WSET3 South Africa - White Grape Varieties

Hello everybody! My name is Jimmy Smith and welcome to the Wine with Jimmy channel. This is where we look at a variety of topics about wine but these ones specifically are about the WSET level 3 syllabus. So this is looking at the South African wine country we're looking at South Africa and its white grape varieties this is the second video of three videos the first one was an introduction to South Africa including climate weather topography soils and wine laws this is all about the white grape varieties and where we find them and really majorly focusing on Chenin Blanc so at the end of this we'll have a working written question So that's like a short written answer format where we'll work through it together and I'll give you the answers so you understand what may be asked of you and how to structure your answers. Very, very, very useful if you are to feel prepared for Judgment Day, which is your WSET Level 3 theory examination. If you have any comments, questions or concerns, please pop them in the comments section below this video on YouTube comments. Otherwise, get in touch on social media, things like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at Wine with Jimmy, at West London Wine, at South London Wine and Streatham Winehouse, all located at the bottom of the slides. OK, so without further ado, let's get right stuck into our key grape varieties. And of course, the grape variety we're going to focus on first, without a shadow of a doubt, is, of course, Chenin Blanc. So Chenin Blanc is the principal grape variety for whites within South Africa. It accounts for about 20 percent of the production. That's much down from the past where it was seen as a real big production grape in most of the 20th century. Today, we have a real big variety of Chenin Blanc being produced. Of course, you know, this great variety hails from France, from the Loire Valley. But it was brought across, we think. by the original settlers which were Dutch and then the French Huguenots that came down to the Cape Colony which we now today call the Western Cape of South Africa. Chalain Blanc as a grape variety as you know is a grape variety with relatively thin skins therefore it will be quite susceptible to noble rot so there are sweet expressions made of this variety. It also has naturally very high acidity levels. One thing to immediately identify is the acidity levels that will be produced in South Africa will not tend to be as raspingly high as what you'll find in the Loire Valley. They're still quite high. And that's one thing which is a real big plus point with South African Jeanne and Blanc. But it's not as much as the Loire Valley. And then your typical flavor profile. So we have this here. You'll see that there's apples, lemons, pineapple as well. In South Africa, it can get a little bit more than that as well. Sometimes sort of peachy apricot characteristics can be typical. Chenin Blanc normally has some sort of honeyed characteristic to it. That's quite classic. Can be quite floral in youth and possibly be put through oak maturation and fermentation. So you may find that the wine will have lees contact. It may have malolactic in some instances, and it may have oak influence both through fermentation. maturation. So Chenin can be anything from none of those things so therefore very light and fresh, quite complex, rounded and rich. It's a little bit like Chardonnay in that respect where you get a big diversity within the grape variety. Often students ask me what is the difference to it than Chardonnay? Well Chenin Blanc has higher acidities and it definitely has a marked honeyed note which I think is just wonderful across Chenin Blanc which Chardonnay does not have. Okay, so let's go through where we find Cheninblanc and then we'll talk about the key sort of major styles as well. So WSET want you to know really three areas, Schwartland, Pâle and Worcester for Shannon Blanc. So let's make sure we can identify where they are by drawing an arrow. So this is our Western Cape region. Please make sure you have watched session one on the introduction to South Africa as we go into the kind of layout of the land in a bit greater detail. OK, so let's have a look at those key areas, like I mentioned, Svartland, Pâle and Worcester. So first of all, this area here is. the Svartland and I just because the map's not the clearest let's write this out so you can see it but my spelling is not great today so this is the wine of origin Svartland as you can see it actually covers quite an expansive area up towards Lambert's Bay around the Atlantic Ocean down towards Darling and Durbanville and then inland to places like Malmesbury and Rebeek Castile so it's quite a large zone It will experience influences from the Benguela Current, so therefore it will have some coastal influences here. But there's also quite a variety of smaller mountain ranges within the Svartland, such as the Paderberg, for instance. So therefore, you will have these climatic influences from mountain ranges as well. But the Svartland really is... an amazing landscape because really the first vineyards back in the 17th century planted by Jan van Riebeek were here in the southern part of the Svartland. So it's a real historical zone with very old viticultural ties to it. There is a plethora of old vine shenan here which is dry farm that is non-irrigated. So these are really old vines, a lot of them making complex wines, concentrated premium wines. They could be anywhere from 30, 40 years old up to 100. There are some wonderful, wonderful vineyards here. So old vines, dry farms, making complex and very structured Chenin Blanc, which has really given the Svartland a wonderful identity for making really top-end Chenin Blanc. That is your Svartland area. You may find oak being