Over the last couple months there’s been some really great South African wines included as part of my weekly features. Apparently they’ve been such hits that it’s prompted several people to request a dedicated South African wine feature and Zoom tasting. So I’m heeding the call, and this week is focused entirely on South Africa with 4 wines (at various price points) that I think nicely exemplify what they are all about.

But even before the recent requests for a South Africa-specific tasting, I was planning on doing one in the near term to try raise a bit of awareness of what’s going on there and help out the South African winemakers who have been suffering more than most winemakers internationally this past year. When the pandemic hit and cases began to spike, the South African government imposed a complete ban on the sale of alcohol. Sales from importers to restaurants or shops, from wineries to the public, and even wineries to export for a period. It completely crippled the entire industry. The government’s logic was that alcohol increases hospitalizations and at a time when covid was spiking they couldn’t spare the beds for alcohol related hospitalizations. There was some statistical evidence to support that, but it was widely criticized as a devastating move to the local economy. So the result was an entire halt of the alcohol industry and the jobs of everyone involved, right to the peripheries. This had far deeper reprocussions than just the obvious work stoppage. When wineries can’t sell any of their wine, their tanks remain full, they’re not bottling new product because they have no cash flow to pay employees and there is nobody allowed to buy the bottles, its a devolving cycle. So the wineries are left with a massive surplus they cannot catch up to selling. All this ahead of needing to harvest their next vintage in the coming months (harvest is Feb-April in the southern hemisphere) and still having full tanks and barrels from the previous vintage. I’m unaware of any other situation quite this bad in any other international wine regions. Most governments have created additional measures to try and help wineries despite of the the economies that have been crippled due to Covid. So I thought we could do our little part to shed some more light on this amazing wine region and it’s fantastic producers that have been suffering even more than most of their colleagues abroad.

Full disclosure, South Africa is one of the few major wine countries I haven’t visited yet, but it is stop of my list as soon as we can travel after the pandemic. I’ve had a career-long love of these wines, well before they started to become fashionable in the last few years and that’s reflected by the disproportionately large section of bottles at the Byward Wine Market. There’s just something so unique about them: from the slightly earthy, rubbery, tar-like character of some big reds, to the rich minerality of the big whites, to the cooler micro-climates that produce excellent Pinot Noir, and the exploration of it’s own unique and often misunderstood Pinotage grape. If you’re interested, here’s how to participate in the free Zoom tasting on Saturday:

1. Pick up any or all the bottles from the Byward Wine Market or order any that are available by the case from Lifford.
2. Send me an email letting me know which wine you have and that you’d like to join the Zoom, and on Saturday afternoon I’ll send you the link to join.
3. Here’s the link to all 4 wines if you want to purchase the bottles individually from the Byward Wine Market.

Sound good? See you Saturday at 7:00pm!
Now onto the wines….

Raats Chenin Blanc, BLANKbottle ‘Give and Take’, Bruce Jack Pinotage Malbec, Boschendal Cabernet Sauvignon.

RAATS, ‘ORIGNAL’ CHENIN BLANC | STELLENBOSCH
$32.99 per bottle from Byward Wine Market
South Africa doesn’t have a white wine that has officially been made its own the way Pinotage has for reds. They’ve always grown a little bit of everything, but in recent years Chenin Blanc has emerged as the unofficial South African specialty. Even though it is native to France, and most famous from places in the Loire Valley in places like Vouvray and Saumur, South Africa has twice as many plantings of Chenin Blanc as France does, and over 50% of all the world’s Chenin Blanc vines. It was first brought there in the 1600’s by the Dutch settlers and has been growing there for the last 350 years. It’s kind of always been there, but never really held up as a flagship grape of the country until recent years. Bruwer Raats (yes, that’s his real name and he’s awesome) runs the Raats Family Winery in Stellenbosch, and he was one of the early producers to focus on the grape almost exclusively when he opened his winery in 2000, and now he has come to be regarded as one of SA’s foremost specialists in Chenin Blanc. This wine is organically grown, wild yeast fermented, and low-intervention with very little sulphate addition. It’s also done entirely in stainless steel to produce as pure as possible an example of Chenin as he can. I remember having a tasting note on past vintages of this wine as pineapple rolled in gravel and sea salt with honeydew melons and citrus. So much minerality and pretty fruit character. I had to scoop up everything I could of this wine when it was released, as it always sells out immediately. Don’t wait to pick this one up if you’re interested in a bottle for this week, when it’s sold out it’s gone for the next few months! If you want to try another Chenin in a slightly richer, barrel fermented style, check out the Badenhorst Chenin Blanc that we featured a few weeks ago in our Beyond Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc tasting. It is dynamite as well!

