Out of Africa ...

It has been a while since the Club President has graced South Africa, much has changed.

Drinking South African wine used to feel almost like a charitable act. In apartheid years it was competently industrialised, but no one drank it in this country for fun. To celebrate liberation we tried to overlook earthy reds and fairly fresh whites in the name of progress. The white wines, all agreed, led by Sauvignon Blanc,crept ahead of the reds. Then in the mid-90s came the shock (I can still remember it) of a totally convincing Chardonnay. Then more surprising still a Pinot Noir better than California’s. Then a series of Cabernets cleansed of earth and iron, juicy, full of ripe currants: the very thing.

I missed the action on the ground, I’m afraid. Shamefully I stayed away for 20 years.I hadn’t much enjoyed my early visits, and there was too much to keep up with elsewhere. South America, not to mention Australasia, loomed larger. I found out just how much I was missing in March this year.

We rented a little house on a big beach in Walker Bay, long famous for its whale-watching (the monsters jump so close inshore they can soak you with their splashes) but only recently famous for its wines. The Walker Bay coast, and the Hemel en Aarde valley leading inland, are Africa’s first Côted’ Or: the grapes of Burgundy ripen here, seawind-cooled, to the same racy, pitched-upflavours. Go-faster acidity is the secret; fresh when they are new, long on the palate, and keeping them zinging until mellowness sets in. Few seem to avoid the corkscrew for that long.

My corkscrew was busy day and night. I Googled before the trip to find a wine merchant with a good range and found The Wine Village in Hermanus. John and Erica Platter, who have helped me for nearly 30 years with my Pocket Wine Book (their own annual guide is South Africa’s standard work) came down from Durban to show us the ropes. My brother, son and other friends from England lent their palates to the task. We hardly found a bottle of wine we didn’t want to finish.

Yes, there are well-established classics. The classic of Walker Bay is Hamilton Russell, the pioneer of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Bouchard Finlay son is equally established and respected and their neighbour Newton Johnson, we found, makes Chardonnay at least as well as either. They have to keep pedalling hard, though, with half a dozen serious challengers on their doorstep. Nor are the Burgundian grapes the only ones to benefit from the sea-cooled conditions.Cabernet Sauvignon finds it too cool, but Cabernet Franc, the key grape of St Emilion and the Central Loire, finds its brighther by/minty flavours here. And one surprise was to find a farmer whose father came from Madeira growing Verdelho to make what almost amounts to Vinho Verde. Super-fresh white with a prickle at a mere 11% of alcohol was precisely what we needed for our lunches in the shade.

The most famous vineyards of the Cape lie across the mountains inland from Walker Bay, round Stellenbosch (which feels the sea wind from False Bay) and, higher in the encircling hills, the achingly fashionable St Helena of South Africa, Franschoek. Never having crossed the formidable Coast Range before we set out inland in a direct line north for Franschoek, to find mountain mists among crags worthy of Macbeth. The long windingpass brings you steeply down to a settlement devoted entirely to the stomach: cafes and restaurants without number.There is a Napa Valley air about the fields,but the farms, immaculate, their curving gables pipe-clayed like a Royal Marine’s helmet, have no rivals for crisp and seemly beauty. Nor has their setting of raw rock: crags stark against the sky or trailing long tresses of white clouds. Franschoek has a smattering of French names: Dieu Donné, Cabrière, LaMotte, Mont Rochelle, L’Ormarins. The flavour of Stellenbosch is resolutely Dutchand its manor houses earlier in date, most of them, than the châteaux of the Médoc. Meerlust, Rustenberg, Stellenzicht,Mulderbosch, Neetlingshof, Blaauklippen, Rust en Vrede are the future Rauzansand Pichons and Léovilles, I like to think,of the Cape.

Their destiny, I feel pretty sure, is Cabernet tempered by Merlot: the Médoc recipe. Like Napa wineries they routinely partner it with generous, well-oaked Chardonnay. Somemake fine Syrah; almost everyone feels bound to plant some Pinotage. Pinotage is the Cape’s own cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault, prolific and pungent. One example I tried, expensively pruned for a small crop and raised in French oak, smelt of Turkish Delight, geraniums, ginger… ‘Paint’ is the conventional more humdrum comparison. It has its enthusiastic constituency, certainly,but I fear it does South Africa no favours.

