Most wine industries are dynamic: stasis is deadly (though it doesn’t follow that edgy constitutes proof of life). To misquote Thom Gunn: “One is not necessarily nearer by not keeping still.”
When it comes to innovation in wine we tend to think of Old World producers sticking to their tried and tested ways while New World producers, imbued with a sense of adventure and change, use only the most modern technology. This caricature of stagnation may have been true of the major French appellations 40 years ago, but the Cape, Australia, Chile and Argentina appellations were hardly cutting edge then either.
Bordeaux was thrust into the modern world ahead of most of the classic regions, fast-tracked partly as a result of Robert Parker’s influential criticism. His ratings landed up imposing a kind of Californian aesthetic on the wines — but at least they brought a whiff of modernity to an area that had languished in almost luddite-like ignorance, smugly unconcerned about the importance of cellar hygiene and more nuanced viticultural practices.
The major advances in Burgundy came from a huge transformation in the market. Consumers wanted wines made by growers, not blends marketed by merchants. The new generation of winemakers, often the offspring of the growers who had been happy to sell fruit to the big producers, chose instead to focus on the terroir of their sites, in pursuit of quality above quantity.
In time these lessons made their way to the Cape. In the decade that followed the opening of markets in 1994, the large and mid-size wineries replanted vineyards and began to make wines in a more international vernacular. But at the same time — and really tracking the Burgundy experience — a new generation of younger, more adventurous winemakers began crafting their own, small-batch, uniquely styled wines. They used existing and often neglected vineyards that responded brilliantly to the extra care and attention.
Our modern industry covers the full spectrum between these extremities: the estates (particularly those in Stellenbosch, but also Constantia, Durbanville and Paarl) producing wines from their own vineyards align at the one end; the craft producers (generally sourcing grapes from less mainstream appellations) are at the other, with plenty of choice in-between.
The difficulty — from a consumer as much as from a critical perspective — is how to integrate these sometimes competing aesthetics to optimise appreciation and enjoyment. The simple — and unsatisfactory solution — is simply to say “I’ll take them on their own terms. When I’m in the mood for a geeky/hipster wine, I’ll choose from one of the craft producers. When I’m looking for something more mainstream, I’ll pick a wine from one of the great estates.”
The difficulty with this approach is that it means you have to be able to pigeonhole each expression of every wine. What happens when a variety — say shiraz — can be made in any number of styles? I found myself pondering this when I tasted the Trizanne Signature Wines Shiraz 2019 and compared it to some more muscular (but equally crafted) examples — Porseleinberg, Mullineux — and then followed these with the massive Rust en Vrede Single Vineyard Syrah 2017. The range here is everything from the Northern Rhone’s Cote Rotie and Hermitage to Penfold’s much sought-after Grange. The price point — anything from R2,000 to R10,000 a bottle.
Trizanne Barnard’s Elim Syrah has bagged the best Shiraz trophy two years running at the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show. In the words of the Platter Guide, it is “effortless, pure and precise”. At 13.5% alcohol, there’s nothing showy about it. The Rust en Vrede — a Platter five-star laureate — is described as a “melange of savoury and sweet spice ... lush damson fruit, cosseted in French oak”. Both are wonderful wines — but they have as much in common as a Giacometti with a Botero. You cannot doubt the artistry that went into them — they are incomparable, but also impossible to compare.
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