used. You may find lees contact as well. Very good quality. Shannon Blanc found there. Then we have Pahl and Worcester. So we have let me just get my arrow Pahl. So Pahl is just this area is the wine of origin Pahl. OK, let's pop that in there. And Pyle is quite a historical area as well, the home of KWV, the wine cooperative that ran the industry entirely for wine and spirits of South Africa for about 70 odd years in the 20th century. So quite historically important, has Wellington towards its northern tip and then places like Franschhoek, which is such a gastronomical place, it's wonderful. Pyle makes these shenanigans generally that tend to be much more bigger, robust, a bit higher alcohols. It's quite a warm location, Pal. So you'll often find that you will get quite some powerful wines. Certainly the first Chenin Blancs made after the end of apartheid in the 1990s were emulating Chardonnays from places like Napa and Australia. So some higher alcohol, quite rich oak styles from the Pal zone. and leading into a little bit of Stellenbosch as well, but there is diversity please note in both of those. We're just giving you a generalization for the level three syllabus. Then our last area here is the Worcester zone that they wish you to know about. That's that kind of yellowy area. Let me just get my arrow up again. I'm not doing so well at this, but okay. That is just here. Okay, so Worcester. And this area makes some interesting Chenin Blancs. Worcester, though, is quite well known for producing a bit of volume. So you'll often find that the Chenin Blanc produced in Worcester is some of the more mass produced Chenin Blanc. And there's a lot of it actually made in. the Western Cape. These are often identified as WO Western Cape wines, not specifically from Worcester but from the Western Cape and often blended with things like Colombard and Chardonnay to make what I call the three C's and you can pick in your own imagination what the C may stand for but this is a lot of mass production and inexpensive Cape blend white wine. A lot of it is Chenin Columbard, but Chardonnay may be used as well. So the three C's for Worcester. There are some great wines made there as well, however. OK, so let's just go through a bit of a recap on that, because Chenin Blanc is the great variety that they'll wish you to know the most about. So first of all, like I just mentioned, there are inexpensive blends made around Worcester, but really across the whole Western Cape, which are Chenin. Colombard Chardonnay blends the three C's and these will be un-oaked, reductively made and often quite high volumes. Then we have the emergence of the Pal and some Stellenbosch wines, which are these quite heavily oaked, rich, robust, high alcohol styles, which are changing a little bit today, but you still find a lot of these quite classically in the last 20 or 30 years emerging from these key areas. Then we find what I think is the most exciting part of Chenin Blanc in South Africa. Chenin being identified in more coastal zones such as Svaartland but also areas like coastal parts of Stellenbosch for instance where you have well integrated oak but from very old vine bush vines, which are dry farms, producing these complex, rounded, rich, well-balanced wines, and Sparkland has made a real reputation for itself because of that. And then it's actually not going to be mentioned as your still wines of the area, but it's worth identifying this now. In the sparkling section, there is something called Method Cap Classique. which is the traditionally produced, traditionally fermented sparkling wines of South Africa. And Chenin will play a major role of those wines as well. OK, so the next great variety. Ah, sorry, a picture here of some Svartland Chenin Blanc. Here are the Moulinous. This is Andrea and Chris Moulinous, who make some of the most exceptionally wonderful Chenin Blancs from the Svartland. They make their terroir series, which is things like quartz and granite and so on. They make some very fine Chenin Blancs within the Svartland. I think along with people like the Ibn Sadi, Adi Badenhorst, Craig Hawkins, there are a huge list really of great, great growers and winemakers here, which have really caused a revolution in Svartland to produce some of the finest Chenin Blanc in the world. Thank you very much. The next great variety is Sauvignon Blanc. They are fiercely proud of Sauvignon Blanc. It accounts for about 80% of their total production. Sauvignon Blanc has gone through a bit of an interesting time in South Africa. It was only in the early 2000s that two winemakers of KWV were found guilty of fraud because they were adding illegal substances into their Sauvignon Blanc, which was later found out to be the essence of green pepper. and that is a pyrazine compound really to emulate I think the New Zealand success which of course is not allowed adding in these illegal substances. So Sauvignon Blanc is going through a bit of a change. There are expressions made more towards the New Zealand style but I think there is in fact a wonderful array of Sauvignon Blancs being produced from places like Constantia all the way down to Walker Bay. There are some elegant expressions as well as some quite green expressions. It is not as easy to say it's just one sweep of a style but I would say that it sits somewhere between probably the Loire and New Zealand in style and I think that is a real good place to sit with Sauvignon Blanc. Now as you know with Sauvignon they are very high in acidities, they will experience things like noble rot with their thin skins. as well but Sauvignon Blanc with its high acidity and extreme aromatic profile is for things like gooseberry, asparagus, passion fruit, lime, lemon and grassy notes. It is a wine that can be very citric, green and tropical and then very full of