Big Reds Stand Out

My favorite of the lineup was the opulent, hedonistic, 1999 Rustenberg "Peter Barlow" cabernet sauvignon. The nose had chocolate, plum, smoke, oak and enough butter to raise your cholesterol level. Then the palate was very bright, with spice and fruit that was almost tart. The tannins grabbed my cheeks in a way that felt like I was being punished for drinking it so young. This baby could go for eight+ years, and might need them for the palate to come into sync with the nose.

My only concern is that the alcohol is high enough now (14.6%) to make you do embarrassing things, and may only be more present as tannins subside with age. Granted, this is like complaining about a mole on a supermodel's back.

Two Shiraz bottlings from Graham Beck - "The Ridge" 1999 and "Coastal Cellar" 2000 - were fantastic, and trying them together shows the differences in the two growing areas. If you can find them, make like a rock star and take 'em both home.

Pinotage is the funky red grape (a Frankenstein hybrid of pinot noir and cinsault) that South Africa is known for. It doesn't taste like much of anything else, and it threw some strange looks onto the faces of many an Italian taster who had never had it.

Get Funky, Get Pinotage

Still, I think the pinotage won most people over by the end of the tasting. Graham Beck's 1999 "Coastal Cellar" and "Old Road" 1999 pinotages were both great, and both had the pinotage-signature earthy funk. But, while the "Coastal Cellar" was just earth-funky, "Old Road" was Earth, Wind & Fire-funky! It's made of older vines, and you could taste all the minerals those gnarled trunks extracted from the soil.

The key recommendation here is to start experimenting with South African reds that care enough to note the region on the label. Look for regional names like Stellenbosch Valley, Franschhoek and Robertson. From this tasting it seems you're more than safe with anything from Rustenberg, Graham Beck or Brampton (a Rustenberg second label).

Explore those wines and I think you'll agree that South Africa's red wine producers are changing their reputation faster than a prostitute who joins a convent. That oughta keep you busy until next week when WoW brings you the final report from VinItaly: Italian wines you can't live without, and don't have to thanks to great distribution.

Cheers,
TSW

NOTE: Prices aren't listed because with these wines it really depends on where you live (and the strength of the South African Rand). The Rustenberg "Peter Barlow" cabernet sauvignon can be as much as $30, while the Brampton wines are more like $10-12.

Part 2 of 3

As noted in our first report from VinItaly 2003, the whole event is positively infested with amazing wines. And, while row upon row of wonderful Italian wine is the headlining act for sure, there are a few warm-up groups that make it well worth getting to the concert early.

Once such danceable band is VinItaly's Tasting Ex…press: a series of hosted wine tasting events that delve into a specific varietal and/or region. Each event is two hours long and costs less than probably any one bottle you get to try.

I attended one such event because it focused on South African red wines. As one of the fastest growing winemaking regions in the world, South Africa is worth keeping tabs on. But even relatively recently, South Africa was known for its white wines. Its red wines were known too, but they were known for being bad.

That's all going to change in a few years.

I sat with other wine writers and researchers (whatever that means) at long, white-tableclothed tables with eight wine glasses at each setting. Those glasses, like mystical, prophetic goblets, held South Africa's future.

The wines I tasted - one at a time as stewards judiciously poured by men and women in tails and testavins - totally ruled! They were diverse and complex, or at least very interesting if more on the simple side.

Region Matters

The South African wineries making good wine know it (duh), and they're stepping up their marketing efforts to make sure you know it, too. A big part of this is that they're adding regional specificity to wine labels. Some have been doing it for a while, and it's high time that more got in the game.

Think about it: When talking about regions, people don't say "French wine" because it hardly narrows anything down. "Do you mean Bordeaux or Burgundy or Chateaunuf-du-Pape or…". The same goes for "American wine, "Italian wine" and most other wine-making countries.

But most people still think South Africa's vineyards to be about as diverse and varied as Kevin Costner's acting range. Sure, some wineries have helped this misconception along by using grapes from a multitude of areas in the country, but it's also because specific areas were never promoted on the labels. So, the labels just read "South Africa."

Like most great wine regions, and most large countries in general, South Africa has microclimates, different soils and different elevations that produce very different wines (think Johnny Depp's acting range). Wineries promoting this fact are banking on it to increase interest and sales. If you like a shiraz from the Stellenbosch Valley, you may be willing to try one from the Coastal region.

And indeed you should. A single tasting is always a mere microcosm of a region, unless you're tasting hundreds of wines, in which case memory loss will void the whole experience anyway. But the reds from Rustenberg and Graham Beck wineries (the two houses featured) spoke volumes for what South Africa has to offer.