News

Diemersdal, the sixth-generation family wine estate in Durbanville, South Africa, won one of four Gold medals handed to Cape wineries at this year’s Concours Mondial du Sauvignon Blanc held in Portugal. The Journal Sauvignon Blanc 2021, a barrel-aged rendition of this variety for which Diemersdal has become world-renowned, was awarded Gold as well as being awarded the Revelation Trophy for Best South African Wine on show.

Concours Mondial du Sauvignon Blanc is the most important international competition for Sauvignon Blanc wine and this year attracted 1 120 entries from 23 countries.

Since our first vintage, Haute Cabrière has specialised in the exploration of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes.

After 35 harvests, we continue to love this magical time of year and the promise of a new vintage. As thunder and rain mid-March heralded the start of Autumn, the team at Haute Cabrière is busy picking the last of the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes for the 2022 vintage, and we’re sharing how this year’s harvest has unfolded…

2022 Harvest Challenges

We talk about the terroir of a wine being its foundation, and terroir is greatly affected by Mother Nature.

De Wetshof’s Bateleur Chardonnay 2020 just won "Top 10 Chardonnay in the World" and a Gold medal from Chardonnay du Monde.

De Wetshof’s Bateleur Chardonnay 2020, an iconic South African white wine, has been adjudged one of the top 10 wines in this year’s Chardonnay du Monde, the world’s leading competition for wines made from the noble white grape of Burgundy.

Some 546 wines from 32 countries were judged by a panel of international experts at Château des Ravatys, the wine estate of the Pasteur Institute at Saint Lager in the Burgundy wine region of France. The panel only awarded 56 Gold medals.

Behind the bottle: 12 influential women & their award-winning wines

South Africa

Christiane Von Arnim

CEO of Warwick Estate

As the CEO of Warwick Wine Estate in Stellenbosch, Christiane von Arnim continues the legacy of ‘The First Lady of South African wine’ inspired by Norma Ratcliffe, the Cape’s first woman winemaker and creator of Warwick’s first vintage in 1984.

Just over a month after beginning its 2022 harvest, Diemersdal Estate from Durbanville has bottled its first Sauvignon Blanc, the estate’s signature grape variety. The Diemersdal Sauvignon Blanc 2022 hits the market on 4th March, one of the first Sauvignon Blancs from this year’s Cape vintage to be found on shelf.

According to Thys Louw, Diemersdal’s owner-winemaker, the early release is driven by the market. “As owners of an established brand, Diemersdal is in a fortunate position to each year have customers clamouring for our Sauvignon Blanc from the new vintage,” he says.

Sauvignon Gris has been mostly unknown in South Africa, with only 0,12 ha under vineyard registered with SAWIS by 2020. That’s changing as two different producers have brought in the first commercial harvests of this enigmatic white grape this year.

David Nieuwoudt of Cederberg Wines first encountered Sauvignon Gris on a visit to Chile thirteen years ago. There, a tasting at top Sauvignon Blanc producer Casa Marin made such an impression that he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

It was a confluence of interests that finally brought Sauvignon Gris to the Cederberg.

Some legendary wines are centuries in the making, whereas other wine legends appear to be born in the blink of an eye.

The latter would seem to be the case for Delaire’s Laurence Graff Reserve, which, within just a few years on the market, has been hailed as South Africa’s best Cabernet Sauvignon by respected wine critic Tim Atkin MW. In his annual report, published in September 2019, the British Master of Wine gave the 2012 vintage an outstanding 97 points, making it the top-scoring Cabernet Sauvignon and one of the highest-rated wines out of the thousands he tasted in South Africa throughout the year.

An icon is defined as a person or thing regarded as worthy of veneration.

The story of Graff has unfolded over more than six decades. Renowned for the most fabulous jewels in the world, Graff is driven by the pursuit of craft, a fixation with detail and a devotion to beauty. Founder of both Graff and Delaire Graff Estate, Laurence Graff holds a fascination with the emotional power of gemstones, and has built a reputation for working with the world’s most rare and precious gems. The Graff family presides over every step in the journey from discovery to cutting, polishing, and setting the final piece. Their quest for discovering elusive gems and shaping iconic jewellery has resulted in a rarefied world of nature’s marvels.

The 16th of February is International Syrah Day and at Ken Forrester, Syrah is key to the red wine offerings. This cultivar, also known as Shiraz in other parts of the world, had a mysterious origin story for much of its life and is one of the noble varietals, found in almost every wine region of the world.

For a long time, it was believed that Syrah came from the Iranian town of Shiraz, once the capital of the Persian Empire, and then brought to the Rhône region of France. It took a team of researchers in 1998 to do genomic studies to find the parents to be lesser-known grape varieties Dureza and Mondeuse Blanche from Southeast France. This region is where we find the Rhône wine region, which is famous for single-varietal Syrah in the North and blended with Grenache and Mourvèdre in the South.