The other grape that the country can almost call its own, so much has it planted and so thoroughly is it integrated, is Chenin Blanc. As the nation’s workhouse white before more alluring alternatives came along (and before Chardonnay even had an entry visa) it was used for Cape sherry, brandy and brews of allsorts – often under the nom de verre of Steen. Happily there is still lots of it, because a careful winemaker can easily make it into the sort of fresh but four square white perfect with fish, and a talented one canfocus its stony white-fruit character assomething deeply satisfying. My view won’t please lovers of Sauvignon Blanc, but after the nasal assault and the gooseberry acidity of these fashionable creations, Chenin brings you back to oenological essentials: balance, mouth - filling substance, andharmony with food.

A surprise, to our party, was how far the Cape has progressed with its champagne method (if I’m still allowed to say that) bubblies. ‘Méthode Cape Classique’ is the official formula. We found at least half a dozen that pressed all the right buttons, a process with no pain at all, either gastronomic or financial. The most we ever paid for any wine, and that a mature vintage of one of the Cape’s finest Cabernets, was £35.

If there is one iconic estate that every visitor should see it is Vergelegen, one of the closest to Cape Town and the country property of the first Dutch governor, Simon van der Stel. The 17th Century mansion, its furniture, its gardenand park with magnificent trees epitomizes the early civilization of the Cape. The modern winery, sparkling white above its vines overlooking False Bay, epitomise the future.And the wines, from bubbly to Chardonnay to what tastes to me extraordinarily like claret, send out a clarion message: South Africa has arrived.

Hugh Johnson,

Club President

Hugh reflects on the unique attraction of The Club's Vintage Festival

When I stopped to think about it (and there wasn’t much time for that) it’s pretty amazing. You invite a few thousand people to come and taste wine at the weekend and they all fall to, totally sorted and in their stride, as though they did little else.

The hall doors open, and within five minutes girls in halter tops are discussing Chianti, blokes in jeans are sniffing away at Shiraz and men in blazers are asking their wives whether they prefer the Gewurztraminer or the Pinot Gris.

It is the ultimate democratic wine discussion, where everyone’s opinion is of equal weight, where you can find the answer to any question, and where a mellow mood allows genial appreciation without pressure.

Our suppliers are as keen as our Members to be there. Pruning your vines or doing your paperwork in a village in France or Spain you feel a million miles from your customers and their expectation. Very occasionally one turns up on holiday and takes half your day – pleasantly enough, but hardly solving any problems. At the Vintage Festival you see precisely who you are making your wine for. You may be surprised by their questions, their knowledge or their lack of it, but you get an unvarnished reaction.

Members can put a face to the wine they like, hear a story to pass on, get a restaurant recommendation or even plan a holiday. The Festival does all the things that a wine label can’t: give a wine context, personality, humanity. When I am faced with a wine list I know the first thing that guides my choice: do I know any of the people whose wines are listed? If not the people, the places? It’s the polar opposite of choosing by brands – and it’s the spirit of our Club. Always has been, always will be.

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"Vinitaly"

Bordeaux has a hypnotic effect on the wine trade. Wine writers too. The first week of April sees scores of scribblers with their noses deep in half-finished claret and their backs to a much more interesting show.

Vinitaly, Italy's annual national Winefest, bagged the April Fool's slot 40 years ago. I'm not sure whether Bordeaux never heard of it or decided to snub it, but that's exactly when they decided to mount the quite recent annual Primeur Circus. Let's not go into why the British choose Bordeaux, but English voices at Vinitaly are rare enough to make you turn your head. Last week I felt almost like the sole representative of our island race at a show that offers more new, different, characterful and often bargain wines than Bordeaux can muster in a dozen vintages. My effort at covering them was sadly inadequate. Where do you start when every region of the winiest of all countries has a pavilion like half Olympia to itself?

