Article: Michael Olivier from FAIRLADY
Image: just wine

In South Africa there is no such classification. If there were, one of my choices for a first growth would be Rustenberg Estate in Stellenbosch, which has a wine-growing history dating back to 1682. Wine has been bottled in the current Rustenberg cellar for an unbroken period since 1892.

The Barlow Family has owned Rustenberg Estate and the adjoining Schoongezicht since 1941. The latter was once owned by the minister of agriculture and last prime minister of the Cape before the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, John X Merriman – after whom Simon Barlow, the current châtelain, has named a wine.

Well-known names in the visitor's book include Rudyard Kipling, Scott of the Antarctic, and George Bernard Shaw, who refused wine, preferring instead a glass of milk from the farm's prime Jersey herd!

Says Simon, 'We've again been rated as highest-scoring South African red by American wine guru Robert Parker, who gave our flagship Peter Barlow 1999 the accolade of 91 out of 100 points. In Parker's definition, a rating from 90 to 95 signifies an outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character.

'Locally, a judging panel for the highly critical publication Grape placed Rustenberg in the top five Cape producers. We're obviously delighted by these plaudits. While committed to using world wine benchmarking as a yardstick, we realise we have a way to go. This recognition is a heartening milestone along the road.'

Madeleine and I recently drank the magnificently muscular Rustenberg Peter Barlow 1999. Violets, mint, coffee, pencil shavings and blackberry assail the nostrils; and the wonderful fruit, like a rich-red velvet ball gown, is held in tow by ripe tannins. Great with a piece of fire-grilled rump with crusty smoky edges to the fat and roasted red peppers stuffed with caper berries, olives, whole roasted garlic cloves and anchovy, dripping with fruity oleaginous green olive oil and dribbles of balsamico.

Going green
If you want to gulp down green peppers, green gooseberries, green cut grass, granadilla and green figs with gusto, try the Brampton Sauvignon Blanc 2002. Brampton was a well-known Rustenberg Jersey bull, now immortalised in a range of easy-drinking though serious wines available from Rustenberg Estate. In boring winespeak, this wine shows typical Sauvignon blanc varietal characteristics – what I'd expect from Adi Badenhorst, the ruggedly handsome winemaker who, with Nico Walters in the vineyards, is responsible for the Rustenberg wines. Unsung heroes… viticulturists. They deal with the elements of nature in a year-long tussle to deliver optimally ripe grapes. You don't make good wine from bad grapes.

Cape eating
I had a fun time recently with one of my current favourite chefs, Peter Goffe-Wood, eating updated Cape country cuisine he'd prepared as a counterpoint to wines from Neethlingshof. We were served a plate of tiny slivers of trout and thinly-sliced fennel bulb. Onto this we poured the most sensual saffron-coloured fish 'tea' – from a teapot, nogal. The heat cooked the salmon yet left the wonderful crunch of the fennel.

How well it went with the Neethlingshof Chardonnay 2001 – delicately wooded, fruity and citrussy. Peter served a grilled quail breast on spiced sweet potato with coriander oil (brave move) with the Neethlingshof Gewürztraminer 2002 (elegant litchi and rose petally to nurse the flavour through). The Neethlingshof Shiraz 1998 was a chunky, step-by-step wine, big and bold, matched by Peter's wildebeest fillet and a yum-yum-yum caramelised butternut risotto cake – topped with a foie gras butter.

A glass of what you will
Georg 'Life is too short to drink good wine from second-rate glasses' Riedel is a 10th-generation glassmaker. His glasses are available in South Africa – talk to Sheila Cosgreave at Alphen Cellars in Constantia; she's a mine of information on glasses and wine. Riedel believes that you lose a lot of pleasure if you drink from the wrong glass. His mission is to not only to produce stunning glassware but also to educate. To this end, he has over the years created a series of glasses specific to particular drinks.

His Burgundy glass is designed to direct the usually highly acid wine away from the area of the tongue, which registers acidity. The Cognac glass is small, allowing for low evaporation of the alcohol and showing more of the fruit. Of his malt whisky glass, Georg says the Scots add water to soften their whisky, 'but with the right shape of glass, the whisky tastes softer and more mellow and silky anyway… the whisky seems to gain in age and mellowness.' Like me – aged and mellow.