MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Californian wine still holds its own 50 years after Paris showdown

The current geopolitical environment hardly appears to favour new trade initiatives between the US and the rest of the world.

Almost every day there’s news of the announcement by the White House of some new tariff, followed by a comparable retaliatory impost. Markets are closing at an alarming rate, many between long-established trading partners, and almost all of them meaningful in terms of sales volumes.

European wine and spirits producers are flooding their US distributors ahead of the date when the new tariffs apply, as are their counterparts in Kentucky — who fear the impact of this “cold war” on their transatlantic business. As priorities go, it would seem to be more important to nurture the markets that remain, rather than to seek out unlikely new frontiers. So it came as a surprise when an impressively large delegation of Californian wine producers confirmed that they would be visiting SA in late March.

No-one can be blamed for not predicting the extent to which the Great Disruptor would set about destabilising international trade relations. The Californian delegation had committed to attending ProWein in Germany — one of the world’s most important trade fairs — long before the US presidential election in November last year. Once they had decided not to cancel that, there was no point in their cutting short their African trip.

This was a great relief for those of us who had booked to spend the day at the symposium they hosted and the tasting that followed. We get to see very little Californian wine in SA, partly because the most desirable examples are eye-wateringly expensive. In addition, and even before the Trump presidency, US wines imported into SA suffer a 25% duty on the export price, over and above the normal excise.

From time to time adventurous importers bring in tiny quantities of very respectable wines. Wine Cellar in Cape Town offers a selection that ranges in price from R1,500-R5,000 per bottle: the wines don’t exactly fly out of the door. The question that motivated the impressive turnout of sommeliers and retailers who attended the event was: would the wines on offer from the visiting Californians change this — either because the offering was more affordable or because of their stylistic appeal?

The former question was easily addressed. There were several wines that would land up on shelf for R500 or less. Some — like the Kendall Jackson cabernet and chardonnay — were good and accessibly priced. Likewise the company’s La Crema chardonnay and pinot noir. J Lohr’s Falcon’s Perch Monterey pinot noir would price well enough against some mid-level Hemel-en-Aarde examples and was as appealing.

The Hope Family Liberty School cabernet is an entry-level example with a popular flavour profile; ditto the Kautz Family Vineyards’ equally inexpensive cabernet. I preferred the pricier Ironstone Reserve from the same cellar. There were several impressive Zinfandels: the Ironstone Old Vine was delicious; however, the Reserve single-site Rous Vineyard was in another league — as was its price.

I also liked the Schramsberg blanc de blanc bottled-fermented fizz, though since it would cost at least as much as a really good Champagne, its prospects in SA would be limited. Among the other high-end wines that were very good but too pricey for SA, the Freemark Abbey Sycamore cabernet 2014 was singularly impressive, as was the Duckhorn Three Palms merlot.

They served to remind us all that California’s famous victory over the French in the 1976 Judgment of Paris Tasting (repeated 30 years later to much the same result) was no fluke: it was a proper judging panel, and it delivered a proper result, one about which the French still smart almost half a century later.

This column originally appeared in Business Day.