Stellenbosch wine: the Cape classic

A South African red blend containing a significant proportion of Pinotage, alongside Bordeaux or Rhône grape varieties. The term has no legal definition: it is a matter of convention, and each estate sets its own proportion. Kanonkop's Kadette Cape Blend, at €18.50, is the most widely available example in our range.

Three things. First, history: this is where the South African wine industry took shape, and where the historic estates are based. Second, the terrain, with mountains that bring altitude and freshness, whereas Swartland is flat and hot. Finally, style: here the aim is Cabernet-based reds for ageing, while Swartland works with Syrah and Chenin and Hemel-en-Aarde is devoted to Pinot Noir.

They play the same game, with the same grape varieties and the same ageing. The profile differs slightly: the fruit is riper, the graphite note more pronounced, and the wine is often ready to drink sooner. At comparable quality, the price gap remains wide in the Cape's favour. Glenelly's Lady May at €49.95 stands up to Bordeaux crus that cost more.

The range starts at €9.50 and the median is €32.45. Fifteen bottles are under twenty euros, which is plenty for everyday drinking. Between €25 and €50, you will find the serious cuvées from the great estates. Beyond that, you enter the territory of select Pinotages, up to €264 for Kanonkop's Black Label.

The district's most renowned estate, located on the slopes of the Simonsberg. It built its reputation on Pinotage at a time when nobody believed in the grape, with bush vines and fermentation in open tanks. We stock five of its bottles, from the Kadette at €18.50 to the Black Label at €264, by way of Paul Sauer, its Bordeaux blend.

Not really any more. This cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsault, created in 1925, long produced hard wines marked by a paint-like note, for lack of ripeness and care. From old bush vines, with gentle extraction, it now gives deep, spicy reds capable of lasting ten years. The difference lies with the producer, not the grape.

The WO system nests three levels: region, district, then ward. A bottle bearing only the name Stellenbosch claims the whole district. One bearing Simonsberg-Stellenbosch or Jonkershoek Valley designates a specific sub-zone, and therefore a narrower origin. Many estates nevertheless stick to the district, which is easier to read for export.

It certifies that the grapes were grown, vinified and bottled on a single property registered with the South African authority. It is the closest equivalent to the French “mis en bouteille au domaine” (estate-bottled). Its absence says nothing about quality: several excellent producers buy their grapes plot by plot, such as Damascene.

Bordeaux blends and the great Pinotages, first and foremost. A Paul Sauer or a Lady May needs a few years to open up and lasts around fifteen. Single-plot Syrahs, such as Hartenberg's Gravel Hill, follow the same curve. Conversely, unoaked Chardonnays and entry-level wines are best drunk within three years: their appeal is the fruit.

Twenty of our forty-four bottles are white, which partly answers the question. Old-vine Chenin gives wines of texture here, somewhere between apple, wax and dry honey; Chardonnay is lively and rarely over-oaked. The district also boasts a rare sweet wine, a botrytised Riesling from Villiera made only once, in 2005.