Question of style

By Jamie Goode | 1st February 2022

One thing I love about South African wine is how there are now so many different stylistic options, in red, white, pink, orange and fizzy. Compare a pale-coloured concrete-aged Cinsault with a full bodied barrel-aged Cabernet and they are both polar opposites in style, yet they can both be highly rated by critics and enjoyed by customers. Or pit a crisp unoaked Chenin with one that has been made from later-picked grapes and barrel fermented, and you’d never guess they are from the same variety. Both of these wines, though, could be considered to be world-class.

Question of style

I often get asked, ‘so you are a wine journalist: what’s your favourite wine?’ It’s a really difficult question to answer. I like lots of different wines; my tastes have changed over time a bit; a lot depends on the context of where I’m drinking; and a lot depends on my mood. But I probably do have a stylistic preference, although I try very hard to put it to one side when I’m assessing wines professionally. It's hard to tease apart style and quality, but this is part of a wine critic’s role.

I think things used to be a lot easier, when there wasn’t so much stylistic diversity. But it was a less interesting wine scene to navigate. Back in the day, there were fewer options in terms of fermenting and ageing wine: it was all about a choice between stainless steel tanks and barrels. Now the choices include concrete, clay (terracotta amphorae are fashionable) and large-format oak barrels of 1000 litres or more. All red wines tended to be dark in colour, and it was normal to pick the grapes pretty ripe. Now there’s a movement towards picking earlier and extracting less, and the resulting lighter-coloured red wines have a good following in the market place when before they’d have been treated with suspicion.

Different people want different things from their wines. It’s easy for wine geeks like me to assume that everyone else is as thrilled as I am about exploring different wines, finding new experiences, and generally geeking out. It would probably be a bad thing for the industry if everyone was like me, in a sort of wine hyperactive state, promiscuous in my tastes and always looking for something different. While me and my like-minded chums drink a fair bit of wine and so are good customers in this sense – especially because we are prepared to spend a bit too – the winemakers in South Africa would have a very hard time dealing with customers always hopping around, picking them up then dropping them again. They need their regular customers. For many people, there’s a pleasure in getting to know a few reliable wineries or brands, and then sticking with them. And then there’s the issue of cost: some people just want a glass of wine that tastes OK, with no nasty surprises, at a price they can afford.  

Another point worth making is that our tastes aren’t fixed. I have been on a journey with my tastes in wine. At first, I liked fruity red wines with a smooth flavour, and not much tannin. I remember going into a local wine merchant, who asked what sort of wine I was looking for. Something soft and fruity, with no tannin, I replied. Their response, somewhat tongue in cheek: are you sure you don’t just want fruit juice? I remember walking out with a Dornfelder.

Then I began to like bold red wines. Wines with lots of extraction and tannin; wines you could stand a spoon up in. I bought a lot of big Australian wines and devoured them with glee. But a few years later, I was off these, and went in a different direction.

My current stylistic bent is towards wines of elegance and restraint. For South African reds, I love Eben Sadie’s current wines, I love Duncan Savage’s wines, and I’m a big fan of the wines of Donovan Rall, David Sadie, Stompie Mayer, Crystallum and Testalonga, to name just a few of many. These are all made with the same stylistic sensibility: picking grapes early before they get overripe, infusion rather than extraction, lots of use of whole clusters in fermentation, and steering clear of new oak in the cellar. These perfumed, lighter-style, bright reds are just so expressive. It’s wonderful to see them emerge – these sorts of wines simply didn’t exist 20 years ago.

Eben Sadie is an interesting example, because he’s been making wine for 20 years now, and his early wines were very different in style to his current ones. They were riper and richer, and there was more oak. But they were still excellent: after all, they made Eben famous! But it shows that there isn’t just one legitimate stylistic direction. Great winemakers are often searching, learning and growing – and changing style in the process.

But we have to recognize that other stylistic directions are legitimate, too, and should be understood and celebrated. There are lots of South African reds that are quite ripe, with sweet fruit to the fore, supported by new oak. These are dark wines, full of flavour, and they do very well in the marketplace. They have also done well in important export markets. They are not wines I choose to buy, but I respect them, and the good examples also age really well. A good example would be Kanonkop’s wines. This important Stellenbosch producer makes the wines very simply, in small, shallow fermenters that are punched down manually several times a day. They are tannic and extracted when young, and are aged in small oak barrels. But the likes of their celebrated Paul Sauer red blend have shown that they are capable of ageing gracefully for decades.

I think that there’s also an argument that some wines act as stepping stones in peoples’ wine journeys. Of course, there’s no pre-set progression in taste that people need to embrace. It’s just that some wines – simple fruity reds, or whites with a bit of sweetness – can act as gateway wines that get people into drinking. They may stick there, and that’s fine – or they might explore further. The coffee Pinotage wines that got so much stick a few years ago are a great example of easy-to-appreciate wine styles that can draw non-wine drinkers into the category.

The one fly in the ointment here is that with all this stylistic variation – this rich diversity – how does a consumer choose something in a style they are going to enjoy? The problem is particularly acute with Chenin Blanc, which is a stylistically versatile grape variety capable of making a wide range of different expressions of this important grape variety. There’s no easy solution, because it’s not obvious from the bottle as to how the wine is going to taste, and it’s difficult explaining the style solely with a few words on the label. But, ultimately, this is a good problem to have. South Africa’s diversity of wine styles is one of its attributes, which is fitting for such a diverse country.