Arts & Leisure: Wine
MICHAEL FRIDJHON Published: 2010/04/07 07:32:24 AM
TWENTY years ago no one would seriously have suggested that at the end of the first decade of the 21st century Elgin would be better known for its vineyards than its orchards. When Paul Cluver agreed to dedicate some of his De Rust estate to vineyards for Nederburg in the early 1980s, the idea appeared an indulgence. It seemed certain that the revenue from grapes sales would be less than the income potential of the same land planted to apples.
Cluver, his neighbour at Oak Valley, Anthony Rawbone-Viljoen, and Gunter Brozel (then the cellarmaster at Nederburg) could see Elgin's potential. Less than an hour's drive from Stellenbosch, Elgin already had the kind of infrastructure required for premium fruit farming. What it needed most was a market sophisticated enough to recognise the refinement and delicacy in wines made from cool-climate fruit.
Cluver is probably the best known producer. Several of the wines rival the country's best in their particular class. The Seven Flags Pinot Noir, the Chardonnay and the Weisser Riesling Noble Late Harvest are indisputably South African benchmarks, while the Sauvignon Blanc, Weisser Riesling and Gewurztraminer are well regarded.
At Oak Valley, the Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, red blend and white blend are just as impressive. In fact, the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir place Oak Valley firmly in the company of Hamilton Russell, Bouchard Finlayson and Cape Chamonix as one of the country's top Burgundy-style producers.
Elsewhere in Elgin the calling card is almost always sauvignon blanc. Shannon Vineyards has a particularly sumptuous example - which in 2009 includes 15% barrel-fermented semillon to fill out the mid-palate. Tokara's Elgin Sauvignon is a Platter Five Star laureate. Almenkerk's 2009 is lean, elegant, restrained. Arumdale's 2009 is less austere. Highlands Road made a particularly good 2008, while Iona has a sauvignon record going back almost a decade. Most of the Iona wines age well and appear more complex after two years in bottle - generally a feature of Elgin sauvignons.
The region's reds - other than pinot noir - have generally been less successful. Exceptions include Neil Ellis's 2007 Aenigma - which proves that it is possible to produce a decent Bordeaux blend in Elgin. Iona's The Gunnar is a slow developer: the 2005 is only now beginning to reveal its merits. William Everson's 2008 Shiraz blend has fine, almost creamy textures and ample spice.
With the recent death of Ross Gower, who had been producing wine in Elgin for the past five years, the region has lost a prodigious talent. Gower's Elgin wines - made from vineyards that he, his wife Sally and their three sons established - were still works in progress. But his 2007 Sauvignon Blanc (of which there is still some stock about) is a classic of the appellation: fine, unshowy, elegant and with lovely mineral notes.
Gower was one of a kind - generous of spirit, tolerant, disarmingly modest, playful, possessed of a wicked sense of humour, talented and creative. He was probably the first of the modern generation of SA's winemakers. The wines he created at Klein Constantia in the mid-1980s became the paradigms which shaped contemporary South African wine. The form of the "ideal" sauvignon blanc is his 1986 Klein Constantia. That same year he made the cabernet which separated the "dikvoet" era from today, and also invented the modern Vin de Constance, setting it on a course to become an international icon. No one else has so completely, and in so little time, redefined the parameters and the aesthetics of South African wine.
His decision to move to Elgin may have contributed to the region's "critical mass". Elgin was very much up and running by the time the Gowers arrived, but I believe his vineyards there contributed to a change in how it was perceived. About then, Elgin ceased to be "fringe" and became mainstream. If this is not mere coincidence, then many of the wines coming to market today are also part of his legacy.
