The 21st century has become the era of cult wines, pretty much throughout the wine-drinking world. Before about 1980 you would have had to look long and hard to find any demand for brands where the personality of the producer was the primary reason for making a purchase decision. In those now distant days there were also no wine critics making a living by putting a score to a wine.
Robert Parker changed that with The Wine Advocate. Once scores (usually out of 100) replaced seemingly more esoteric wine knowledge as a way of determining what to drink, the door was opened. Any wine an influential critic rated 100 — or close enough to the magical number — immediately sold out. This in turn imbued it with rarity status. Increased demand fed the beast. Suddenly cult wines/producers came to dominate the discourse.
This was no bad thing. Until then, the world of fine wine was dominated by properties with long-established reputations. The club worked for the insiders, who kept the outsiders outside. Breaking their monopoly brought new sites and new producers into the mainstream and created a space that was energetic, creative, innovative and exciting.
Of course, as with most things, this was not a static process, and in its movement there was also a pendulum-like swing. Within a few years cult came to replace site as the primary criterion of vinous value. In Burgundy, for example, certain producers were privileged above others in the same appellation, often disproportionately so. There are five owners of the Clos St Jacques vineyard in Gevrey Chambertin. The wines of one sell for 10 times the price of three of the others and twice the price of the fourth. Nothing in the quality of any of these wines can justify the pricing differential.
In SA, wines that enjoy fashion/icon status have come to dominate critical discourse. It’s as if there’s no point in talking about what is readily available if your audience is interested in rarity above intrinsic quality. But there are obviously practitioners whose wines meet the dual criteria of remarkable and rare. One is Chris Alheit, whose focus on single-site white wines has set him apart from pretty much everyone else working in this space in the Cape.
Chris and Suzaan Alheit began their enterprise in 2011 with a chenin-sémillon blend branded Cartology (a reflection of the many sites from which its grapes were sourced), and two single-site chenins, Magnetic North and Radio Lazarus.
In the past decade there have been changes. The ancient Radio Lazarus vineyard never survived the devastating drought of 2017/18. Additional old vine blocks were discovered, the Nuwedam farm purchased, a vehicle was created for fruit from younger vineyards — the permutations grew a bit like Topsy.
In essence, however, the Alheit enterprise is about the “grand cru” sites: Magnetic North, La Colline/Monument and Huilkrans. Their rarity opens the door for the “premier cru” sites: Fire by Night and Nautical Dawn, as well as for Cartology, Hemelrand Vine Garden and the young vine blend called Hereafter Here.
The 2023 Alheit wines have just been released and there’s nothing you shouldn’t buy if you get offered some. (Alternatively, sign up on the website and try to get an allocation next year.) For my money, a stash of Huilkrans or Magnetic North would be a fair exchange for tickets to the Paris Olympics. Cartology is simply exceptional and it’s produced in sufficient volume that you ought to be able to find some. This year Fire by Night edges out Nautical Dawn, at least for now. Also definitely worth chasing down are the surprisingly textural Hereafter Here (R300) and the wonderfully aromatic Hemelrand Vine Garden Field Blend (R375).
A few years ago Alheit released the 2021 vintage without either of his chenin “grand crus”. This year there’s no La Colline/Monument. He places quality and integrity above rarity, which sets him apart from most of the other cult producers in the Cape.
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