Put fire in your wintry belly! If ever there’s a time to indulge in rich, alcoholic, delicious fortified wines it is now, when the Cape is grey, wet and blustery, and the Highveld cold pierces to the bone. (Smug Durbanites can get pleasure from joining in, in a show of solidarity.)
My sense of responsibility, even if not my entire experience, obliges me to acknowledge that comfort and warmth are not to be found at the bottom of a bottle — but a modest glass of port or jerepigo can surely only help.
The warming factors of sweetness and alcohol are, unfortunately, also those that have helped to reduce the popularity internationally of wines fortified with brandy or other spirits. In fact, at about 16.5%, jerepigos and muscadels are seldom much more alcoholically powerful than some of the riper unfortified wines around these days. Modern local ports tends to be, like their Portuguese models, about 20%.
But, unlike their Portuguese models, the locals have been obliged by deals with the European Union to phase out completely the use of the name port (the same goes for sherry). After January 2012, that’s it — the drink will stay but the word on the bottle must be dropped. In its place will usually be some epithet associated with a traditional port style, prefixed by “Cape”.
Deep and luscious
So, Cape Tawny is a port-style wine that has been matured for many years in large casks — the oxidative process produces the deep orange-red colour that gives the name. Tawnies are often blends of many years and most don’t mention a vintage on the label. A few, like those from Bo-plaas, are superb — lusciously rich, nutty and flavourful.
Other ports spend much less time in the barrel (sometimes, for the cheaper rubies, almost none, for others a few years) and are deep, luscious red. Cape Late-Bottled Vintage is designed for drinking as soon as it’s bottled, but Cape Vintage (or Vintage Reserve), though often fiery and compellingly delicious in youth, should acquire greater complexity, velvet smoothness and interest after five, 10 or even more years.
There’s no need to defer to Europe when it comes to jerepigos and muscadels — a glorious tradition of our warm-country winemaking that lingers on.
Rietvallei makes its 1908 Muscadel from a tiny vineyard planted in that year. Perhaps these wines don’t have the sleek sophistication of ports but some of them are great and as long-lived as any. I recently had the privilege of sipping at a still-vibrant 1933 KWV Muscadel.
Dark and stormy nights
Of more modern production, the Nuy Muscadel (white and red versions) are among those that gain complexity with many years in the bottle — and, unlike port, they don’t seem to mind how long the opened bottle lingers on the shelf before being reached for some dark and stormy night.
Muscadels are jerepigos made from a muscat grape, but jerepigos can be from just about anything. Whether they are in fact wines at all is moot. Making port involves adding spirit to partly fermented grapes, which knocks the busy little yeast cells on the head, leaving some unfermented sugar. With jerepigo, on the other hand, spirit is added before the yeast barely gets a chance to start its work, leaving all the ripe fruit’s sugar unmolested.
It’s a national treasure as well as wonderfully warming.