South African winery jumps the gun

Continuing our futures discussion, it seems that South African winery Cloof is offering its Bordeaux blend wine to consumers en primeur in the UK. The newly renamed ‘Lynchpin’ right bank blend would be the first commercial offering a South African future.

Publicity stunts aside, it seems to this winemonkey that the whole point of purchasing futures from the consumer’s stand point is to obtain an allocation of wine at a more reasonable price than when the wine will be released. As much as South African wines have come around (don’t get me started on pinotage I still can not go there), I can’t imagine that the wine, which is being offered at about $15, will generate any economies of scale for the consumer versus waiting for the bottle to be released.

The wine which is actually being sold as a pre-release (a technique used by many US wineries) is available only from UK retailer Magnum Fine Wines. On top of that, (US distributors take note here) there doesn’t seem to be any distribution into the US.

Don’t get me wrong I am pulling for all wineries to do a bang up job making and selling their product, but I can’t believe there is going to be a run on Cloof Lynchpin. That being said, apparently an unnamed A-list wine writer from the UK has jumped on this bandwagon and ordered up 30 cases of the ZA juice.

But for me, I can wait.
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Cloof Winery
The winery changed ownership in 2002 and is making strides in improving quality. The winery sits on about 1,300 hectares with a bout 100 hectares under vine surrounded by wheat fields. The vines, which are untrellised and dry farmed, bake in the sun and the wines have been described as undoubtedly New World in style.

2005 Cloof Lynchpin
Average age of vines: 8 years
Location: Darling, on the eastern slopes and flats of Dassenberg, 70km north of Cape Town on granite and oakleaf.
Yield: Approximately 2.2 tons per hectare for Cab Franc, 6 for Cab, a mere half a ton for the Merlot.
Blend: 71% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon

The wine, which is culled from prime blocks on the property, is aged in 75% new French oak for 14 months. I haven’t had the wine but the numbers and its locale suggest it will be reminiscent of big Aussie stuff with high ph (thus low acid) and over 15% alcohol. It is interesting to note that this wine is blended at the end of the alcoholic fermentation instead of barrel selected after some maturation time.

A fusion of tastes from South Africa

We attended a South African wine dinner last night hosted by Cape Classics and featuring wines from De Toren among others. South Africa is producing some noteworthy Bordeaux varietal wines and Bon Vivant is always keen on keeping up with regions outside the main focus of Bordeaux, California and Tuscany.

De Toren’s story is of particular interest as they were the first to produce a South African wine to include the five Bordeaux varietals: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot. De Toren is in Stellenbosch, close to the Atlantic Ocean, which accounts for, at least in part, the successful growing of Bordeaux varietals. The first vintage of the wine, called Fusion V in a nod to the five grape varietals used in the blend, was 1999 and De Toren is now releasing the 2004 vintage.

An interesting tidbit we learned about the wine at dinner is that the final blend is not created by winemaker Albie Koch and owners Emil and Sonette Den Dulk alone but they are joined by other South African winemakers, sommeliers, and wine drinkers in an effort to come up with a an appealing assemblage of quality wine. And so they have, in Bon Vivant’s opinion. We have enjoyed every vintage we have tasted of this juicy, delicious and well-balanced wine (stay tuned for more extensive notes and grades when www.bonvivantwineguide.com launches.) Another fact we found intriguing is that when the varietals are tasted separately from barrel, the Malbec tends to be a hands-down favorite. Watch your back Argentina! Should we look forward to a varietal Malbec from South Africa in the future? No official word on that.

In a bit of news, De Toren is getting ready to release a “right bank wine” to complement the “left bank” influenced Fusion V, called Z. The wine will have a higher percentage of Merlot and Cabernet Franc and the idea is to make a rounder, fruiter wine with less tannin that is more suited to early drinking. The grapes for Z come from a separate vineyard that features soils more akin to the right bank of Bordeaux. The first vintage is 2004 and we can only hope that De Toren’s efforts pay off. We certainly look forward to raising a glass to their progress.