Kevin Arnold has had a long and distinguished career in the world of Cape wine. His first stint was as an assistant winemaker at Delheim, in the days when the property was run — in a very hands-on and direct way — by Spatz Sperling, the man who turned it from an ailing wine farm into something of a Cape icon. In the time that he was there he developed the wine which has since become its undisputed flagship, the Delheim Grande Reserve.
Ten years later and already a founding member of the Cape (Independent) Winemakers Guild, he joined Jannie Engelbrecht at Rust en Vrede. Among his many valuable contributions to the Helderberg estate was the creation of the Rust en Vrede Estate blend, the Cape’s first high-profile and very successful cabernet-shiraz combination.
The logical next career move, about 25 years ago, was to enter into what appeared to be a partnership to create Waterford. Arnold contributed his expertise, charm and credibility, while his partner contributed the last three letters to the brand name, and the loot.
For the first 20 years things appeared to go swimmingly. Then, quite suddenly, Arnold found himself unwelcome on the property he had developed, and without even the right to use his own name on any wines he might wish to make and sell. There are always two sides to a fallout story, though it has to be said that the buyers of his erstwhile partner’s tech business would probably not be surprised by Arnold’s experience.
Litigation to enforce claims (as the late Isie Maisels once explained to me in similar circumstances) is only for the very rich, which meant Arnold had to bite the bullet and begin all over again at an age at which most people are contemplating retirement. His misfortune is good news for wine enthusiasts: he has relaunched himself under the banner brand of The Family, with all of his wines bearing the names of his children, as well as the varieties from which the wines were produced.
With no real working capital but with the skill which made Waterford a household name, Arnold has launched some delicious wines at attractive prices. His 2022 sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc and 2019 grenache-mourvedre-syrah (GMS) are not wannabe Waterfords. They have a different personality and style — less showy, the red more delicate, the whites more textural.
The sauvignon blanc is bright and linear, crisp, zesty, not simple but also not pretending to be an oaked showpiece. The chenin is particularly impressive, delivering notes of ripe apricot and whiffs of white pear. It is fulsome on the palate and yet bone-dry on the finish. If you need persuading that chenin blanc can perform all the food-pairing antics of a fine chardonnay, look no further than The Family Chenin 2022.
The GMS is very pretty: weightless but not insubstantial, with delicate aromatic detail combining plumminess from the grenache, meatiness from the mourvedre and light peppery spice from the syrah.
These first releases have been more assembled than made by Arnold — an indication of how the industry has rallied behind him, supplying juice, cellar space, fruit and support in an endeavour to get him up and running.
Start-ups such as Arnold’s The Family battle to survive because of the seemingly invisible expenses that need to be incurred by a properly structured operation but which cannot be carried in the pricing if the wines are to sell out before the cash flow dries up. There’s no fancy distribution operation, no smart website: just Arnold’s email address and cellphone number — and great value pricing. The whites sell for about R125-150 and the red for under R200. To buy go to kevinarnold77@icloud.com or phone (082) 990-5742.
Correction: July 11 2023
This column has been updated to remove the link to an unrelated article and reference to Waterford Irish Whiskey.
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