BLANKBOTTLE, ‘GIVE AND TAKE’ | SWARTLAND
$40 per bottle from Byward Wine Market
Pieter Walser from BLANKbottle has got to be one of the most interesting and inspired winemakers I’ve ever come across in the whole world. And to save writing you a small essay about Pieter, here’s a link to someone else’s. I really suggest reading it, they do a nice job of mapping out all the different avenues of how the Blankbottle project came to be. Once you’ve done that and we’re up to speed, come back here. I’ll wait….
Welcome back. So for ‘Give and Take’ the story is that in 2017 Pieter was in need of some Pinot Blanc grapes for a wine he was making and the winemaker he approached at another winery to buy some from said that the winery owner wouldn’t allow him to sell grapes to Pieter. But that winemaker also needed some Semillon, which Pieter had extra. So they arranged a swap, a ‘give and take’ if you will. This first vintage in 2017 was for Pinot Blanc and Semillon, but it looks like the 2018 vintage was the same deal but Pinot Blanc and Fernao Pires, a Portuguese white grape that Pieter makes another wine from called Kortpad Kaaptoe. Give and Take was originally made exclusively for BLANKbottle’s UK importers, then with a small allotment of 2018 then available to a few other markets as well. I tried this back in the fall when we first got some and recall it being unctuous but nicely balanced. Dense, but lean at the same time. A richer wine that maintained a beautiful elegance, due in part to the 40 year old vines the grapes come from. There are no exact notes on the assemblage and % of each grapes, but it’s mostly Fernao Pires with a little Pinot Blanc. Aged a year on its lees with minimal intervention and only a touch of sulphates added at bottling. A really interesting wine, and the picture of some of the more experimental wines and blends coming from South Africa, and from really old vines too.

BRUCE JACK, PINOTAGE MALBEC | WESTERN CAPE
$18 per bottle from Byward Wine Market, $15.99 x12 from Lifford Wines
Bruce Jack has pretty much done it all in South African wine. He’s started several wineries from scratch, sold one to a big multinational company, stayed on as head winemaker for them, then left to start his own biodynamic winery, and gotten involved in various international winemaking projects in Spain and Chile. Bruce and his amicable personality are tour de force that produce excellent wines at the top end, and some of the very best value wines under $20. Everything he does errs to the organic, sustainable, and biodynamic side of things, even if not certified or expressly labelled. The Drift Estate in Overberg is his certified biodynamic winery and home that produces some of South Africa’s most praised wines, but his Bruce Jack label is meant to be more accessible and deliver everyday value. And in this case, he’s blending Pinotage with Malbec, something that seems like an odd match on paper, but has you coming back for more once you taste it. Pinotage has a bit of a love/hate following. It was first created at Stellenbosch University in 1925 by crossing Pinot Noir and Cinsault. Cinsault was also known as the Hermitage grape, thus Pinotage. It’s been planted in other parts of the world since then, but the vast majority is in South Africa where it’s seen as their signature grape. There’s something about Pinotage that loves to get really funky in a heavy torrefaction (roasted coffee) direction, or sometimes roasted meat, burnt rubber, tar, or asphalt on top of the cherry and blackberry fruit characteristics. But there have been so many extremely elegant, very pretty examples of Pinotage that changes people’s minds about the grape all the time. And although this is 30% Malbec, the Pinotage involved here is a nice example of a clean and classic style. This has also become one of our most popular wines overall at the shop with people now starting to order it directly, by the case.

BOSCHENDAL, CABERNET SAUVIGNON | STELLENBOSCH
$29 per bottle from Byward Wine Market, $25.99 x12 from Lifford Wines
Based in the heart of Stellenbosch, Boschendal is famously, the 2nd oldest winery in South Africa. Founded in 1685, the property has changed hands several times but is one of the longest running properties in the country. They also have over 1000 hectares of indigenous wildlife and vegetation under conservation that the WWF has referred to as one of the smallest yet richest plant kingdoms on earth. Read more about that and their sustainability here. That’s a pretty significant commitment to ecological and environmentally-minded viticulture that have been a major part of their operation long before it became cool. They are certified sustainable and operate organically, but even more importantly, they make really excellent wines. My wife and I recently popped a bottle of this Cabernet and were blown away by the quality and the value. It’s everything you want from a big Cab, but with all the right South African nuance: big dark fruit, subtle smokey earth, dried herbs, plus charred and roasted red peppers on the nose. Full bodied but more lean and dry than jammy or sweet. More like Bordeaux in South Africa rather than California. I can’t wait to BBQ with this wine in the spring, but no rush because it paired perfectly with the Lamb Shepherd’s I made a few weeks ago. An excellent example of classic, earthy South African red.

Boschendal’s vineyards and conservation land.

MORE MIXED CASES!

It’s been a few months, but we’ve come out with some new curated cases directly from the Lifford office! We’ve got our Staff Picks, Tour De France, Budget Bangers, and a bunch more. Click here to see the full selection. While we have many of these individual wines in the shop, these mixed packs are not available at these prices from the Byward Wine Market, only from Lifford direct shipped to your home. Send me a note if you’re interested or have any questions!

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The Byward Wine Market and Lollo (the restaurant space we operate in) are fully open again for eat-in dining at reduced capacity. You can come by, shop for some bottles and have a salad or sandwich. We are also still offering curbside pickup with online orders, or you can choose local delivery within Ottawa at the online checkout.

Just a reminder that the order deadline for Friday case delivery is Wednesday at 9:00am. Reach out if you have any questions, and check out the archive of past FEATURES if you’re interested in other recommendations. Lastly, please feel free to forward this to anyone in Ontario who may be interested in home wine delivery and follow us on Instagram for daily wine content at @bywardwinemarket and @capitalwine.ottawa!