Wine: South Africa's wine trade wants to be regarded on a par with serious international players, writes Joe Breen
We all love the idea of finding something that nobody else knows about. Just ask Christopher Columbus, St Brendan the Navigator or, indeed, the space-shuttle pilots. There are hundreds of years between them, yet they all put their lives on the line in rickety craft in the pursuit of the unknown.
In our humble way we are all constantly looking out for new things: new places to visit, new music to hear, new movies to see, new books to read and new wines to drink. So when Johnny McMorrough of Boutique Wines asked if I would be interested in tasting a selection of wines he had unearthed during his travels in South Africa, he was pushing an open door.
South Africa is a country in transition. As Vaughan Johnson, the country's eminent wine critic and leading retailer, told The Irish Times recently, the wine trade reflects his nation's political developments.
After years of sluggish development of a wonderful natural resource, and a degree of culpability in relation to the exploitation of workers under the apartheid regime, the wine industry has woken up dramatically in recent years. But, said Johnson, there is still a considerable way to go.
However, young winemakers such as Eben Sadie, Chris Williams and Fanus and Martin Brewer are pointing the way with small micro-vinification projects, also known as boutique wines.
Williams is the new winemaker at the long-established Meerlust vineyard, but along with James Reid, operations director of Western Wines (the producer of the leading South African budget wine Kumala), they have put together the Foundry.
This is described in John Platter's South African Wines 2005 as a "brazenly brilliant young label"; Platter quotes the duo as being on a mission to "discover great vineyards that feel right".
Their vineyard is in the well-regarded area of Stellenbosch (though the label says it is the coastal region), but lesser-known areas such as the warm-climate Swartland, a farming area to the north of Cape Town, are increasingly producing impressive wines.
This is where Eben Sadie is making a name for himself with his widely-praised Columella red and Palladius white. Sadie is also making wine at a vineyard in Spain's Priorat region.
Fanus and Martin Brewer aren't quite so ambitious. They produce just one wine. "We come from a long lineage of grape farmers, six generations in fact. Being passionate about wine, our friends have constantly asked us when were we going to start producing our own wines. When at last we did build our own cellar, we decided to christen it Quando, the Latin word for when. We specialise in Sauvignon Blanc, which we grow on our farm between Robertson and Bonnievale."
These three operations are indicative of a new sense of confidence in South Africa. These young winemakers want to be considered serious players and not just providers of cheap mass-market varietals. Their wine doesn't come cheap, but quality rarely does.
It is mom-and-pop-store stuff; the Brewers, for instance, do everything by hand, and they produce only about 1,100 cases of wine a year. They may not get rich doing it, but one senses there is real innovation going on here.