pyrazines, grass, nettle and things like asparagus and green pepper. They are typical things of Sauvignon Blanc. and you will find them in varying amounts in the styles in South Africa. So where do we find then our Sauvignon Blanc? Now, We've got quite a few places. Stellenbosch through Constantia, through Durbanville, Walker Bay, Elgin and Elim. So first of all, Stellenbosch and Constantia. So let's I'm going to just pop this up here. Here we go. This is the easier way for me to do this, I think. There we go. Here we go. OK, so these are all the areas. So let's identify where these are. So first of all, we have Stellenbosch. So we find some Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch really has everything in play because Stellenbosch is the the centre of the wine enology in Stellenbosch itself. A big variety of mountain ranges, geographical, geological, topographical influences. It's quite a wonderful place. So that's down here. So Stellenbosch, most of the Soviet-British Stellenbosch will be more towards the False Bay area, which is on the coast. Constantia is, so let me get rid of that arrow. Constantia is just down here. So this is immediately to the east and the southeast of Table Mountain. So that is the east and southeast of Cape Town. This is a cool area, of course, because it's like a little peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Southern Indian Oceans. So you find that Constantia therefore has this cooling effect and there's lovely Sauvignon Blanc produced here. There's also some great Riesling made here as well but often you'll find Semillon being blended with the Sauvignon Blanc like you would find in Bordeaux or places in Australia adding a bit more weight and texture behind it. So that is Constantia. Then we have Durbanville. Durbanville is not far away, often forgotten about in fact but this is about an hour away. maybe 45 minutes, sorry, northeast of Cape Town. And you will find vineyards close to the Atlantic Ocean and have the Atlantic effect from the Benguela Current. So Durbanville has had some really quite wonderfully fresh Sauvignon Blancs being produced. Then we have Walker Bay. Walker Bay is down here with Hermanus, a beautiful place to set out and go and see whales. But within Walker Bay is a valley called the Hemel Un'Ada. And that means heaven on earth. It's a really special place for production of wine. Famous for Burgundian varieties, but some really good Sauvignon Blanc being produced here, which is on the more elegant and minerally style of the Sauvignon Blancs with very high acidities. Then you have also Elgin. which is just here and Elim which is just down here. Now both of these areas are in the same zone as the Walker Bay and Hemelanada Valley. This is the Cape South Coast. That experience there for the Cape Doctor and the Benguela Current, these are much cooler zones. And once again, you can group these with Walker Bay in their style, lighter and elegant, less green, a more minerally style. So Walker Bay, Hemelanada, Elgin and Elim making very lovely light style Sauvignon Blancs which I think are more akin to Loire Valley like Sancerre for instance. Okay so your Sauvignon Blancs now the only ones you'll tend to find a bit of oak and body and texture behind will be the Constantia wines and some around Stellenbosch which are blended with Semillon. The others though will be single varietals and be of the dry unoaked. fresh style of Sauvignon Blanc. Here is a picture of Durbanville vineyards. You'll see in the background you have Table Mountain and you can see that it has that lovely flat top and on a very misty day it has the mist on top of it which makes it look like a tablecloth hence why it's called Table Mountain and Cape Town not far at the foot of the mountain. But here we find vineyards. This is Durbanville so Next to the Atlantic, the cooling effect, making those fresher style Sauvignon Blancs. Then we have Chardonnay, which is a key grape variety as well. Introduced quite late into South Africa, but really, really turning heads for the premium stuff that is now being produced from South Africa. Chardonnay here will be a range of styles from being quite light and elegant to quite rich and robust. Most of them tend to be a bit more rounded with leaves contact and oxidation and oak. So you'll find a bit of character. So expect things like peach. Expect things more like red apple instead of green here. But pineapple potentially, oaky notes, creamy characteristics. Vanilla as well can be possible with the Chardonnays. They can be absolutely wonderful, certainly from some of the areas we're going to mention now. So. Where do we find these wonderful Chardonnays? This is quite a, hold on a second, here we go. This is quite a range of areas again. Let me get my textbook up here, there we go. So here we see we have Robertson through to Elgin. So quite a few similarities again to where we find Shannon with a couple of differences. So first of all, Robertson, which is this area down here. Some really decent stuff found in Robertson, actually some really good mountainous Chardonnay, which is quite often used for Method Cap Classique. A bit of this, though, will also be used for the multi-blended Western Cape wines, often with Chenin Blanc and Colombard. So that is Robertson. Then we have Stellenbosch again, this reddish area, which is about 45 minutes to the east of Cape Town. bordering onto the Boland Mountain Range and then also False Bay. This area is so diverse but Sauvignon Blanc can be found here, sorry Chardonnay can be found here like every other great variety so there's some decent quality rounded Chardonnays here. I had one the other day which was from Radford Dale which had lovely complexities behind it so really good stuff from this area. Then we have Parle also for some quite robust