Half a century ago red wine grapes comprised only about 20% of SA’s crop. The most important variety — by area as well as by volume — was cinsaut. It accounted for 12.5% of all the Cape’s vineyards. To give this some context, cinsaut plantings occupied five times the space dedicated to cabernet. Since much higher yields can be taken off cinsaut vines, it’s safe to estimate that 10 times more cinsaut than cabernet was consumed in any given year.
At the time, you would have had to look long and hard to find any bottles actually labelled “cinsaut”. Some juice was sold as “dry red” but most was blended (mainly with pinotage, but also with shiraz, of which there was a little at the time) and marketed as cabernet. It was only in 1973 that the wine of origin regulations imposed for the first time an element of integrity to wine packaging. So ubiquitous was this deception that in the first few years after the legislation was introduced, a wine containing only 30% cabernet sauvignon could be labelled as pure cabernet.
From the late 1970s new planting material of the better-known internationally recognised red varieties was released to SA growers. Suddenly there were other blending partners for cabernet sauvignon, like merlot, cabernet franc, malbec and petit verdot. The demand for cinsaut — among producers rather than consumers (most of whom hardly knew it existed) — plummeted. Growers began replacing their old bush-vine cinsaut vineyards with the new, more fashionable varieties. Except on farms whose owners couldn’t afford to replant, cinsaut all but vanished from the Cape.
With the success of the Old Vine Project in the past two decades, and the arrival of a new generation of producers seeking a point of difference to distinguish themselves from the long-established brands, cinsaut has begun to make a comeback. First the old vine sites were “re-discovered”. Then, as admittedly quite geeky enthusiasts created a momentum, a few adventurous growers started to plant new vines.
The result is that there are a surprising number of cinsauts on the market, some from older vineyards, many from recent plantings. The selling prices of many of these more boutique offerings would certainly have brought tears to the eyes of old-timers who had sold fruit from ancient vineyards to their co-ops for a pittance.
A few winemakers have emerged as masters of the cinsaut craft. Lukas van Loggerenberg is certainly one of them. His “superpower” lies in how he captures the essence of the cultivar — which is a kind of weightless intensity, featherlight but not elusive, powdery savoury tannins that evaporate on your palate — without tipping over into chunkiness.
I thought his Geronimo 2024 was among the best of his cinsauts I have tasted to date. I wasn’t able to sample his top cuvée, the Lotter — made from a vineyard planted in 1932 — though there’s so little of it about that even at more than R700 a bottle you’ll struggle to find any. At less than R400, the Geronimo may not be a bargain but it’s probably one of the 10-best cinsauts in the world.
To understand his achievement, you need to taste some of the quite ordinary wines coming from producers trying too hard to extract more from the variety than it can freely give. I was disappointed with Mick Craven’s 2024. He’s a fine and thoughtful winemaker but here he’s pushed his fruit way past freshness into a kind of jammy opulence.
He’s not the only one. Donkiesbaai, which makes one of the Cape’s best grenache noirs (a variety that demands an equally light touch in the cellar), has stumbled into the same trap. The 2023 is just too juicy and too simple. It makes for an easy enough summer quaffing wine, but that’s not how it has been priced. You can surf the wave of fashion for only so long before you wipe out.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.