Many of the wines on the Cape Winemakers’ Guild (CWG) auction are in some ways bling for the table. Flavours and aromas of new oak barrels function like glitter, somehow persuading a few neophyte wine drinkers that oak rather than fruit is what expensive wine should taste like.
There are, though, also some excellent wines, as there should be, given that the guild claims its members are among the country’s best winemakers, which the larger part of them probably are.
The guild was founded in the early 1980s as a meeting and rallying point for estate winemakers independent of the big merchants and co-ops to share knowledge and experience. Their auction was a way of bringing new and often experimental wines to the public.
Circumstances and just about everything else have changed since then and the auction is now an important annual event (increasingly putting the Nederburg auction into deep shade) and a lucrative, bank-sponsored activity for its 41 members.
It would probably be unreasonable and certainly naive to expect great originality or experimentation in the wines offered nowadays. In fact, most are little more than barrel selections extracted from standard offerings and this might be the origin of the big overall problem. To make them seem more special than the standard wines, they are given not only much more wooding than they need but more than they can bear.
This reveals itself particularly in the shirazes selected for this year’s auction in October but is evident in everything from chenin blanc to cabernet. Without exception the shirazes are unbalanced and spoilt by oaking, which is never going to become part of a harmonious whole.
I found it difficult to pick up any varietal character in the wines, let alone subtler stuff — let alone pleasure.
Potential buyers should rather search out some of the shirazes turned down by the guild selection committee — from Boekenhoutskloof, Luddite and Hartenberg, all of which will certainly be more delicious and elegant — and cheaper.
Fortunately, there are also some fine wines on offer. My favourites this year include, as expected, more whites than reds (there seems less of a temptation to overwork whites or to make them from ultra-ripe grapes, another not uncommon auction trait).
There’s a fine classic chardonnay from Paul Cluver. Nicky Versfeld has made a brilliant sauvignonsemillon blend called Tullie Family Vineyards The Yair — perfumed and lemony, with oak used as it should be, to support and extend the fruit, not dominate it. Nitida Aureus is a similar blend, also from Durbanville, just as good, though a little oakier at present.
Cape Point Vineyards winemaker Duncan Savage is best known for that sort of blend too but presents something in the guild’s old adventurous spirit. His Auction White is a cheninchardonnay mix whose light richness has real depth and elegance, lovely subtle flavours and a fine texture.
Teddy Hall’s interesting Mediterranean White is also chenin-driven, more oxidative and broader in style — savoury, vinous and very natural seeming.
I can only mention my two top reds: big, grand, modern-classic Edgebaston Cabernet Sauvignon from David Finlayson and AA Badenhorst Auction Red — serious, rich and lovely.
Tim James’s notes from a blind tasting of all the 2010 CWG Auction wines are on www.grape.co.za