Chardonnays. That is just to the north of Stellenbosch again. Walker Bay, including once again the Hemel Ernaade, the Heaven and Earth Valley, which we'll see a picture of in a second, which is a really great microclimate for producing elegance in wines. And the Chardonnays here. have a real roundness to them but a gentleness to them as well so good acidities and probably more, I don't know, something like Chablis meets Poligny-Montrachet, somewhere in between if you had to compare it but of course their own different identity as you're well aware and Elgin, another natural cool climate making some exceptionally balanced and rounded style Chardonnays as well which is sandwiched between Stellan Bosch and Walker Bay. The picture that we have here is of the Himalayan Valley. This is actually from Newton Johnson, which is about halfway up the Himalayan. And it is a brilliant place. You must visit here. When you are down on the coast near Hermanus, you will head inland going past places like Hamilton Russell, Bouchard Finlayson. and then you'll head up through this valley going past places like Newton Johnson towards Storm, Ataraxia and Creation and really it's an amazing landscape. The valley actually funnels up the cold winds that come from the Southern Ocean and those cold winds here create a wonderfully balanced climate which is perfect for Chardonnay but also its sister grape Pinot Noir. There's some absolutely exceptional wines made here and look at the beauty of this landscape as well. You'll see that the mountains in the background there is the Bablan Storum Mountains and on the south is the Klein Riviera Mountains and it is kind of this funnelled shape. So you have this valley that goes up, of course the valley comes down, but as you're heading driving up the valley towards the Hemelanada Ridge right in the far end, it's just wonderful. You must visit here if you are. going to South Africa so some exceptional Chardonnays here which I think I know I'm European and I'm very it's very likely for me to compare but I think these are some of the most Burgundian in styles which I think is why they really do feature heavily for quality for me and so some wonderful and what the name of it heaven on earth what a beautiful beautiful name for it so let's have a look at some questions so you can have a bit of an idea what may be asked around topics that we've just been talking about the white grape varieties. I might just have a little bit of a wine because I'm actually recording this quite late at night. Fabulous. South African chardonnay, lovely. So name two areas in South Africa that are well known for high quality Sauvignon Blanc. You can have any of these from your syllabus. So Constantia, Durbanville, Elgin, Elam, Walker Bay. We've went through all those before. So that's just an identification. exercise. What climatic conditions make these areas well suited to Sauvignon Blanc production? And really, this is always going to be the type of question with South Africa, understanding that it's such a warm place, but you really need those cooling effects from the ocean. So that's the important thing. So they are coastal areas experiencing cooling sea breezes, such as the Benguela Current or the Cape Doctor. wind. I put all of that down to help you get those three marks. Here we have a label of Moulinou Quartz Chenin Blanc, which is splendid stuff from Andrea and Chris, who were in a picture that we had earlier on when we had the Chenin Blanc section. Where in South Africa is this from? This is an easy identification exercise. At the top, it says the wine of origin, Svartland. So we're looking at the Svartland. They are towards the kind of southern section of the Svartland. What factors in the vineyard account for this wine being premium? Now it actually identifies old vines on the label for you, so it's quite a nice label. So the Svartland is an area, so it should say area. I'm going to help you with that because I've obviously done a spelling mistake there or I've missed off a letter. But let's put A there. There you go. An area well known for old vine Chenin Blanc, which is often dry farm. That's without irrigation, which lowers yields and enhances the concentration of the whites. So that is because you're not irrigating. These are old vines anyway, producing a more concentrated, smaller volume of fruit. So you're basically producing wonderful fruit for more complex wines. But of course, there's going to be much less of it. So therefore, it's going to make it more premium. The bit of a off piece topic here is the soil here has quite a bit of quartz in it, which is silicon. And that that silica is is actually what. does add to the complexity of this wine but you are not required to know that for the level three syllabus. Okay so I hope you've enjoyed this section. This is part two of three parts on South Africa. The first one being the introduction to South Africa. This is on the whites of South Africa. The third video is on the black grape varieties of South Africa. That is only available for the members only of the e-learning portal at winewithjimmy.com. If you want access to that, plus many more members-only videos and advanced access, plus heaps of other things to prepare you for your level three examination, please check it out and subscribe to keep these videos going. We need more people to subscribe so you can get more access to free content as well. But I hope you found this very enjoyable. I hope you are feeling more confident and much more prepared. prepared for your level three examination. I've been Jimmy Smith and I come from Wine with Jimmy, as you know, plus I own two wine schools in London and a wine bar. So next time you're in London, please come and see me for a glass or a bottle. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye-bye.

