Pressed against the mountain, high above the splendid Franschhoek valley, with deep terraces cut into the still raw red earth, is the new small vineyard site from which — in four or five years — Gottfried Mocke will make a pinot noir.
Vines will soon be planted in the stony ground.
In their early years of struggle to establish themselves water will be piped from a lovely waterfall nearby, the pump powered by a turbine driven by the force of the falling water itself.
It’s the sort of natural solution to wine-growing challenges that Mocke likes. He has been in charge of the cellar and vines at Chris Hellinger’s Chamonix farm for nearly a decade now and has moved the vineyards substantially towards organic practices. Similarly, natural, non-interventionist principles guide the wine-making, like fermentation with “wild” yeasts and avoiding additives.
There’s been much hard work and intelligent, creative thinking in Mocke’s strategy to make Chamonix wines both excellent and reflective of their origins.
There’s flair too. The combination puts him among South Africa’s most respected young winemakers and Chamonix is now easily among the leading few dozen producers.
Most excitingly, progress has been noticeable with the red wines. Chardonnay and sauvignon blanc have always been good here. Both are made in standard and reserve versions, with the former definitely not to be sniffed at and not exactly cheap — ex-farm, the sauvignon at R75 and the chardonnay R100; the reserve versions are a bit less than double the price. (But a pair of great value blends, rouge and blanc, redress the balance.)
Mostly, the standard versions are for earlier drinking, whereas the reserves, especially the chardonnay, will improve for years. If you intend opening the bottles soon, buying the reserves is perhaps a waste — the standard versions are generally more pleasing in youth, whereas the reserves remain tighter, less expressive.
The Chamonix Sauvignon Reserve is one of the few Cape examples matured in oak barrels, which gives it a degree of interest and complexity that I find in few of those living in stainless steel until meeting their destiny in glass.
Chamonix reds come in just one version of each. The straight cabernet sauvignon and the blended troika are both good, improving each year since Mocke has been guiding them from vineyard to bottle. But the starriest performer is the Chamonix Pinot Noir Reserve, which now stands alongside the best of Hemel-en-Aarde and Elgin.
It tends to be more serious-minded and less aromatically, simply charming than many others, but promises fine development and depth after a few years.
Admittedly not as fine but intriguing is the pinotage, which shows evidence of thoughtfulness and flair in the cellar as well as painstaking work in the vineyards.
A complex vinification process (“invented”, with Italian inspiration, for the 20 07 vintage, but the superior 20 08 is worth waiting for) starts with different pickings of the grapes — half of them at an early stage of ripeness, half of them allowed to dry out.
This union of opposites gives a characterful, slightly rustic and totally delicious wine, which should give pause to any disparager of pinotage.
As to that new, high pinot vineyard — it always seems that a magical setting should produce a magical wine. It doesn’t always, but this time I reckon there’s reason for hope.