Michael Fridjhon Wine

Michael Fridjhon Wine

LIQUOR NEWS

Business Day - Sep 2nd 2011, 15:38

Old wine is something of an acquired taste. For many enthusiasts, anything with more than 10 years in the bottle is an unknown experience. The culture of ageing wine began its retreat in the inflationary years of the 1970s. It gathered pace as producers developed ways — such as focusing on early-release varieties — to make their wines market-ready sooner.  

Today the fashion cultivars include Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz, both of which can be "managed" into bottle within six and 18 months of the harvest respectively. Wine infanticide is now pretty much the rule, rather than the exception.

This has spawned a self-perpetuating problem: if there’s no market for older vintages, no one will pay a premium for the cost of storing or holding stock. Some of the country’s best-value older bottles languish in the cellars of The Bergkelder. They may not have been the greatest wines in the market at the time of their release, but age has rounded off their rough edges and given them vinosity and charm.

If bottle maturation was really regarded as a desirable attribute, a 2000 vintage Alto Cabernet would not be selling for R150.

Not all wine ages well, and not all bottles of mature wine from the same vintage — and identical cellaring — will taste the same. Corks are unreliable closures. (Random bottle oxidation is at least as serious as the cork-taint risk.) Some varieties do better than others, some producers manage the vinification with a longer- term view. You can be sure that a current release Paul Sauer from Kanonkop or a top red from Rustenberg will improve for the next 20 years. Every year I host an old- wine tasting attended by the judges of the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show, as well as producers and collectors who contribute to the occasion.

Obviously we land up sampling wines that have passed their sell-by date, but there are always enough really good bottles to remind us that old wine is worth the wait. This year’s line-up included some exceptional white wines. The maiden vintage of the Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc, the 1986, was miraculously good. At 25 years old, it served to remind us how good a wine maker the late Ross Gower was. It also confirmed that great white wine can be aged for decades, rather than years. A very fine 1985 Backsberg Chardonnay (a sometime Diners Club award winner) made this point equally emphatically.

There was also an elegant 1982 Chateau Libertas to go with a rather richer, more tarry 1967 from the same cellar. A 1976 Cabernet from the Günter Brözel era at Nederburg showed both the quality and ageing potential of the old-clone vines.

Three reds and an old Jerepigo shared the winners podium with the Klein Constantia. The 1971 Rustenberg Cabernet — the first vintage of pure Cabernet released by the estate — could easily have been a Classed Growth Bordeaux of similar age. Perfumed and elegant, with slight liqu orice spice to go with fine blackcurrant notes, it was everything you would expect of a great Medoc. Equally impressive was a 1959 Zonnebloem, served from the half bottle and still very much alive.

Both sat comfortably alongside a sublime 1961 Lanzerac Pinotage. It was so impressive that Neal Martin — the Robert Parker palate whose responsibilities include SA — acknowledged afterwards that it had forced him to re think his views on the potential of Cape wine.

If this was what was being produced in SA at the time Bordeaux was producing the legendary 1961s, he observed, the Cape should not be treated as a newcomer on the world scene.

Finally there was a 1933 KWV Muscadel — a caramel, crème brûlée of a wine that would shame most Australian show Muscats and many Madeiras from the same era. We should also not forge t that we have a great fortified wine tradition — and the best modern examples are still our best value wines.