So this is looking at the South African wine country we're looking at South Africa and its white grape varieties this is the second video of three videos the first one was an introduction to South Africa including climate weather topography soils and wine laws this is all about the white grape varieties and where we find them and really majorly focusing on Chenin Blanc so at the end of this we'll have a working written question So that's like a short written answer format where we'll work through it together and I'll give you the answers so you understand what may be asked of you and how to structure your answers. Very, very, very useful if you are to feel prepared for Judgment Day, which is your WSET Level 3 theory examination. If you have any comments, questions or concerns, please pop them in the comments section below this video on YouTube comments.

Otherwise, get in touch on social media, things like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at Wine with Jimmy, at West London Wine, at South London Wine and Streatham Winehouse, all located at the bottom of the slides. OK, so without further ado, let's get right stuck into our key grape varieties. And of course, the grape variety we're going to focus on first, without a shadow of a doubt, is, of course, Chenin Blanc. So Chenin Blanc is the principal grape variety for whites within South Africa.

It accounts for about 20 percent of the production. That's much down from the past where it was seen as a real big production grape in most of the 20th century. Today, we have a real big variety of Chenin Blanc being produced.

Of course, you know, this great variety hails from France, from the Loire Valley. But it was brought across, we think. by the original settlers which were Dutch and then the French Huguenots that came down to the Cape Colony which we now today call the Western Cape of South Africa. Chalain Blanc as a grape variety as you know is a grape variety with relatively thin skins therefore it will be quite susceptible to noble rot so there are sweet expressions made of this variety.

It also has naturally very high acidity levels. One thing to immediately identify is the acidity levels that will be produced in South Africa will not tend to be as raspingly high as what you'll find in the Loire Valley. They're still quite high.

And that's one thing which is a real big plus point with South African Jeanne and Blanc. But it's not as much as the Loire Valley. And then your typical flavor profile. So we have this here.

You'll see that there's apples, lemons, pineapple as well. In South Africa, it can get a little bit more than that as well. Sometimes sort of peachy apricot characteristics can be typical.

Chenin Blanc normally has some sort of honeyed characteristic to it. That's quite classic. Can be quite floral in youth and possibly be put through oak maturation and fermentation. So you may find that the wine will have lees contact. It may have malolactic in some instances, and it may have oak influence both through fermentation.

maturation. So Chenin can be anything from none of those things so therefore very light and fresh, quite complex, rounded and rich. It's a little bit like Chardonnay in that respect where you get a big diversity within the grape variety.

Often students ask me what is the difference to it than Chardonnay? Well Chenin Blanc has higher acidities and it definitely has a marked honeyed note which I think is just wonderful across Chenin Blanc which Chardonnay does not have. Okay, so let's go through where we find Cheninblanc and then we'll talk about the key sort of major styles as well. So WSET want you to know really three areas, Schwartland, Pâle and Worcester for Shannon Blanc. So let's make sure we can identify where they are by drawing an arrow.

So this is our Western Cape region. Please make sure you have watched session one on the introduction to South Africa as we go into the kind of layout of the land in a bit greater detail. OK, so let's have a look at those key areas, like I mentioned, Svartland, Pâle and Worcester. So first of all, this area here is. the Svartland and I just because the map's not the clearest let's write this out so you can see it but my spelling is not great today so this is the wine of origin Svartland as you can see it actually covers quite an expansive area up towards Lambert's Bay around the Atlantic Ocean down towards Darling and Durbanville and then inland to places like Malmesbury and Rebeek Castile so it's quite a large zone It will experience influences from the Benguela Current, so therefore it will have some coastal influences here. But there's also quite a variety of smaller mountain ranges within the Svartland, such as the Paderberg, for instance.

So therefore, you will have these climatic influences from mountain ranges as well. But the Svartland really is... an amazing landscape because really the first vineyards back in the 17th century planted by Jan van Riebeek were here in the southern part of the Svartland. So it's a real historical zone with very old viticultural ties to it. There is a plethora of old vine shenan here which is dry farm that is non-irrigated.

So these are really old vines, a lot of them making complex wines, concentrated premium wines. They could be anywhere from 30, 40 years old up to 100. There are some wonderful, wonderful vineyards here. So old vines, dry farms, making complex and very structured Chenin Blanc, which has really given the Svartland a wonderful identity for making really top-end Chenin Blanc.

That is your Svartland area. You may find oak being used. You may find lees contact as well.

Very good quality. Shannon Blanc found there. Then we have Pahl and Worcester.

So we have let me just get my arrow Pahl. So Pahl is just this area is the wine of origin Pahl. OK, let's pop that in there.

