In my ramblings around the Cape’s wine country I notice more and more wine farms are planting extensive olive groves. In several cases vineyards have been uprooted and turned over to olive production. This is a reflection of several trends in our South African lifestyle. On the one hand a wine producer told me “People don’t steal olives. They swipe whole vineyards of grapes.”
But there’s a more positive angle to it than that. Many people – particularly in big cities, are turning to Mediterranean-style foods. They tend to be healthier than our traditional red meat, potatoes and gravy diet, and they use a lot more olive oil than butter.
Look around you next time you’re in a smart restaurant and you’ll probably see customers dipping their bread into a puddle of olive oil on the side plate, rather than spreading it with butter.
The local demand for olive oil is definitely growing rapidly, and as it grows, customers are becoming more particular about the quality of the oil they use.
New wine cellars open at the rate of about one a week in the Cape. The wine market is becoming flooded. Olive producers have not even scratched the surface of the olive market.

At Morgenster Estate in Somerset West, owner Giulio Bertrand grows more than 20 varieties of olives, using some of them to blend his estate’s olive oil, which has been judged among the best in the world. Our climate and soils are perfect for olive production, he says. For a different experience, go to one of their olive oil tastings. You’ll be surprised at the variety of flavours you’ll encounter. It’s not “just oil.”
Travel through Paarl, Robertson, Wellington or Riebeeck Kasteel and you’ll drive past rows and rows of healthy olive trees. They hold an annual olive festival at Allesverloren in Riebeeck West, offering olives and olive products in every style imaginable. At Delvera near Stellenbosch there’s a shop that sells nothing but olives and olive products. Everywhere you go…
And while we’re talking about Mediterranean style, there’s a wonderful new restaurant at Morgenster, Sofia’s, run by head chef Craig Cormack. It is relaxed and informal and has one of the prettiest settings of any Cape country eatery. My bet is that it will soon become a popular meeting place for food enthusiasts. The view from the restaurant stoep offers a panoramic vista of the farm’s vineyards and olive groves and the food is honest and seasonal and prepared mainly from local ingredients. The Morgenster wines on offer are based on Italian grape varieties like Sangiovese and Nebbiolo – warming and generous.  You could be in Italy.

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What happens to all the bad wines?
As a member of several tasting panels I get to sample literally hundreds of wines every month.
Some are truly delicious.
Others, however, range from boring to frankly nasty. And I suppose all of them get sold eventually.
Who buys the bad ones?
I think I know. From time to time friends come to me with news of their latest wine “discoveries”.
“I found some chardonnay in Luke’s Liquor Locker (or wherever) at only nine rands a bottle! Amazing! I bought two cases.”
I ask what the wine is like.
“Not too bad, really, but at that price who can complain?”
I can, for one.
Life is just too short to suffer bad wine.
People who buy on price alone haven’t discovered the real charm of wine. It’s not about getting drunk as cheaply as possible, unless you’re living a life of squalor on the street and need to shut out life’s dreadful reality.
But if you’re reading this, your life is probably more meaningful than that. It’s not merely a matter of surviving each day with as little pain as possible.
You probably appreciate the good things that raise life above mere survival mode – fine art, good music, good food – and of course good wine.
Like all the good things in life, the more we learn about them the more enjoyment we derive from them.
To the uninitiated a great painting is just a pretty picture. But to somebody who has studied art and art history, it’s part of a story that’s linked to all the other stories.
Music is just pleasant noise unless you know a little about the composer and the world he or she lived in, then it becomes an exciting link with all other music.
Wine is unlike any other alcoholic drink. It is formed by sunshine, soil and climate, brought together by the skill of a winemaker.
Because no two vineyards are identical, no two wines can ever be the same. This is what makes wine tasting such an adventure.
Taste two Chardonnays or two Cabernet Sauvignons and see the difference. One may be full of warmth and sunshine while the other shows the austere character of limestone rocks and chilly breezes.
One may be perfect for a casual braai while another may be right for a formal dinner.
We are very lucky in the Cape to have an endless choice of wines available for tasting. Almost every winery welcomes visitors and every winemaker wants his products to be tasted.
We should take advantage of this and get to meet as many wines as possible. Somewhere out there is the wine that is exactly what you want a wine to be – a wine that blows your hair back.
It’s worth keeping on searching for it.
And along the way you’ll find plenty of others that charm you.
But be wary of that nine-rand bottle. It costs that amount for a reason.
And the reason is usually that nobody would buy it at R20 a bottle.
Leave it for the down and desperate.

