In little more than two decades Bruwer Raats has taken his vision of a fine wine business to an impressive reality. Over the years he narrowed his focus, a function of fulfilling his original conception and having the means to achieve it.
He sited his Eden estate in Stellenbosch’s Polkadraai ward — in the hills separating the Cape Flats from the valley that cradles the town — making it a significant player in a small but important appellation. He doesn’t own all his vineyards but he does control them, with sites that pretty much adjoin his farm. Every bottle coming to market from now on will contain only Polkadraai fruit.
For much of the past 20 years there has been a gap between what he envisioned and what he could produce. In the world of wine this is very much the norm. It falls to very few people to have exactly what they need as they set out to make what they believe will be their best possible wine.
Almost no one inherits perfectly established vineyards in the best possible place. No one that lucky could know, from the first vintage, exactly how to coax the best fruit from those plantings. Even if you manage to avoid the wrong turns and the culs-de-sac, the most crucial, inescapable and non-negotiable component is time itself. You can’t buy it. You also can’t advance until you know for sure that what you’ve produced can stand the elapse of it — and actually improve.
The release of the latest wines from Raats Family Vineyards shows how important these two decades have been. Mostly you can see that the wines have arrived at the destination it was always Bruwer’s intention to reach. For me they are considerably more credible than the earlier vintages. Raats talks about the importance of year-on-year improvement. But this outcome is not simply the result of marginal enhancements over an extended period. Vine age, site specificity, different fermentation vessels as well as tweaks in understanding and execution all play a role.
At this stage, the best wines are the less (and least) expensive ranges. The 2022 Raats Original Chenin Blanc, which sells for about R180, has greater intensity without compromising its hallmark purity. The Old Vine Chenin (which, though it doesn’t bear the Old Vine seal, appears to come from sites which are older than the minimum 35 years) has a restrained richness across a spectrum of flavours. It has a real succulence, textural lift and great length. The on-shelf price is about R390 — but at this stage at least it delivers more than the High Density 2021 which retails at more than R800.
I was conscious of the same shortcomings in the ultra-premium 2021 High Density Cabernet Franc — which is evidently sold out (at R2,700!) even before release. To be fair, I’ve never been able to see the added value in this single site selection. Happily for Bruwer, his loyal followers don’t care what I or anyone else think. There are only 500 bottles in the market in any vintage so it does a great positioning job for the other cuvées (and contributes a healthy amount to the cellar’s bottom line).
The real red wine shopping opportunity lies in the less expensive — and this stage more seductive — other two cabernet franc bottlings. The entry level wine — the red equivalent of the “Original” chenin blanc — is called Dolomite. It sells for a little over R200 and delivers crunchy fresh red fruit, wonderfully managed tannins, savoury spice and mouthwatering juiciness.
The intermediate Raats Family 2020 Cabernet Franc is very smart: fuller but not weightier, riper but not more alcoholic, it deserves its Platter Five Star accolade (one of several the Raats cellar bagged in the 2023 Guide). At R700 or so per bottle, it’s unlikely to become your everyday quaffing red. But it confirms that Bruwer Raats and his team know how to handle the much edgier and less forgiving ancestor of the ever popular cabernet sauvignon.
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