And Pyle is quite a historical area as well, the home of KWV, the wine cooperative that ran the industry entirely for wine and spirits of South Africa for about 70 odd years in the 20th century. So quite historically important, has Wellington towards its northern tip and then places like Franschhoek, which is such a gastronomical place, it's wonderful. Pyle makes these shenanigans generally that tend to be much more bigger, robust, a bit higher alcohols.

It's quite a warm location, Pal. So you'll often find that you will get quite some powerful wines. Certainly the first Chenin Blancs made after the end of apartheid in the 1990s were emulating Chardonnays from places like Napa and Australia.

So some higher alcohol, quite rich oak styles from the Pal zone. and leading into a little bit of Stellenbosch as well, but there is diversity please note in both of those. We're just giving you a generalization for the level three syllabus. Then our last area here is the Worcester zone that they wish you to know about. That's that kind of yellowy area.

Let me just get my arrow up again. I'm not doing so well at this, but okay. That is just here.

Okay, so Worcester. And this area makes some interesting Chenin Blancs. Worcester, though, is quite well known for producing a bit of volume.

So you'll often find that the Chenin Blanc produced in Worcester is some of the more mass produced Chenin Blanc. And there's a lot of it actually made in. the Western Cape.

These are often identified as WO Western Cape wines, not specifically from Worcester but from the Western Cape and often blended with things like Colombard and Chardonnay to make what I call the three C's and you can pick in your own imagination what the C may stand for but this is a lot of mass production and inexpensive Cape blend white wine. A lot of it is Chenin Columbard, but Chardonnay may be used as well. So the three C's for Worcester.

There are some great wines made there as well, however. OK, so let's just go through a bit of a recap on that, because Chenin Blanc is the great variety that they'll wish you to know the most about. So first of all, like I just mentioned, there are inexpensive blends made around Worcester, but really across the whole Western Cape, which are Chenin. Colombard Chardonnay blends the three C's and these will be un-oaked, reductively made and often quite high volumes.

Then we have the emergence of the Pal and some Stellenbosch wines, which are these quite heavily oaked, rich, robust, high alcohol styles, which are changing a little bit today, but you still find a lot of these quite classically in the last 20 or 30 years emerging from these key areas. Then we find what I think is the most exciting part of Chenin Blanc in South Africa. Chenin being identified in more coastal zones such as Svaartland but also areas like coastal parts of Stellenbosch for instance where you have well integrated oak but from very old vine bush vines, which are dry farms, producing these complex, rounded, rich, well-balanced wines, and Sparkland has made a real reputation for itself because of that.

And then it's actually not going to be mentioned as your still wines of the area, but it's worth identifying this now. In the sparkling section, there is something called Method Cap Classique. which is the traditionally produced, traditionally fermented sparkling wines of South Africa. And Chenin will play a major role of those wines as well.

OK, so the next great variety. Ah, sorry, a picture here of some Svartland Chenin Blanc. Here are the Moulinous.

This is Andrea and Chris Moulinous, who make some of the most exceptionally wonderful Chenin Blancs from the Svartland. They make their terroir series, which is things like quartz and granite and so on. They make some very fine Chenin Blancs within the Svartland.

I think along with people like the Ibn Sadi, Adi Badenhorst, Craig Hawkins, there are a huge list really of great, great growers and winemakers here, which have really caused a revolution in Svartland to produce some of the finest Chenin Blanc in the world. Thank you very much. The next great variety is Sauvignon Blanc. They are fiercely proud of Sauvignon Blanc.

It accounts for about 80% of their total production. Sauvignon Blanc has gone through a bit of an interesting time in South Africa. It was only in the early 2000s that two winemakers of KWV were found guilty of fraud because they were adding illegal substances into their Sauvignon Blanc, which was later found out to be the essence of green pepper. and that is a pyrazine compound really to emulate I think the New Zealand success which of course is not allowed adding in these illegal substances. So Sauvignon Blanc is going through a bit of a change.

There are expressions made more towards the New Zealand style but I think there is in fact a wonderful array of Sauvignon Blancs being produced from places like Constantia all the way down to Walker Bay. There are some elegant expressions as well as some quite green expressions. It is not as easy to say it's just one sweep of a style but I would say that it sits somewhere between probably the Loire and New Zealand in style and I think that is a real good place to sit with Sauvignon Blanc.

Now as you know with Sauvignon they are very high in acidities, they will experience things like noble rot with their thin skins. as well but Sauvignon Blanc with its high acidity and extreme aromatic profile is for things like gooseberry, asparagus, passion fruit, lime, lemon and grassy notes. It is a wine that can be very citric, green and tropical and then very full of pyrazines, grass, nettle and things like asparagus and green pepper. They are typical things of Sauvignon Blanc.

and you will find them in varying amounts in the styles in South Africa. So where do we find then our Sauvignon Blanc? Now, We've got quite a few places. Stellenbosch through Constantia, through Durbanville, Walker Bay, Elgin and Elim.

