MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Unexpected discoveries of a wine show amble

Wandering around a wine show with no real agenda brings unexpected benefits and many surprises. You stumble across wines you might otherwise never find and sample gems in often neglected categories. For example, why would you buy a moscato-chenin blend, especially when there’s no obvious drinking occasion? However, once you’ve tasted the Grande Provence you start thinking of dishes that would pair perfectly with its fabulously perfumed aromatics and its still quite dry palate.

Exactly the same thought struck me as I stopped at the Whalehaven stand. I knew that the Hemel-en-Aarde winery had seen considerable investment in the past few years but I hadn’t yet had a chance to sample the latest releases. Here is where a wine show gives you the chance to catch up, and also to make comparisons: the older style chardonnay — which is perfectly palatable — is offered under the Whalehaven Sandstone Strata label. It’s easy and accessible. The newer releases are in the Reserve range. Here the 2020 chardonnay shows palpably greater intensity — fresher, finer, flintier.

With the pinot noir this difference is even more evident because the previous style comes with a much older wine: 2015 versus 2021. It’s bigger, richer, fruitier and palpably more oaky. The Reserve version is fresher, slightly more austere, arguably more classical.

This same opportunity to compare enabled me to indulge in the almost unaffordable: sample the Vilafonte Series M 2021 alongside the Series C from the same vintage. It’s easy to be seduced into thinking the more expensive cabernet-based wine (the Series C) will always outperform the (by no means inexpensive) Series M. But cheek-by-jowl the latter stood up to its bigger and more intense cellar companion. It was definitely more accessible, the oak and wood better integrated for now, compared with the C. Certainly, the Series M would be the bottle I would be drinking while I let age work its magic on the cabernet.

The wine show also gave me a chance to sample several new releases — in other words 2024 — sauvignons. These ranged from the classically styled Iona Elgin Highlands, via the lean and quite intense Cederberg to the super-flamboyant, boisterous Diemersdal Reserve. It’s difficult to imagine a wider spread of styles — all three standout wines but all targeted to wholly different preferences and different occasions.

At Iona I also sampled the concentrated and linear 2022 chardonnay and the deliciously accessible One Man Band 2020. Old World wine enthusiasts often express astonishment that a quality Rhone-style blend could be produced within a few kilometres of a chardonnay. In Elgin this is not only possible, it’s not even uncommon.

The Quoin Rock wines have come a long way in the past few years. They are less overdone and overworked. Fruit purity and well-managed oaking are now hallmark features and appear consistently across both the Quoin Rock and Knorhoek ranges. The Quoin Rock “Black” cap classique 2018 is very convincing — lovely biscuity intensity and a fine leesy creaminess. The Knorhoek chenin blanc from the same vintage has a savoury concentration, an opulence held in check by real fruit weight — exactly what you would expect from a vineyard planted in the Simonsberg in 1980.

It wasn’t difficult to like both of the Glen Carlou chardonnays: the regular 2023, which sells for R175 (and finished in fourth position in the Chardonnay du Monde competition), is attractive and accessible. The Quartz Stone single vineyard 2022 is visibly bigger and more extravagant. The new oak is still a little too evident, though the fruit is generous enough to escape its gravitational field after a few years in bottle have made the wood a distant memory.

Finally, three absolute bargain wines all selling for less than R100: there’s the Stellenbosch Vineyards’ 2023 chenin blanc, which is layered and delicious; the 2023 cabernet sauvignon from the same cellar, which delivers dollops of cassis and black fruit. And then from Lynx in Franschhoek, the cellar’s entry level red — simply called Tinto: savoury, fine, not overly demanding and definitely food-friendly.

This column originally appeared in Business Day.