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Do we use too much technology in our winemaking today? I was recently privileged to taste old Cabernets from Alto Estate, dating right back to 1965.
Alto has a unusual record of having had only four winemakers since 1920 — Manie Malan, Piet du Toit, his son, Hempies, and now Schalk van der Westhuizen.
The earlier vintages were matured in huge 13 000 litre oak vats and there was no refrigeration in the cellar. Small oak barrels were only introduced in 1982. Alto wines were always kept for at least six years before being released for sale.
We tasted Cabernet Sauvignons from ’65, ’70, 84, ’99, ’01 and ’07. All the were still very drinkable and in good condition. The 1970 vintage was particularly fresh and lively after 40 years. The ’84 was soft and very accessible, with charming, juicy fruit flavours. 
Hempies du Toit said there was not a single case of corkiness or spoiled cork in all the bottles he had opened. Are today’s corks of a poorer quality?
I couldn’t help wondering how many of today’s red wines – with all the benefits of chilled stainless steel tanks, filters, sterile bottling lines, pneumatic presses, centrifuges and all the paraphernalia of the laboratory – will still be drinkable in 45 years’ time.
“I think we put too much emphasis on new wood today,” Hempies said. “We had 48 of those big vats in the cellar when I started making wine. Most were more than three years old when the 1965 vintage was made.
“The tannins in these old wines came from the grapes, not from the oak.”
He added that modern winemakers picked grapes far riper than they did back then. As a result those old wines needed time to grow to greatness; for the acidity to soften.
But once they were released they lasted almost forever.
Maybe we don’t have enough time for all that today. It’s the age of instant gratification. Modern houses don’t have cool cellars in which to store wines for years.
So we settle for fruity and cheerful, rather than great and memorable. Life has become shallower and poorer for that, and so rushed that we don’t have time to appreciate its treasures.

The Alto Tradition lives on…

The latest addition to the Alto range is a tribute to the four winemakers who built up the farm’s enviable reputation. Labelled Alto MPHS (Manie, Pieter, Hempies, Schalk), the 2007 vintage has been eleased in limited quantity. It’s a blend of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon that’s been matured in French oak for two years. Only 2200 bottles were made.
It’s delicious! Full bodied and luscious, it slips down like velvet. Every component – acid, wood, fruit and tannin – is in perfect harmony. This is a wine for a very special occasion. If you are able to lay your hands on a bottle or two, they’ll cost you about R700 each.

And a word for Cinsaut…

The famous Alto Rouge, made since 1920, was originally a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Cinsaut.
“I think we need to start a drive to bring back Cinsaut,” said Hempies. “It’s a truly great grape.” Hear hear! I’ve never been able to understand why our winemakers pulled out all those Cinsaut vines. They made delightful, light and friendly wines and seemed to thrive in every wine region.
Was it just fashion and snobbery that caused them to be uprooted? From being the Cape’s most widely planted red grape variety, it is now almost extinct. Such a pity!

Photo: courtesy of Alto Wine Estate

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There’s not a great variety of wine on offer in the smaller Karoo towns. I tried to buy a few bottles of special wines locally when I visited the farm for a neighbourhood reunion recently, but was disappointed by the choice.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Chateau Libertas, or the boxed wines from the Oranjerivier Cellars, but sometimes one hankers for something a little more complex.
Chatting to bottle store staff I learned that wine was a good seller, particularly among farm labourers.
I asked why there were none of the grander labels on the shelves.
I don’t expect to find the expensive Sadie family wines here, or Vergelegen’s V, or Waterford’s The Jem, but what about the Zonnebloem range, or some of the good Graham Beck wines? Camberley’s delicious Shiraz? Blaauwklippen’s Cabriolet? There’s a delicious world out there, I said.
Never heard of them.
And then I heard that dreaded standard remark so often trotted out by South Africa’s poorer shopkeepers: “There’s no demand for them here.”
Well, of course there’s no demand for something you do not have in stock.
How can you expect a thirsty farmer to buy a bottle of chilled Cape Point Semillon if you don’t have one on the shelves?
I believe there’s a huge untapped market out there in the South African heartland, but our industry isn’t taking enough trouble to cultivate it.
Do any of our wine giants take sales teams into the Karoo or Free State and hold tastings, or food pairing evenings to introduce farmers and local businessmen to the delights of fine wine?
We seem to devote a great deal of time and money to developing our export markets, while missing out on potential local sales.
Maybe we need a new organisation something like WOSA, but devoted entirely to bringing the delights of our wonderful wines to our rural areas.
Or are we going to remain content to send them cheap boxed wines for the labourers and keep the good stuff for sophisticated city drinkers?

Photo: courtesy GQ.com

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