The Fair site is daunting, and frankly hideous, with all the charm of an industrial estate. (You'd think that between bouts they might get round to planting trees). Inside the hangers, though, one trade fair is much like another. It's easy to see which producers, and which regions, have juicy promotion budgets. My prize for style and imagination went to one of the poorest: Campania. Its stands were somewhere between village hall and Vintage Festival. To make up for lavish structures though, the designer has put the Campanian landscape on the ceiling. You looked up and there were the crops, the vines and corn, the rocks and the seashore, upside down above your head, with olive trees hanging down like strange silvery chandeliers. It was the image that I took away with me to sum up the stylish originality of Italian wine – and its makers.

After hours, of course, Verona more than makes up for its fairground. It is the perfect urban Italy in miniature, its palace-lined streets and piazzas absurdly rich in history and beauty (and restaurants). You can walk across the mercifully traffic free centre in 20 minutes, taking in the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, and ancient Rome in the form of the wonderfully complete arena. In April you can even find a seat unjostled in the Piazza delle Erbe, Italy's most beautiful square.

Vinitaly is about exploration. No one claims there is a simple solution to Italian wine. (Perhaps this explains the relative appeal of Bordeaux: a chateau is a chateau and a vintage is a vintage). The easiest way to explore is to go the varietal route: latch on to a grape and keep asking questions about it. Each region has its favourites – not mutually exclusive by any means. You may find, as I did that regional style often wins out over varietal differences. This was the case in Friuli in the north-east, currently Italy's best white wine zone, where Pinot Grigio and Pinot Bianco are just the best known of no less than 17 grapes that go, separately or together, into silky fresh whites. Collio is the zone name of many of the best, but you could go crazy trying to follow the permutations. At a dinner one night, entitled Bianco and Bianchi, the single Bianco turned out to be asparagus and the Bianchi an unending parade of wines aspiring to match it. With 40 different asparagus recipes and at least as many wines the permutations were palate-boggling.

Trends, then, in this cornucopia?

Good white wines are everywhere in Italy now. Fine ones are rare and great ones probably non-existent, but the old dearth of white refreshment is over, from the Alps to Sicily. One of the big surprises, in fact, is how Sicilian summers can produce such easy wines. We should explore them.

Reds? I hardly tasted a bad one. No longer do Tuscany and Piedmont hold all the aces. Grape names we had hardly heard of three years ago have started mini-booms of their own: Sagrantino, for example, in the Centre, Nero d'Avola in Sicily, Montepulciano on the Adriatic coast, Negroamaro down in the heel of Puglia. The old fatalistic formulas are on the way out as these clearer, fruitier, grapier wines become the norm.

The pick of Chile and Argentina ... side by side!

By teatime', I thought, 'I'll finally know which side of the Andes is which'. I'd held back at lunch to keep my wits about me. I've never seen the pick of Chile and Argentina side by side before (not, curiously, in either country), but the first teams of each were playing in central London: time to memorize the difference - if there is one.

This was our buyers' day. In the Chilean corner Vicki Stephens-Clarkson; wearing the Argentine colours Thomas Woolrych. Any hints? If it's white it's from Chile. There was advice I could clearly follow. Chile makes a pretty good show of Sauvignon Blanc, ripe but not so in your face as New Zealand. I liked the Alta Tierra 2007 from the Elqui Valley in the north and the Casas del Bosque from Casablanca; the former almost thick with melony flavour and a touch of grapefruit, the latter more delicately constructed.

Among the reds, though, could I pick them off as right-of-the-Andes or left-of-the-Andes without looking at the labels? For certain mainstream Chileans, yes. Chile gives Cabernet Sauvignon an instantly likeable, fluidly fruity character with an intriguing earthy note. From cooler regions it has a herbal and peppery smell and taste, from the warmest ones a baked berry ripeness; from the best producers a touch of both balancing and lingering deliciously. The national speciality, the Carmenère, follows the same lines with particularly bright and colourful effect. We have a lovely example, the 2007 from Gran Tarapacá, arriving in April.

