SA’s wine of origin legislation — which coincidentally brought into being the regulations governing the production of estate wines — celebrates its half-century in 2023. While it became law on January 2 1973, the list of the first 14 properties that chose to become estates (and were therefore bound by the regulations) was published only in August 1973.
Jubilee years have a way of appearing important, as if 50 years of marriage should be any more meaningful a milestone than 51 or 52. At least when it comes to our lifespan you could argue that mere survival is important: turning 100 is more significant than 99. But in matters quite abstract (and, as it turns out in this case, subject to greater frailty than human mortality) this doesn’t really seem all that significant.
However, the wine industry loves a party, so of course there was a get-together at Groot Constantia to celebrate the First Fourteen’s jubilee. Though 13 members of the starting line-up were there, at least in name, it was a slightly bittersweet occasion. For a start, the whole thing of estate status was ditched ages ago, when the postapartheid export boom made its restrictions an inconvenient obstacle.
Parts of the regulations had always been unrealistic. The term “estate” guaranteed that all the fruit going into the bottle came from the designated property. The law held that no fruit from any other property could be crushed in the same cellar. A winery is a serious investment and the assumption that you can ensure the sanctity of estate fruit by banning other grapes from crossing the boundary line was commercially impractical.
Once this restriction was lifted and it then became legal to make and sell under the same brand name wines made from estate and non-estate fruit, the game was up. No-one was going to care enough whether the word “estate” appeared on some of the labels (but not others). So the party for the Founding Fourteen was more about nostalgia and less about the legislation which transformed the primitive Cape wine industry of the 1960s into the most advanced (in terms of guaranteeing origin and authenticity) of any new world wine-producing country.
Within a year of the first 14 estates crushing their first vintage under the new regulations, Etienne le Riche had arrived at Rustenberg to take over from Peter Vinding Diers as the winemaker — a position he was to occupy for more than 20 years. When he left, it was to launch his eponymous brand which, in its 25 years of existence, has come to enjoy cult status among the Cape’s boutique cellars.
Le Riche Wines has never pretended to be an estate: while it is firmly sited in Stellenbosch, it sources its fruit from a number of different sites. Freedom to use different terroirs is not simply an insurance policy against inclement weather or wildfires. Intelligent winemaking is not simply the conversion of grapes into wine. It is also about assembling component parts to achieve a more complex whole.
The next generation of Le Riches now runs the business. Since 2011 Christo has been responsible for the cellar. Over the past decade technical insights rather than intuition have come to play an increasingly important part. However, since style is also about an aesthetic vision, none of the changes he has wrought have come at the expense of the Le Riche “house style”.
The latest releases (2021 except for the reserve which is 2020) are a tribute to Christo’s competence and passion for Stellenbosch Cabernet. The entry-level Richesse (with some cab franc and cinsaut in the “heritage” blend) is vastly better and more ageworthy than its R200 price point would suggest. The standard Cabernet — at just more than R300 — is also worth significantly more than the cellar door price. The Reserve — sold pretty much on allocation — is the wine the geeks and buffs pursue. At R950 they’re paying as much for rarity as for the intrinsics in the bottle.
Correction: July 5 2023
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Peter Vinding Diers in the sixth paragraph
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