SOUTH AFRICAN CHARDONNAY AMONGST A SEA OF CHENIN BLANC

Over the past weekend I had the pleasure of enjoying a bottle of Matthew van Heerden Signature Wines Chardonnay 2015. Let’s not beat around the bush. It is a world class bottle of wine! For those of you who do not know who Matthew van Heerden is, he is sort of a magician when it comes to Chardonnay. The Uva Mira 2004 Single Tree Chardonnay (which he made) was named the best Chardonnay in the world by the International Wine and Spirits Competition in 2006.  Subsequently he was name as one of the top ten winemakers in the world, and in 2011 he was named the South African Diners Club Young Winemaker of the Year. Clearly the man knows what he is doing.

Matthew works with a couple of specific blocks from different sites when it comes to his Chardonnay, predominately based on decomposed granite and shale soils. Natural yeast is used for the fermentation which takes place in barrel, before the wine is left for further ageing in barrel. The wine stays on its lees to ensure more complexity and mouthfeel. The 2015 Chardonnay has a beautiful nose with aromas of lemon, lime, orange blossom, toasted almonds and nutmeg. The palate is full and round with flavour characteristics of lemon, lime zest, crème brûlée and a hint of coconut, with a flinty minerality to the finish. The razor-like acidity gives freshness to the wine and contributes to a very long finish. It is a world class wine and for my money one of the best Chardonnays in South Africa. (For those of you who are into ratings, I scored it 94 points).

Chenin blanc and Chenin blanc blends are currently the talk of the town when it comes to South African white wines (both locally and internationally), and rightly so. If you think of wines such as the Sadie Family Wines Palladius and the Ou Wingerdreeks Skurfberg Chenin blanc, Chris and Suzaan Alheit Cartology and Magnetic North Mountain Makstok Chenin blanc, David and Nadia Hoë-Steen Chenin blanc and Aristargos, and even as recently as the first release of the Kameraderie Chenin blanc by Lukas van Loggerenberg, it is hard to even think about any other cultivars with which to promote our energetic industry at the moment. So, drinking the MVH Chardonnay got me wondering if South African Chardonnay could compete with the amount of attention that South African Chenin blanc is receiving at the moment. It didn’t take me long to get to a very definitive “yes”

Two Chardonnays, in addition to Matthew’s of course, absolutely blew my socks off last year. The first was the Hamilton Russell Vineyards Chardonnay 2015. The main focus of Hamilton Russell Vineyards has always been Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. They have got the Ashbourne range as well as the sister estate Southern Right, but most of the energy is put into the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The 2015 Chardonnay ended up doing incredibly well, being named 11^th on the Top 100 Wines for 2016 by the Wine Spectator in America. Wine Spectator’s South Africa correspondent, James Molesworth, scored it 94 and wrote the following on the wine: “Ripe and rippling with tension, featuring Jonagold apple, white peach, mirabelle plum and honeysuckle notes coiled at the core. Accents of heather and hazelnut extend slowly through the citrus oil and mineral-edged finish. Best from 2017 through 2022.”

The second Chardonnay is the De Morgenzon Reserve Chardonnay 2015. I remember tasting this wine with a couple of friends, and we couldn’t help but draw comparisons to Meursault. For a couple of minutes we just sat there, almost flabbergasted at how incredible this wine is. Obviously it ranked as one of my top wines of 2016. Luckily we were not the only ones to feel this way about the De Morgenzon Reserve Chardonnay as it won the Platinum Award for the Best Chardonnay in the Show at the Decanter World Wine Awards last year, with the judging panel awarding it an incredible 95 points. Here follows their tasting note on the wine: “Delectable aromas of buttery toast and marmalade with a mineral touch of flint. The palate is bold, rich and full-bodied. Pear, tangerine and lime marmalade fruit flavours intertwine with creamy oatmeal and cashew nuts. The finish adds some honey and spice to an elegant chalky finish.”

There are many other great Chardonnays in South Africa, all with incredible ageing potential and well worth investing in. I think that it is very import to keep our perspective on what is going on in the South African wine scene, as we can very quickly get lost in all the (justified) hype of Chenin blanc. In the long run it probably is the variety to make our own, and I truly believe that we are already producing some of the best Chenin blancs in the world. But don’t exclude the quality of South African Chardonnay, because even though they are not as much in the spotlight as Chenin blanc might be, there are still world class South African Chardonnays worth spending your hard earned money on.