Fleur du Cap washes its face

Launching two new wines from Fleur du Cap at the Wash House on the slopes of Table Mountain this lunch time makes total sense. With parent Distell part owned by SAB Miller who have just been bought by AB InBev for more than the national budget of South Africa, the corporate future is as uncertain as the trajectory of a pair of old socks in a tumble drier. But what is quite plain is the undoubted quality of wines being made by Wim Truter and his team.

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You didn’t need to be a paid up member of the Chenin Blanc Association of SA or UK wine commentator and CBA fly-in judge Jade Goodie to realize that the unfiltered Chenin 2014 was the wine of the day. Served with the dish of the day, fresh trout with buttered waterblommetjie broth and cocotte potatoes from Craig Cormack, the Master of Salt. This is a wine a Swartlander would give his top knot to have made: light and intense. Fresh and complex. The man who made it, Pieter Badenhorst, is the most unsung hero of the SA cellar.

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His 2011 Noble Chenin served with pud (“an ensemble of Cape delights”) was not too shabby, either. An unfiltered Pinotage 2014 confirmed that there is life in Abram Perold’s offspring yet, although for my money I’d rejig the Julius Lazlo red blend as flagship and drop the Merlot and Cabernet Franc, focusing rather on Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Petit Verdot as the quintessential Cape Blend. Pieter is the man with the vision and ability to take this interpretation forward.

Then AB InBev can sell the whole box ‘n dice to Bill Harlan for a billion Randelas.