Chris Mullineux. He was drinking a 1983 Côte-rôtie – a syrah from the northern Rhône in France – that he offered to our table to taste. It was beautiful, in the savage, beguilingly perfumed way that only syrah knows how to be, and only gets to be once it’s old. ‘I like to think that South African syrah can be as good as this one day,’ he said.

Chris and his wife Andrea, who work together at Mullineux & Leeu Family Wines, are too young to know how well their wine can age across four decades, but their syrah (like their chenin blanc and their chardonnay) is certainly excellent in its youth.

Cape syrah will never be a Rhône copy (and I’m certain no winemaker would want it to be), but in it you often find some of the darker notes associated with the northern Rhône: black pepper and black fruits, violets, black olives, the inky, stubborn grip. And it is looking increasingly impressive.

In his latest South Africa report, which scores more than 2,200 wines from 400 producers, Tim Atkin notes that ‘the strongest performers were chenin blanc and syrah’. Atkin awards just one wine a perfect 100 score and it is a syrah: the Boschkloof Epilogue Syrah 2021 from Stellenbosch. Only 4,000 bottles were produced and it’s all sold, though you can find different vintages at Lay & Wheeler. Naked Wines has several other bottles by this hugely talented small producer, with prices from £11.99 for whites and £14.99 for reds. More wines are available to Naked members (the so-called ‘Angels’).

Syrah accounts for 10 per cent of South Africa’s total vineyard, and the quality of the wines is evident even in some of the more affordable versions you can find in the supermarkets (see Wines of the Week). Meanwhile the more ambitious (and expensive) wines are operating on another level and making great strides.

Peter-allan Finlayson makes a superb syrah from a single vineyard in the Bot River region of Walker Bay, which the Gabriëlskloof website says has notes of ‘grilled meats nodding towards Côterôtie’. It’s a fair comment: I loved the 2021 vintage of Gabriëlskloof ‘Syrah on Shale’, which is still shipping so not yet available. If you want to try Finlayson’s syrah, then head to Lay & Wheeler, which has the Gabriëlskloof ‘Syrah on Sandstone’ 2020 (14%, £22), which I also liked. Made from vines growing in a mountain vineyard, it is smooth but muscular and complex.

Another wine worth checking out is Berry Bros & Rudd Swartland Red by The Sadie Family Wines 2022 (13.5%, £34.50), made by the fêted Eben Sadie. Apparently the idea is for the blend of the wine to change but this vintage is 100 per cent syrah and it’s very good.

Finally, the Mullineuxs make a range of different syrahs from vineyards in Swartland. Their straight syrah (The Whisky Exchange, £31.95) is made from grapes grown on different parcels of vines on different soils. There is also a single-terroir series, which explores the flavour of syrah grown on granite, schist and iron, some of which also invite comparisons with wines from the northern Rhône, both for quality and price – the Mullineux Schist Swartland Syrah 2019 (13.5%) is £85 at Handford.

The quality is evident, even in some of the more affordable versions you can find in supermarkets