wine, it is surprisingly easy-drinking with a long smoky and spicy finish on fine tannins. Serve with red meats, barbecued chicken, duck, sausage, or grilled tuna. This age-worthy wine can be cellared until 2015.
Barbecue Beef, Barbecue Chicken, Barbecue Pork, Chicken Sausage, Duck, Game, Pork Sausage, Red Meats, Tuna
Jerry & Henriette Swanepoel moved out of Cape Town to escape the bustle of city life and raise their three boys on a farm. They stumbled upon Oude Compagnies Post, a farm that was a former outpost of the Dutch East India Company dating back to 1699, in the eastern hills of the Tulbagh Valley 50 miles north of Stellenbosch, and never looked back. Although the Swanepoel’s are relatively new to wine, their big reds are already making quite a stir in South Africa. The 45 acres of vines on the Obiqua Mountains are exposed to early morning sun, but the cool afternoon breezes thicken skins of the grapes and yield concentrated and powerful wines. Jerry is completely committed to quality and pays attention to every detail of the grape growing and winemaking process.
Overview While South Africa enters an uncertain political and economic future, the wines produced around the Cape Town are becoming better and better. Many wineries now produce wines which are at the international level and which have the advantage of being quite reasonable due to the decline of the Rand over the last year.
Although we are accustomed to beautiful natural landscapes from Burgundy to Tuscany, one must say that the wine district around Cape Town surpasses in beauty all the other wine regions of the world. It is well worth visiting since the tourist infrastructure exists. Hotels are nice and inexpensive by US standards, the food is quite good and South Africa has the advantage of not being (at least for now) on the terrorists maps, so life there (particularly around Cape Town) is quite pleasant… It is a delightful destination in January and February since it is there the summer and beginning of fall.
Our impression after lots of tastings in various wine districts is that the further inland you go the more difficult it is to make good wines. The summer heat is such on this continent that it is easy to produce very strong wines with high levels of alcohol but no finesse, particularly among the reds. The best wines of the region are those close enough to the sea to benefit from the cool oceanic breezes or from some sort of humidity. So bearing this in mind, we have been somewhat disappointed by the wines of Paarl, Franschhoek, Worcester and Robertson. You certainly find a broad variety of powerful reds and quite alcoholic whites but most lack finesse or even charm. Since winegrowing has been very "free form" in this country many growers with an undaunted optimism have planted all types of varietals including some like Pinot Noir that does not take well extreme heat. Pinot Noir from these areas tastes more like a Tawny Port than anything from Burgundy. The overall impression of reds regardless of the varietal used, is that they taste different from what we are used in Europe or California. The South African soil (one of the oldest continents) contains a lot of salts that can give a certain "mintiness" to the wines. The good winemakers can reduce this characteristic to a point where it is not bothersome at all…but, in any case the reds are always very vivacious and have more extreme taste characteristics than the same varietals grown in more moderate climes.
The whites, in fact, are the great success of South Africa. The same soil described above gives the main white varietals (Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Chénin Blanc and Sémillon) an added "oomph" which makes them even more striking and eminently pleasurable immediately.
Whereas almost all whites made in expert hands turn out to be very impressive, it is not the case with all the reds. There is not one red varietal that dominates this vast wine area. The most planted is Cabernet Sauvignon, but we are not so sure that the African soil is the best for this varietal. Of course there is also the Pinotage, this South African hybrid between Pinot Noir and Cinsault but there again this varietal often shows some certain aromas that only seem to appeal to the locals. All red varietals are found here but the wines produced are often not at an international level. To us only Shiraz seems to have some chances of producing truly good wines; some of the Shiraz we offer will speak for themselves.
There are a few big estates belonging to large corporations but most of the grower community consists of small farmers either from Boers or from Anglo origin. For them this new period of prosperity is still relatively new. Many of them know that they can still improve, some need to update their wineries and are doing that progressively. It is however a very pleasant and jovial community of small growers. We notice that in many parts of the world if we like a wine, we simply decide to add it to our list, but here the current goes both ways and these inquisitive growers will not sell you their wines if they don’t think you are passionate enough about their products! This was not the case of The Wine Messenger team and we are very proud to represent what we consider to be the cream of the crop among the perfectionist growers of South Africa.
Stellenbosch is and will remain for some time the best area for whites and most reds (except for Pinot Noir). Constantia was the first wine region of the Cape and many top wines are still produced there. But a new and promising region, further south from Cape Town, along the coast and up to a fishing village called Hermanus is coming to the attention… This is the only place where we found some pleasant Pinot Noir.
South Africa’s Cape Region consists of near-perfect growing conditions. The proximity to both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans provides shelter from the hot climate. Irrigation is often required given the lack of rainfall. Many vineyards have planted international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Pinotage, a cross between the Cinsault and Pinot Noir grapes, was created here. Given the full-bodied and fruit forward styles of South African wines, many consumers enjoy them as alternatives to wine from Australia or California.
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