IMAGES: From left: Thys Louw from Diemersdal and the Top 10 sponsors Stephan Claassen, FNB Provincial Head, Western and Eastern Cape and Brent Claassens, Managing Director of EVER Solutions.

No fancy stuff this time. After winning four Sauvignon Blanc Top 10 awards in a row with its revolutionary Winter Ferment Sauvignon Blanc, Diemersdal Estate in Durbanville this year nabbed its fifth consecutive Top 10 Award with the Diemersdal Sauvignon Blanc Reserve 2021.

Caption – Christiaan Matthys, De Wetshof farm-manager, with Shelly Fuller from the WWF in one of De Wetshof’s vineyards covered with indigenous flowers

De Wetshof Estate in Robertson is the first recipient of the WWF Conservation Pioneer Award, one of the accolades under the prestigious Great Wine Capitals Best of Wine Tourism and Wine Tourism Ambassador Awards. These awards, for 2022, were announced this week at Creation Winery in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley.

Top image: Erica Crawford, Loveblock Vineyards in New Zealand.

With the first Sauvignon Blanc Wine Tasting Test Match between South Africa and New Zealand poised on a knife edge, South Africa put in a superb showing in the final rounds, winning this unique competition with an average score of 90.4/100pts to the Kiwis’ 89.4/100. It was New Zealand, however, who produced the top scoring wines of the day with its Villa Maria Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2020 and Astrolabe Sauvignon Blanc 2020 topping the score-sheets with ratings of 93.4/100 and 93/100 respectively. South African winery Stark-Conde from Stellenbosch put in the best showing by a Cape wine with a commendable 92.8/100.

Featured image: Emile Joubert, from team South Africa.

Wine history will be made next week when South Africa and New Zealand square-up in the first Southern Sauvignon Blanc Encounter in Cape Town which sees the two countries’ best Sauvignon Blanc wines being judged to determine which nation can claim to be the king of this universally popular white grape.

Durbanville wine estate Diemersdal staked a place as one of the most successful producers in the history of the annual Absa Top 10 Pinotage Trophy awards by this year raking in its 10th Top 10 trophy. Diemersdal’s The Journal Pinotage 2019 was selected as one of the Top 10 winners in the prestigious annual competition, which was held for the 25th time.

The anticipated superb quality of the 2021 harvest in the Cape winelands is coming to fruition as this year’s wines are finding themselves released to the market. Neil Bruwer, winemaker at Chamonix Estate in Franschhoek, says that the estate’s Unoaked Chardonnay 2021, which was bottle last month and ready for distribution once the Covid-19 lockdown is over, is an indicator of the exceptional quality consumers can expect from this year’s wines.

Diemersdal, the Durbanville wine estate which has been under ownership of the Louw family for six generations, has become the first wine farm in the Durbanville wine region to achieve WWF Conservation Champion status. This unique wine initiative, managed by the World Wide Fund for Nature and unique to the Cape winelands, underscores the local wine industry’s commitment to conservation, the close relationship between wine farmers and their natural environment, and the indigenous natural setting where the country’s wines are made. 

Image caption: winemaker Lizelle Gerber.

The appointment of Lizelle Gerber as winemaker at Org de Rac brings a wealth of experience and an award-winning reputation to the cellar-team of Swartland’s best-known organic wine farm. Lizelle joins veteran Frank Meaker at the helm of exciting new developments at Org de Rac in the year in which the estate celebrates its 20 years of operation since founder, the late Nico Bacon, committed to pioneering organic wine farming on his Swartland farm.

All three wines in Diemersdal Estate’s The Journal range achieved Gold medals at this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards, recognised as one of the wine world’s most prestigious wine competitions which was held in London, this year for the 18th time. Decanter Gold medals went to Diemersdal’s The Journal Cabernet Sauvignon 2019, The Journal Pinotage 2019 and The Journal Sauvignon Blanc 2020. 

In its best showing at any South African wine competition to date, Diemersdal Estate in Durbanville was named Best Producer at this year’s Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show, which this year celebrates its 20th year as one of the countries leading wine awards ceremonies. Diemersdal came out at the top of the heap of the entries representing the finest the Cape has to offer, winning the Trophy for Best Pinotage with its Pinotage Reserve 2019 and Gold Medals for the Private Collection Bordeaux Blend 2017 and The Journal Cabernet Sauvignon 2018