News
“The New Hot Spot for Sauvignon Blanc“ - Boschendal featured in May 20th, 2005 Wall Street Journal
05/20/05
South Africa's Special Spin On a Summer Favorite; Easy Taste, Easy Prices - By Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher
May 20, 2005; Page W7
In the past few months, we have warned you away from inexpensive Chardonnay from both Australia and the U.S. So where should you turn for a white wine for summer? There are many good ones out there from all over the world. Here's one: Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa.
We have written about South African wines over the years, but supply has been a problem. South Africa has a 350-year history of distinguished winemaking, but it only became a modern international player over the past decade with the rise of democracy.
As the Wines of South Africa trade group says on its Web site, with unusual candor: "In keeping with the spirit of renewal in the South African wine industry, in recent years over 40% of the vineyards have been replanted as the industry has realigned its product to compete globally, moving from volume production to noble cultivars [grape varieties] and quality wines."
The result of all this has been something of a surge in South African wine on store shelves and at restaurants. U.S. imports of South African wine grew more than 45% last year. Although imports are still small -- less than 800,000 cases -- we looked for South African wines in stores all over the country and found that distribution appears to be far greater than it was just a few years ago. That doesn't mean you will find South African wines in every store, of course, but if you keep your eyes open, you will see them -- and you will be seeing more all the time.
A Unique Contribution
South Africa's unique contribution to the world of wine is the Pinotage grape, which is a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsaut. We're quite fond of Pinotage, but it's something of an acquired taste -- Dottie often says that it "tastes blue" -- and we doubt it will ever be a big hit in the U.S. South Africa's most widely planted grape is Chenin Blanc (sometimes called Steen), but Chenin Blanc has such a sour reputation in the U.S. as a cheap jug white that we doubt there's a great future there, either (though, if you get a chance, you should definitely give this flavorful white a try). South Africa does some great things with Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, too. A couple of years ago, we dropped into a restaurant called the Bijou Café in Sarasota, Fla., whose owner was from South Africa. It had a fine selection of South African wines, so we tried a Cabernet Sauvignon from a winery called Boekenhoutskloof that turned out to be one of the best wines we had that entire year. Our notes: "Like a big, well-made and expensive Napa Valley red, but with lots of pepper on the nose. Intense, pure fruit, a little earthy. Doesn't taste alcoholic for such a big-fruited wine. Huge but not hard to drink. Cedar, eucalyptus. Incredible fruit but not sweet fruit, perfect with Dottie's super-rare steak."
All that said, our guess is that South Africa's wine industry will really make its mark in the U.S. with Sauvignon Blanc. Americans are already familiar with this grape -- it's the second most popular white varietal from California, and New Zealand has made its international reputation on the grape. Plus, it tends to be reasonably priced. We've been drinking South African Sauvignon Blanc for years. In fact, right after we started writing this column in 1998, we conducted a tasting of American Sauvignon Blancs and threw in some New Zealand and South African Sauvignon Blancs as ringers. One of our favorites was Thelema, from South Africa, then the 1997 vintage.
So we decided a few weeks ago to look around and see if South African Sauvignon Blanc was widely available around the U.S. and, if so, to conduct a tasting.
The good news was that we found far more of the wines on shelves all over the country than we expected. We bought some while visiting Grandma Dot in Tallahassee and others in stores in Miami before we boarded a cruise ship. We ultimately ordered almost all of our wines from Illinois and Texas, and added a few from New York.
Because these are fairly new to the market and still unfamiliar, prices are wild. The best prices we saw were in Texas. One wine was $6.49 in Texas and $9.49 in Illinois; one was $8.99 in Illinois and $12.99 in New York; a third was $13 in Texas, $15.99 in New York -- and we saw the same wine for just $10.79 in Massachusetts.
Having finished the tasting, we have more good news: The average quality of the wine was very high. Again and again, we were charmed by both the fruit and the winemaking. Just opening them was a treat, filling the dining room with mouth-watering, fresh fruit scents. While some of the wines had the simple, juicy, upfront fruit qualities of New Zealand wines, filled with hints of green pepper, fresh-cut grass, citrus or melon and remarkably food-friendly acidity, almost all also had an extra dimension of underlying minerals that gave them another layer of complexity and made them especially good with food.
Attention to Detail 
The wines had an ease to them that was quite fetching, and we found a notable attention to detail. We talked endlessly about Boschendal "Grand Cuvee" 2004, a wine of real presence. It had the lemon-lime tastes we'd expect, but it also offered depth and mouthfeel. We're not sure everyone would like it -- some people might find it heavy -- but we thought we'd likely serve it at a fancy dinner with wine-loving friends. It turns out the wine was 92% Sauvignon Blanc and 8% Chardonnay, and that some of the Chardonnay and 5% of the Sauvignon Blanc had received some oak aging. That is a lot of care -- and a lot of wine -- for less than $16. (By the way, while a third of our sample cost less than $10, only one of our favorites was in that price range. We generally found the wines over $10 far juicier and vibrant and, in general, we'd say you'd probably get a much better wine by spending more than $10.)
Our favorites in the tasting are listed in the accompanying index, but South African wines are new and it's impossible to know which ones you'll see. Just pick up a 2004 (or at least nothing older than 2003), chill it for dinner tonight and have it with seafood. You don't have to think about how much the world, and South Africa in particular, has changed over the past decade or marvel that the wine's grapes were growing in such a faraway place just a year earlier -- but, to us, the sense of place and adventure that wine offers is always part of the taste.