Wagnerian guide to the new SA’s wines
WINES OF THE NEW SA: TRADITION AND REVOLUTION
THE era of isolation for Cape wine ended in the early 1990s. The wine buyers of the western world descended on SA armed with orders the industry was incapable of supplying.
In those distant days, there were just more than 200 wineries, roughly one-third of which were co-operatives whose primary function was to process their members’ fruit and to sell it to the brand-owning wholesalers. The domestic market for fine wine (pretty much under cork) was about 40-million litres.
In 1993, exports accounted for 25-million litres, the national vineyard was 85% white grape varieties, the bulk of which was Chenin Blanc. Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc comprised less than 15% of the total. Today, we have about 600 wineries, we export more than 400-million litres, we have roughly equal amounts of red and white grapes, and premium varieties account for more than 40% of plantings.
Tim James’s Wines of The New SA is about how this changed. It covers the industry’s 17th-century origins, its evolution under Dutch and British rule, the 20th-century consolidation, and the post-1994 transition to focus on the world of Cape wine today.
Its starting point is John Platter’s prescient observation in the introduction to his 1995 guide — that the finest Cape wines had yet to be made. If the future was so pregnant with hope, what has emerged over the past 20 years?
He manages the historical review with erudition and brevity: there is no modern text that so comprehensively covers the 300 years from Jan van Riebeeck’s first crush in 1659 to the second half of the 20th century. Much of what appears in the introductory chapters has not been available outside archives and academia.
We are told something about the earliest vineyards (though James admits it’s not entirely useful to know that at Vergelegen in the late 17th century there were plantings of “Russelaar, Pottebakker and a Persian long white variety”). He details the booms and busts of the 19th century, disposes of the myth that phylloxera was responsible for the collapse of the Constantia wine trade, offers a balanced summary of the role played by KWV in managing the industry from 1918 until the end of the era of its statutory authority, then reviews his list of the key players in the Cape winelands today.
Having made my way through the historical component, I had feared I would find his contem- porary analysis an uncomfortable fit. In fact, the transition is easily bridged by a segment that covers varieties and wine styles (looking from the past to the present), followed by a chapter that elucidates the arcane regulations of SA’s wine of origin scheme.
Once you get to the section reviewing the wineries of the new SA (the bulk of the text), the selection is necessarily idiosyncratic. While about a quarter of the cellars producing wine in the Cape have been included, I can find no omissions of note (except for the garagistes — for which James apologises, but points out that paucity of supply, rather than issues of quality, is what determined their exclusion).
Despite a very real risk that an attempt to cover what is happening at more than 150 cellars would read a bit like a laundry list, this part of the book is well laid out, comprehensive and scrupulously fair. He has incorporated his own personal enthusiasm for the Swartland, without marginalising the mainstream appellations.
In the days when James was the driving force behind the Grape website, his alter ego (“The Widow”) was feared for her acerbic wit and her intolerance of mendacity. Her presence — entertaining though it might have been — has been kept out of the text.
The views are balanced throughout, so much so that the writing may seem a little dour to those seeking a more opinionated approach. From this perspective, the layout does not help: it is lucid, but unexciting. However, these are insignificant cavils.
It was once said that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. The same is true of James’s Wines of the New SA.