Durban - The last few weeks have put another spin on “savouring the waning days of summer” as the typical February humidity has descended here with a vengeance.
The one advantage has been the chance to drink some cool-climate sauvignon blancs as a reward for surviving the weather.
Fryer’s Cove wines provides an interesting story. The West Coast vineyard’s locality takes the hackneyed phrase “cooling sea breezes” to the edge of the precipice, and the first vintage made in the jetty-side winery reached for the stars.
The Fryer’s Cove Bamboes Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2011 (estimated retail price: R120) scooped five stars in the current Platter’s Wine Guide, becoming one of only three sauvignons to achieve this recognition. Winemaker and co-owner Wynand Hamman believes the 2012 vintage will develop into an even better wine, showing enhanced expressions of this tiny vineyard.
The winery, housed in a disused crayfish factory, lies 300km north of Cape Town in Doringbaai, a small, hardy fishing community. The vines are planted among the beach vegetation on the edge of the coast – and the water is piped from Vredendal, 30km away, to a buffer dam 1km from the vines.
The vineyard now comprises four hectares of sauvignon blanc and 2ha of pinot noir, and the investment has brought back commercial activity to a village suffering from a declining fishing industry.
Constantia Glen, another winery known for its cool-climate sauvignon blancs that benefit from further ageing, has just released its 2012 vintage (R100). Boasting a 10 percent semillon component that spent five months on the lees, the wine is intensely expressive – a classic Constantia wine with elegance, length and freshness.
It is a wine that cries out for honey-roasted butternut soup with gorgonzola cheese or a lightly-smoked salmon grilled with lemon and butter.
Adora winemaker and blending specialist Ian Naudé is another one making cool-climate sauvignon blancs, carefully selecting his wine purchases from farmers to create wines that “reflect the totality and uniqueness of South African wine regions”.
The Adora Sauvignon Blanc 2009 comprises grapes from Stellenbosch, Darling and Elgin, with Naudé believing that vintage was “the best for sauvignon blanc in the last decade”.
Each region contributed to the balance between upfront fruit and mineral complexity, and pairing this wine earlier this week with Café 1999’s deep-fried olives and anchovy toast was a match that little could surpass. - The Mercury
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