Chile's other big excitement is Syrah - the fashion grape of the noughties, it seems, with the Rhône Valley madly modish and New Zealand doing beautifully with what Australia thought it pretty much had to itself. As so often the examples I pick are the less ambitious. Heavy bottles, inky wines and prodigious levels of alcohol are available - at a price. For half the price you can have, for example, the Tabali Reserva '05 from Limari or the Polkura Syrah '06 from Colchagua.

Argentina holds quite a different card: its Malbec. I remember 15 years ago tasting lines of Cabernet and choosing a Malbec (that was for British Airways, wanting a truly juicy red for all-comers). Malbec has grown up, been perfected, been blended with Cabernet and Merlot, and generally joined the top table. Schroeder Estate (Mr Schroeder had come all the way) makes a good example, intense, smooth, balanced, hugely appealing. Fabre Montmayou is fruitier, less intense, with a nice tannic touch.

Most impressive of all was Malbec blended with Cabernet Sauvignon by a master, the Catena/Rothschild Reserve that combines the names as Caro. Caro 2004 at £25 was far from the most expensive Argentine present, but to me the most exciting, with the cool-in-the-mouth harmony and fresh, juicy, palate-coating length of a job well done.

There were three vertical tastings on show to represent the dimension of time: what happens to these wines over three, five, ten years in bottle? The first was a long-established Chilean classic, Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon from Concha y Toro. The 1987 opened the batting. Back then the wines were lighter; a mere 12.5% alcohol. They were elegant, though, and drink sweetly at 20 years. Don Melchor is one of those consistent players, firm in youth, never greatly complex but like a sweet drive down the middle of the fairway, satisfying and lingering in the mind.

Its stable mate is a joint effort with Mouton-Rothschild, Almaviva, a blend of Cabernet and Carmenère. The early vintages are growing a little gamey, but the 2003 has the fruity brilliance of Carmenère and the depth of Cabernet Sauvignon in lovely proportions.

The Argentine entry in what you might call the Superandean class was Cheval des Andes, Moët-Hennessy's prestige creation in cahoots with Cheval Blanc; Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in partnership. So far, I would say, so splendid. It's hard to mistake the French touch, whichever side of the Andes.

By teatime I was wondering why the two countries don't team up and call the whole delicious thing Patagonia.

Hugh Johnson,
Club President

A new partner for Port!

Retro. I don't know who coined the term, but I'm not surprised it caught on. It invites us into life's fancy-dress department. Be sniffy if you must: call it ironic when you wear flares or a topper or back comb your hair. If you're honest, though, you quite like playing a role with preset expectations. Fashion is so relentless: just as you get used to it it's off again. Cuddle up with retro. Play a part. Forget your current habits for a minute and adopt some of your ancestors' ...

Drinking port, for example.

Our neighbours in the country bemoan the (relative) trickle of after-dinner port these days. Relative, that is, to the tide that flowed on a winter's night after a day's shooting before the hedgerows filled up with policemen. To criticize the drinking and driving laws would get me ostracized: to bemoan their effect on social life in the countryside is another thing. Farmers toddling home after midnight were seldom a cause of trouble.

One result is that everybody's port is getting older. A season's supply lasts three or four seasons these days, and those rare sips are correspondingly more appreciated. What is less easy to understand is that sales of port, and demand for the best ports - vintage, but also old tawnies and colheitas - is steady and rising. If not red-faced old sportsmen, who is drinking it? Your modern urban person, that's who. And not waiting for the cloth to be cleared and the ladies to withdraw, either. Port has met pudding, with dramatic results.

I first met this modern match in a New York restaurant. I admit it was chocolate on centre stage. New Yorkers make me wonder if chocolate has some Freudian significance. But in the list of wines offered to help the chocolate down port figured prominently. Top vintage port by the glass. I put my hand up for one (and ordered, I confess, a non-chocolate pud). The port, and the blackberry crumble, were a moment of revelation. I had discovered the wine's new rôle, and one of its most perfect partners. That started me drinking port in a different light, as it were, and drinking it much younger. It's not 30 year old crusted bottles that sticky puds call for, but darkly potent, palate-massaging recent issues, intensely fruity and massively sweet. Wow!



