‘My friends thought I was crazy’

Bruwer Raats of Raats Family Wineries specialises in just two varieties: cab franc and chenin.

Bruwer Raats of Raats Family Wineries specialises in just two varieties: cab franc and chenin.

Published Oct 23, 2014

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Johannesburg - Demented or a visionary, Bruwer Raats first took on a workhorse grape that South African winemakers shied away from and then settled on another underdog, which was a blending partner but not usually made into single varietal wines, and turned them both into stars.

Today, as a leading New World producer of these two varieties, he’s known as the chenin king. He also deserves the title, cabernet franc king.

It’s taken years to prove the intrinsic value of these two varieties, he explained at a recent 11-year vertical tasting of his Raats Family cab franc at La Luna, in Melville.

“After my studies in 1995, I travelled and worked in Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Germany and Tuscany, for three years. When I returned, I realised the most successful people in the world specialised.

“I don’t want to follow fashions because eventually everything is mediocre and nothing is special. You end up chasing your tail.

“I wanted to take one white and one red variety and make them world-class. Do less, but really do them well. I picked chenin blanc for my white and cabernet franc, when I bought my farm.”

Why chenin though – especially in the 1990s, when it was decidedly unsexy? “We’ve got by far the biggest chenin plantings outside France, which is where the variety originated from. The French never branded their chenin – they named it according to the area. We had, as South Africans, the unique option to take the variety, call it chenin blanc and show the rest of the world what chenin should taste like.

“But we took chenin – which is a noble variety – and we treated it like a workhorse. We made cheap white wine from it and brandy and then complained that it didn’t win the Durban July! The problem isn’t chenin – it’s perception and how you treat it.”

Raats, who started his career in South Africa at Delaire (before Laurence Graff bought the Stellenbosch property), and worked at Blaauklippen and Zorgvliet, bought his Polkadraai farm in 2004, recognising that the dolomitic soils were wonderful for cabernet franc.

In a partnership with his brother Jasper jr and his cousin Gavin Bruwer Slabbert, Raats has also associated with his former Delaire winemaking partner Mzokhona Mvemve on a cab franc-led Bordeaux blend, the Mvemve Raats de Compostella (“Compilation of Stars”), which is acclaimed internationally and received four-and-a-half stars in this year’s Platter for the 2011 vintage.

Cabernet franc might be the preferred blending partner for the cabernet sauvignon and merlot in Bordeaux, but in the Loire, the variety had been planted and vinified alone long before cabernet sauvignon.

DNA analysis indicates that cab franc is one of two parents of cabernet sauvignon, a cross between it and sauvignon blanc.

“Very few people know cabernet franc. It’s a difficult grape variety to grow. It’s difficult to make. Of the Bordeaux varieties, they all have fruit, but cab franc has spiciness. That’s unique. It’s multi-dimensional. Cab sauvignon is a broad sword but cab franc is very precise.”

For Raats, cab franc’s the perfect red wine – with complexity, structure and softness.

“Most varieties have two dimensions on the nose: fruit and spice, or spice and herbaceousness, or fruit and herbaceousness. Cabernet franc has all three: fruit (red berries, red fruits, blackberries and black cherry). It has herbacous-ness – rosemary, thyme, green herbs – and spice, cinnamon, clove, coriander, nutmeg, and five spice.

“On the palate, it’s very linear, very structured, seeing it’s the parent variety of cabernet sauvignon, but at the end, it’s got those silky soft tannins, freshness and minerality. It never leaves a heavy taste. Almost a light, elegant and fresh taste.

“That makes cabernet franc extremely appealing. If there’s a single variety that you want to make that has three dimensions, that would be a perfect red wine. If you can find the right soils, it’s the best single variety that you can find.

“If you’ve got lamb, rosemary and cabernet franc, you know can have a good time. It’s what the variety works really well with.

“When I started, my friends said I was crazy: chenin blanc was the workhorse variety that was used for everything but quality wine. In 2001, when I found cabernet franc as my red variety, I was asked if I was on drugs – a friend said: ‘I don’t know where you come up with these ideas.’ “

* The Family Old Vines chenin blanc has been rated one of the most consistent chenin blancs in the world and one of the country’s top 10. Raats Family cab franc has been rated for 11 consecutive years as one of the top 10 in the world and five stars in Platter. It also achieved 92 points from Parker and was rated the best in the southern hemisphere in the Six Nations Challenge. The Red Jasper, named in honour of his late father, is a Bordeaux blend which is 85 percent cab franc dominated.

* E-mail your comments to me at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @GeorginaCrouth

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