So first of all, Stellenbosch and Constantia. So let's I'm going to just pop this up here. Here we go. This is the easier way for me to do this, I think. There we go.

Here we go. OK, so these are all the areas. So let's identify where these are.

So first of all, we have Stellenbosch. So we find some Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch really has everything in play because Stellenbosch is the the centre of the wine enology in Stellenbosch itself.

A big variety of mountain ranges, geographical, geological, topographical influences. It's quite a wonderful place. So that's down here.

So Stellenbosch, most of the Soviet-British Stellenbosch will be more towards the False Bay area, which is on the coast. Constantia is, so let me get rid of that arrow. Constantia is just down here. So this is immediately to the east and the southeast of Table Mountain. So that is the east and southeast of Cape Town.

This is a cool area, of course, because it's like a little peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Southern Indian Oceans. So you find that Constantia therefore has this cooling effect and there's lovely Sauvignon Blanc produced here. There's also some great Riesling made here as well but often you'll find Semillon being blended with the Sauvignon Blanc like you would find in Bordeaux or places in Australia adding a bit more weight and texture behind it. So that is Constantia. Then we have Durbanville.

Durbanville is not far away, often forgotten about in fact but this is about an hour away. maybe 45 minutes, sorry, northeast of Cape Town. And you will find vineyards close to the Atlantic Ocean and have the Atlantic effect from the Benguela Current. So Durbanville has had some really quite wonderfully fresh Sauvignon Blancs being produced.

Then we have Walker Bay. Walker Bay is down here with Hermanus, a beautiful place to set out and go and see whales. But within Walker Bay is a valley called the Hemel Un'Ada. And that means heaven on earth. It's a really special place for production of wine.

Famous for Burgundian varieties, but some really good Sauvignon Blanc being produced here, which is on the more elegant and minerally style of the Sauvignon Blancs with very high acidities. Then you have also Elgin. which is just here and Elim which is just down here. Now both of these areas are in the same zone as the Walker Bay and Hemelanada Valley.

This is the Cape South Coast. That experience there for the Cape Doctor and the Benguela Current, these are much cooler zones. And once again, you can group these with Walker Bay in their style, lighter and elegant, less green, a more minerally style. So Walker Bay, Hemelanada, Elgin and Elim making very lovely light style Sauvignon Blancs which I think are more akin to Loire Valley like Sancerre for instance.

Okay so your Sauvignon Blancs now the only ones you'll tend to find a bit of oak and body and texture behind will be the Constantia wines and some around Stellenbosch which are blended with Semillon. The others though will be single varietals and be of the dry unoaked. fresh style of Sauvignon Blanc. Here is a picture of Durbanville vineyards.

You'll see in the background you have Table Mountain and you can see that it has that lovely flat top and on a very misty day it has the mist on top of it which makes it look like a tablecloth hence why it's called Table Mountain and Cape Town not far at the foot of the mountain. But here we find vineyards. This is Durbanville so Next to the Atlantic, the cooling effect, making those fresher style Sauvignon Blancs. Then we have Chardonnay, which is a key grape variety as well.

Introduced quite late into South Africa, but really, really turning heads for the premium stuff that is now being produced from South Africa. Chardonnay here will be a range of styles from being quite light and elegant to quite rich and robust. Most of them tend to be a bit more rounded with leaves contact and oxidation and oak.

So you'll find a bit of character. So expect things like peach. Expect things more like red apple instead of green here. But pineapple potentially, oaky notes, creamy characteristics. Vanilla as well can be possible with the Chardonnays.

They can be absolutely wonderful, certainly from some of the areas we're going to mention now. So. Where do we find these wonderful Chardonnays?

This is quite a, hold on a second, here we go. This is quite a range of areas again. Let me get my textbook up here, there we go. So here we see we have Robertson through to Elgin. So quite a few similarities again to where we find Shannon with a couple of differences.

So first of all, Robertson, which is this area down here. Some really decent stuff found in Robertson, actually some really good mountainous Chardonnay, which is quite often used for Method Cap Classique. A bit of this, though, will also be used for the multi-blended Western Cape wines, often with Chenin Blanc and Colombard. So that is Robertson. Then we have Stellenbosch again, this reddish area, which is about 45 minutes to the east of Cape Town.

bordering onto the Boland Mountain Range and then also False Bay. This area is so diverse but Sauvignon Blanc can be found here, sorry Chardonnay can be found here like every other great variety so there's some decent quality rounded Chardonnays here. I had one the other day which was from Radford Dale which had lovely complexities behind it so really good stuff from this area.