Hugh Johnson,
Club President

An early eye on Burgundy 2006

You can get obsessed with the gossip and the day's agenda in any trade. Whether the wine trade is worse than others I don't know, but in the January week when the only topic was the new release of Burgundies en primeur it felt pretty bad. Yes, decisions had to be taken. "Short supply" say the distributors. "You'll miss the best if you don't decide". A few decisions were easy: I went mad on some Chablis (I always do) and some smarter white Burgundies from Chassagne-Montrachet, Meursault and St Aubin. New red Burgundy (and some of these wines, especially the best, are still in their barrels) poses deeper questions. The Pinot Noir is a funny grape: it can gain body, colour, roundness and flavour from what seems a thinnish start - or sometimes go the other way. I look for yummy cherry-brandyish flavours and a long finish in samples of any age. There weren't many (cherry-brandyish flavours, that is), but I suspect there are more to come.

"One of the biggest bargains on The Club's list ..."

'Economic downturn' is the catchphrase of the month. If it makes us look at the right-hand column a little nearer the top it's not all gloom, though. It's when you feel too strapped for cash to go for the safe names (and if they didn't charge a premium, what's the insurance business all about?) that you stumble on bargains. One of the biggest bargains on The Club list (now, for a long time, and I suspect far into the future) is our lightest and driest sherry, Thomas Abad's Fino. How and why does The Club sell a grownup white wine like this, with four times the flavour of almost any Chardonnay and at 15% only a tad more alcohol, for less than any of our amazing range of 40 different Chablis? For a really silly reason. Because you don't buy it. I sometimes wonder if it would move up the charts if we doubled the price. It would still be a steal. Do you ever eat smoked salmon? Do me a favour: give yourself a glass of cold Fino with it - and then another. Mystery: why did restaurants never sell Fino by the bottle? Very suspicious; they make a massively higher margin by the glass, and they know you wouldn't bother with any other white wine once you had a bottle within reach.



Hugh Johnson,
Club President

Christmas Drinking 2007

Do we really squeeze all our serious drinking (by which of course I mean wine appreciation) into the last 10 days of the year? That's the picture you get: wine merchants up all night packing parcels for people who rarely touch a drop until Christmas Eve.

And then: the bubbly foams, the richest reds appear in elegant glasses, the venerable port winks ruby in the firelight. Does anyone do avant-garde Christmas? Damien Hirst maybe; the rest of us, it seems, stick with tradition. Why re-invent a formula that works so well?

It starts, of course, with Champagne. I've never understood how (or why) Champagne houses consistently threaten us with supplies running dry, amidst cries that the region must expand - and then offer us the latest bargain.

Should I worry, though, when the tried and true is offered at less than last time I bought it, just when I need it most? Whether I drink The Club's Champagne (exclamations of delight; how can it be that good), the delectable Haton (glasses stretched out for more) or a glamour brand (nods of knowledgeable appreciation) I have never known it fail to create a buzz.

Alternatives? There are lots. Christmas morning sees me sipping glorious dry rich sherry. On Boxing Day it will be English fizz: The Club's South Ridge gets everybody talking. And this year, Sparkling Shiraz! Yes really: deep red South Australian fruit, tannin and bubbles all together reach taste buds you didn't know you had. You'll never know until you try it.

This Christmas, even square old claret drinkers have to decide between juicy young wines or something more mellow. A few years ago no one dreamed of drinking two-year-old Bordeaux. Then came 2003 and 2005 with grapes so ripe the wines beg to be drunk in their first fruity bloom. In fact, with claret vintages from '99 to 2005 ready to drink this Christmas - you can hardly miss. Don't open the big-name '05's yet ... oh, all right then.

The vogue for big reds doesn't go away at Christmas. Chateauneuf? Absolutely. Fine Australian Shiraz? Why ever not? Or Italy's turbo reds, Amarone and Valpolicella Ripasso. I have Colheita port on my list, once-a-year vintage Madeira, Sauternes and my own Royal Tokaji Aszu. And just to show I haven't been dozing through life's great fashion show, Limoncello. Last year no one had heard of it; this year drink it or you're nothing. Or so they tell me.



Hugh Johnson,
Club President