WINE OF TEH WEEK
ALMOST FRENCH
Francophiles will paint Franschhoek red, white and blue on July 13 and 14 to celebrate Bastille Day in an all-weekend festival of food and wine, boules and barrel rolling. Oh, and a minstrels’ parade. Led by the Solms-Delta marching band, the Delta Valley Entertainers, this festival highlight isn’t exactly French. But Solms-Delta, which comprises three adjacent farms owned respectively by neuropsychologist Mark Solms, philanthropist Richard Astor and the Wijn de Caab Trust, can trace its roots back to way before the French Huguenots arrived.
Solms may have planted French varieties that suit the valley’s Mediterranean climate, but recent research has raised questions about what makes a wine “French” anyway.
A team of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania recently conducted biomolecular analysis on pottery wine amphorae discovered in what is now the city of Lattes in France’s Languedoc-Roussillon region. They concluded that wines made 2 500 years ago by the Gauls of “Lattora” were flavoured with thyme, basil, rosemary and even pine resin.
I can’t imagine herb-flavoured wines having modern appeal, but Solms has certainly had success in reintroducing the ancient viticultural practice of desiccation (twisting the stalks of grape bunches a few weeks before harvest to concentrate flavours and colour while retaining natural acids). The method originated in Greece and spread throughout the Mediterranean, and grapes were still being concentrated this way in early 18th-century Provence — some years after Hans Silverbach and his freed-slave wife, Ansela van der Caab, settled at what is now Solms-Delta.
Its name referring to “the cultural produce of Africa, both indigenous and colonial”, the Solms-Delta Africana 2011 is a fully desiccated shiraz (R250). Densely full-bodied with concentrated black berry flavours and a hint of white pepper, the wine’s alcohol is lighter than you might expect (14%) and those natural acids add lovely freshness. Send wine queries and recommendations to food@sundaytimes.co.za with WINE as the subject.