New World: Shiraz/Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre & Rhône Blends, South Africa
2018 Gold 1 Silver 4 Bronze 5 Commended 8
2017 Gold 3 Silver 5 Bronze 7 Commended 7
If South Africa was voted the New World Country Most Likely To Succeed in the SWA High School prom when it came to Cabernet, it was back in among the nerds and losers with Syrah.
What there doesn’t seem to be yet is a consistency of style, or at least a defined South Africanness. It’s there for Cab, but not for the Rhône varieties, which is perhaps understandable given that the Cape has had much longer to work with the former than the latter.
So there were good wines here and the pricing was, in general, keener than that of the Australia wines, but as a category it’s still very much a work in progress.
FROM THE TASTING TEAMS
‘Very interesting range of styles from the people that wanted to make Pinot to the ones that wanted to make Cabernet from these grapes. A lot were TTH – Trying Too Hard, tarting themselves up when they didn’t need to.’ Simon Woods, team leader
‘I was expecting a bit more bang for my buck. Very dark, rich colours but not backed up with body. As far as GSM goes, Southern Rhône at the same price gets you incredible wines – and that’s the benchmark.’ Euan McColm, Beaverbrooks
‘Across the flight there were a lot of different styles. Some really ripe, some too tough, some with too much winemaking.’ Andre Luis Martins, Cavalry & Guards
‘Far too much sulphur on most of the wines, so they’d need to be decanted. But once you got over that, there’s some nice wines there. They’ve got to be more careful in the winemaking.’ Angela Reddin, team leader