Then we have Parle also for some quite robust Chardonnays. That is just to the north of Stellenbosch again. Walker Bay, including once again the Hemel Ernaade, the Heaven and Earth Valley, which we'll see a picture of in a second, which is a really great microclimate for producing elegance in wines. And the Chardonnays here. have a real roundness to them but a gentleness to them as well so good acidities and probably more, I don't know, something like Chablis meets Poligny-Montrachet, somewhere in between if you had to compare it but of course their own different identity as you're well aware and Elgin, another natural cool climate making some exceptionally balanced and rounded style Chardonnays as well which is sandwiched between Stellan Bosch and Walker Bay.

The picture that we have here is of the Himalayan Valley. This is actually from Newton Johnson, which is about halfway up the Himalayan. And it is a brilliant place. You must visit here. When you are down on the coast near Hermanus, you will head inland going past places like Hamilton Russell, Bouchard Finlayson.

and then you'll head up through this valley going past places like Newton Johnson towards Storm, Ataraxia and Creation and really it's an amazing landscape. The valley actually funnels up the cold winds that come from the Southern Ocean and those cold winds here create a wonderfully balanced climate which is perfect for Chardonnay but also its sister grape Pinot Noir. There's some absolutely exceptional wines made here and look at the beauty of this landscape as well. You'll see that the mountains in the background there is the Bablan Storum Mountains and on the south is the Klein Riviera Mountains and it is kind of this funnelled shape.

So you have this valley that goes up, of course the valley comes down, but as you're heading driving up the valley towards the Hemelanada Ridge right in the far end, it's just wonderful. You must visit here if you are. going to South Africa so some exceptional Chardonnays here which I think I know I'm European and I'm very it's very likely for me to compare but I think these are some of the most Burgundian in styles which I think is why they really do feature heavily for quality for me and so some wonderful and what the name of it heaven on earth what a beautiful beautiful name for it so let's have a look at some questions so you can have a bit of an idea what may be asked around topics that we've just been talking about the white grape varieties. I might just have a little bit of a wine because I'm actually recording this quite late at night. Fabulous.

South African chardonnay, lovely. So name two areas in South Africa that are well known for high quality Sauvignon Blanc. You can have any of these from your syllabus. So Constantia, Durbanville, Elgin, Elam, Walker Bay. We've went through all those before.

So that's just an identification. exercise. What climatic conditions make these areas well suited to Sauvignon Blanc production? And really, this is always going to be the type of question with South Africa, understanding that it's such a warm place, but you really need those cooling effects from the ocean. So that's the important thing.

So they are coastal areas experiencing cooling sea breezes, such as the Benguela Current or the Cape Doctor. wind. I put all of that down to help you get those three marks.

Here we have a label of Moulinou Quartz Chenin Blanc, which is splendid stuff from Andrea and Chris, who were in a picture that we had earlier on when we had the Chenin Blanc section. Where in South Africa is this from? This is an easy identification exercise. At the top, it says the wine of origin, Svartland. So we're looking at the Svartland.

They are towards the kind of southern section of the Svartland. What factors in the vineyard account for this wine being premium? Now it actually identifies old vines on the label for you, so it's quite a nice label. So the Svartland is an area, so it should say area. I'm going to help you with that because I've obviously done a spelling mistake there or I've missed off a letter.

But let's put A there. There you go. An area well known for old vine Chenin Blanc, which is often dry farm.

That's without irrigation, which lowers yields and enhances the concentration of the whites. So that is because you're not irrigating. These are old vines anyway, producing a more concentrated, smaller volume of fruit.

So you're basically producing wonderful fruit for more complex wines. But of course, there's going to be much less of it. So therefore, it's going to make it more premium. The bit of a off piece topic here is the soil here has quite a bit of quartz in it, which is silicon. And that that silica is is actually what.

does add to the complexity of this wine but you are not required to know that for the level three syllabus. Okay so I hope you've enjoyed this section. This is part two of three parts on South Africa.

The first one being the introduction to South Africa. This is on the whites of South Africa. The third video is on the black grape varieties of South Africa.

That is only available for the members only of the e-learning portal at winewithjimmy.com. If you want access to that, plus many more members-only videos and advanced access, plus heaps of other things to prepare you for your level three examination, please check it out and subscribe to keep these videos going. We need more people to subscribe so you can get more access to free content as well.

But I hope you found this very enjoyable. I hope you are feeling more confident and much more prepared. prepared for your level three examination.

I've been Jimmy Smith and I come from Wine with Jimmy, as you know, plus I own two wine schools in London and a wine bar. So next time you're in London, please come and see me for a glass or a bottle. Thank you so much.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Transcript for:WSET3 South Africa - White Grape Varieties

Transcript for:
WSET3 South Africa - White Grape Varieties