South African wine has not come far enough, fast enough. For all the brave talk of fair trade grapes and black empowerment wine, South Africa’s vineyards are struggling. Exacerbating this are the glut of Cape wine and the bumper crops that have coincided with a recent drop in domestic sales and consumption.

A recent tasting of the five-star wines and runners-up in the 2008 John Platter Guide, widely regarded as the Cape’s crème de la crème, proved to be a cruddy, stomach-heaving and palate-crippling disappointment. Where there should have been oodles of the less-is-more elegance to which most top-drawer New World wine producers aspire, there was a plethora of ugly, burnt, murdererous 14.5 and 15 per cent brutes that were well nigh impossible to taste, let alone drink. Do not believe the pro-Cape tosh in other wine columns. Of the 63 wines I tasted, only 13 came through as winners. There may well have been fewer green, unripe flavours in the reds on show and marginally more fruit than in previous Platter collections, but South Africa’s tell-tale dirty, rubbery red wine pong was there in abundance.

The truth is that other New Worlders are happily mapping out their best soils, sites and micro-climates and working out which grapes do best where, complete even with official regional, village and sometimes single vineyard designations, modelled on the French system. By comparison South Africa has only just started on this terroir trail, and as such is decades behind. The Cape’s climate is consistently hot and sunny, but I am amazed at the lack of consistency even in its top wines and horrified by the country’s extortionately high average yield.

On the plus side the wines that shone at this tasting – and to be fair some of my favourite Cape wineries were excluded – were white wines, still South Africa’s strongest suit. Dry chenin blancs, zingy

sauvignon blancs, unusual white Cape blends and late-harvest stickies made from riesling and muscat grapes lived up to their stars, as did some chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon and a shiraz. Of those available here, scoop up: Ken Forrester’s delicious, creamy, smoky 2006 FMC Chenin Blanc (Waitrose, £17.99, and Swig, 020-8995 7060, £17); Vergelegen’s fine, spicy, tangy 2006 Prestige White Semillon-Sauvignon blend (Waitrose, £21.50); and Vergelegen’s ripe, curranty 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve (Majestic, £14.99, and Swig, £14.50). One fat, plummy, velvety, 15 per cent alcohol red I’d happily drain is Anthony de Jager’s 2005 Homtini Shiraz (Great Western Wine, 01225 322810, £12.95). Ditto Paul Cluver’s gorgeous, honeyed, yellow plum-packed 2006 Noble Late Harvest Riesling (Jeroboams, 020-7235 1612, £9.95 for a half bottle).

Seek ’em out; South Africa needs all the help it can get.

jane.macquitty@thetimes.co.uk

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