As we dove deeper than ever into our South African tastings this year with a two-week trip to the country, rating more than 850 bottles, one thing stayed the same: the outstanding quality of the country’s chenin blancs, 20 of which found their way onto this Top 100 list. But the wine that made the biggest impression on us was a pure syrah, and it’s our South African Wine of the Year: the Porseleinberg Swartland 2021.
It was one of the best bottlings we have tasted from this singular hilltop site in the Swartland. Intensely fragrant, full of black fruit, savory herbs, peppercorn and iron aromas, it combines firmness and freshness to give a solid yet very fine structure on the palate.
Porseleinberg winemaker Callie Louw said the cool growing season in 2021, when the grapes were harvested at leisure, along with the uniqueness of the terroir gave the wine its distinct personality. “There is a DNA to Porseleinberg,” said Louw, describing the schistous, windswept site. “It’s a really cool site and I think it’s got so much texture and purity, it’s important not to mess around with it. I try to keep the winemaking as simple as possible so the site does the talking.”
CALLIE LOUW OF PORSELEINBERG ESTATE ON 2021
Simple, but precise: whole bunches of syrah are fermented with grape skins continuously submerged, a technique that Louw has employed for the last five years to add structure and complexity, before 12 months maturation in wooden casks and concrete. Aside from being a brilliant expression of syrah, it’s readily found at under $70 and, in contrast to the tiny production quantities of many of the highest-rated wines from the country, nearly 4,000 cases were produced.
Our No. 2 wine exemplifies how the top chenin blancs from South Africa have an unbeatable combination of precision, fruit concentration and minerality.
The David & Nadia Chenin Blanc Swartland Skaliekap 2022 is vivid and wild, full of life and tension; an ethereal wine produced from old bush vines planted in 1985 on schist soils. The 2021 vintage of the Skaliekap was last year’s South African wine of the year.
The consistency of South African producers in bottling greatness year after year is inspiring, particularly in 2022 because it was somewhat of a challenging vintage, with heat spikes in the Swartland and other winegrowing regions across the Western Cape. Great wines were nevertheless made by top winemakers who meticulously sorted through their grapes. In fact, almost half of the wines in this year’s list, including 15 of the 20 chenin blancs, are from the 2022 vintage.
“We want the purity of the grape,” winemaker David Sadie said about his approach to making chenin blanc. “We believe in salinity, minerality, directness and longevity.” David & Nadia’s other single-vineyard bottlings in the list below – the Hoë-Steen (No. 14), Rondevlei (No. 24) and Platbos (No. 41) – are highly worth seeking out for their drive and complexity, although just 2,500 bottles or fewer of each was made.
While syrah has developed a strong reputation in the country, grenache represents a tiny proportion of South African wine – less than one percent of plantings.
Yet those that we tasted stood out, like our No. 3 wine, from Swartland trailblazer Eben Sadie’s winery, Sadie Family Wines. The Piekenierskloof Soldaat 2021 is a pure grenache made from ungrafted bush vines planted in the Citrusdal Mountains, 50 kilometers north of Swartland – a higher-elevation area known for its old grenache plantings.
It’s another Rhone-varietal wine that uses a large proportion (60 percent) of whole-cluster fermentation, retaining purity of fruit from vinification in concrete, resulting in a pale, ethereal and fruit-driven wine.
The Sadie Family Wines in this report are produced in relatively small yet not insignificant quantities of 5,000 to 14,000 bottles. They can be hard to find, though, as they are sold on allocation. But they are some of the most exciting wines from the country, from varietal wines like Soldaat and their new chenin blanc, Rotsbank (No. 12), to wild blends like Skerpioen (No. 34) and Columella (No. 98).
Another fantastic grenache from the Piekenierskloof plateau is also in our top 10. The Lourens Family Wines Piekenierskloof Lua Ilse 2022 (No. 7) is a peppery, crunchy red brimming with red fruit, with plenty of precision, vinified with 25 percent whole bunches.
READ MORE SOUTH AFRICA ANNUAL REPORT: FINDING BEAUTY IN THE EXTREMES
There are also terrific wines this year from the Cape South Coast, in particular from Walker Bay district’s small Hemel-en-Aarde area, where pinot noir and chardonnay excel. Our No. 4 wine, the Storm Hemel-en-Aarde Valley Vrede 2021, is a seductive, spicy and powerful pinot noir. The wines from husband-and-wife duo Hannes and Nathalia Storm (which also include Nos. 13, 21 and 35 on this list) are distinct expressions of both pinot noir and chardonnay from each of the three Hemel-en-Aarde wards. They wowed us with their elegance and concentration, and what’s even better is they can all be found at around $40.
The rest of our top 10 are from more traditional wine regions like Stellenbosch. The Mvemve Raats Stellenbosch MR de Compostella 2021 (No. 5) is a sophisticated and elegant Bordeaux-style blend, while the No. 8 Uva Mira Chardonnay Stellenbosch The Single Tree 2020 and No. 10 Leeu Passant Chardonnay Stellenbosch 2021 are stunningly concentrated and fresh chardonnays, both from vines grown on the cooler, ocean-facing Helderberg foothills. There are plenty more Bordeaux-style reds and chardonnays on this year’s South Africa list.
And nearby Franschhoek is home to an impressive collection of old semillon vines, making fantastic wines like the Alheit Vineyards Semillon Franschhoek Monument 2022 (No. 9, from old bush vines planted in 1936) as well as those from Boekenhoutskloof (No. 30) and Leeu Passant (No. 37).
Perhaps the most historic of them all, Klein Constantia continues to make one of the best sweet wines in the world. The Vin de Constance 2020 (No. 6) is a vibrant, tangy yet luscious muscat, with fantastic concentration matched by acidity that will give it decades of life.
A few highly rated wines were excluded from this list because of their tiny production levels, like the Raats Cabernet Franc Stellenbosch Eden High Density Single Vineyard 2021 (560 bottles) and Mullineux Swartland Essence 2020 (880 bottles of 250ml). We also limited each producer to four wines only. Because many of our top wines from South Africa are from small, independent winemakers, we included wines with production quantities as low as 100 cases, but their availability on the international wine market factored into their placing on the list, alongside score, price and their “wow” factor.
Plus, the excellent value of South African wine (although a challenge for producers) is highly attractive for consumers abroad: the average price of the wines in our top 100 is $44. And with such diversity of both varietals and regions, it’s an exciting country to keep an eye on, not only for top-notch syrah, chenin blanc and chardonnay, but also for rising stars like grenache and pinot noir, too. There is plenty to explore on the list below.
– Claire Nesbitt, Associate Editor
Note: The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated in 2023 by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.
