South African Airways (SAA) is celebrating 20 years of promoting South African wines and the local wine industry. Not only does this process offer producers a chance to interact with international and local experts, it’s also an opportunity to get their wines served on local, regional or international routes. This year over 1200 wines were entered, topping previous years. The wines are divided into categories and assessed over three days.
The judging panel consisted of South African judges Dave Hughes, Yegas Naidoo, Tariro Masayiti, Tatiana Marcetteau, Jabulani Ntshangase and Jörg Pfützner. The overseas component included Alessia Antinori (Italy), Bob Cartwright (Australia), Lynne Sherriff (UK), Bengt Kronstam (Sweden), John Avery (UK) and Benoit Marguet-Bonnerave (France).
The rigorous judging process identifies the best wines submitted which are then purchased and served on board SAA flights. The top wines in the final selection are ranked and will receive awards at the SAA annual Wine Awards in early November. The categories are top red, white, port and Methode Cap Classique.
The total amount of 750ml bottles of wine purchased for business class for 2006 was 285 000 (55% red and 45% white). For economy class 2 million 187ml bottles were bought, while SAA spent a total of R25 million on wine across all classes for 2006, which is an 11% increase on 2005.
A donation from each entry goes towards the South African Wine Industry Trust, a programme for young individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds who are passionate about pursuing a career in the wine industry.
A few important points were raised at the feedback session after the tasting, where members of the industry and the media had the opportunity to interact with the judges.
'Speaking from an onboard perspective as a consumer and someone who flies regularly it’s pleasing to be exposed to South African wines across the board. As judges we try to choose wines that capture the spirit of what we do here in the winelands,' explained Yegas Naidoo, one of SAA’s frequent flyers with Voyager Platinum status and a South African and UK Wine Master.* Overall the flight that most impressed her was red blends.
Alessia Antinori, (daughter of Marchese Piero Antinori, from the famous Italian wine family who have been involved in the wine business since 1385), agreed with Naidoo. 'This is my first time in South Africa, and it’s been a great experience,' she said enthusiastically. 'Being based in Tuscany in Chianti Classico we focus on red wines, especially Sangiovese, which can be hard and tannic on its own and is always blended. For this reason I was particularly interested in the red blends in this tasting. Some were quite green and tannic, unbalanced with too much oak. But others showed great promise,' she commented. Antinori recommends South Africa concentrates on red blends rather than single varietals.
John Avery, Chairman of Avery’s of Bristol in the UK, thought the blends were one of the best categories. 'I’m very much in favour of blends, if the idea is to make a better wine,' he commented.
When it came to single varietal reds, King Cab didn’t disappoint. Tatiana Marcetteau, Cape Town based sommelier, was impressed with the quality on offer. 'Cabernet Sauvignon was the biggest class with 68 wines. There was good typicity and the quality was definitely there. It’s just a pity that there were so few older vintages, with the bulk being 2004 and 2003,' she commented. Dave Hughes agreed that the Cab line-up compared extremely favourably with previous years.
When it came to the bubblies, who could be better qualified to comment than someone who hails from the birthplace of Champagne? Benoit Marguet-Bonnerave, technical and export director at Champagne Marguet-Bonnerave in France. This is his first visit to South Africa. 'We tasted 21 MCC’s, which were very impressive in terms of elegance and fruit. But I was perhaps expecting more complexity,' he commented.
Marguet-Bonnerave preferred the Pinot Noir Chardonnay blends rather than the mono-varietal examples. 'I expected aromatic, vegetal wines, but on the whole they were very elegant. It’s also very interesting to compare Champagnes (mainly Grand Cru from small to large producers) and how they fair so many thousands of miles away from home,' he added.
'Benoit says the bubbles in the wine go up in the Northern Hemisphere and in this part of the world they fizz to the side!' quipped Hughes. 'I thought MCC had something to do with cricket!' chuckled John Avery. 'Last year I was critical of the MCC’s, but this year the general standard was much better,' he added.
Bob Cartwright, an Australian wine industry legend, commented on the Chardonnays. 'There has been a general improvement in the Chardonnays in the last few years. This time there were a lot of very good honest wines, but you need to start looking at taking them to a higher level. Some showed too much malo-lactic fermentation and some of the oak needs finessing in cases where the oak dominated over the fruit. But all these things can be easily corrected and aren’t a major problem,' he explained. 'The sweeter styles may have commercial appeal, but producers should aim for a drier style if they want to strive for elegance, structure and finesse.'
Jabulani Ntshangase, MD of Thabani Wines and wine connoisseur, was most taken by the Shiraz class and the overall improvement that has taken place over the years. 'As a category Shiraz has become much broader, second largest after Cab, and the styles were quite varied,' he said. Ntshangase recommends more blending on the Shiraz to add complexity.
For Nederburg white wine maker Tariro Masayiti the highlight was the Sauvignon Blancs. 'Sauvignon Blanc is by far the most exciting class to taste in any competition. In this tasting there was a fair amount of 2005 but the majority was 2006. There has been a huge improvement. In the past they were one dimensional and green with high acidity. This year the wines demonstrated complexity, and there was a nice balance between your greener pyrazene flavours and the more tropical flavours, and good acidity. If this is the overall indication of quality, brace yourselves for what’s to come,' said Masayiti.
Having visited South Africa a number of times Bengt Kronstam, Swedish wine writer, agrees with Masayiti that producers are raising the bar when it comes to this variety. 'Sauvignon Blanc was much better than before when they were too green and aromatic,' he commented. Kronstam also praised the Chardonnays, but was a bit disappointed in the Pinotage. 'The good were very good, but the bad ... ' he inferred delicately.
'Pinotage, the variety some love to love and some love to hate! Although it has polarized opinion in the past there’s been a huge improvement,' said Lynne Sherriff, an SA and UK wine master and independent wine consultant now based in London. Some were still tannic and green, but 'there were a helluva lot of superb Pinotages' she explained. A few wines had been blended with other varieties to add another dimension. 'We can’t forget that Pinotage is a USP for South Africa, a bit like Sangiovese for Italy. Look after it, this is something we can do!' she advised.
'In general there was some excessive oak, making for some bitterness. But overall the wines had good commercial quality and the levels of ‘brett’ have declined,' commented Cape Town based sommelier Jörg Pfützner. He would have preferred more peaks in terms of authenticity and originality, adding that there was a fair amount of similarity. One other variety that stood out for John Avery was Cabernet Franc, with some examples proving to be softer than the Cabs.
Issues such as the worldwide increase of wines under screw cap and the demand for bag in the box also drew comment.
A recommendation for producers to take care when bottling their 187ml wines for SAA came from Hughes. 'Be careful and don’t merely reduce the 750ml bottle’s label. It becomes too small to read. Forget about the tiny print on the back, nobody cares who Jan van Riebeeck slept with!' he advocates.
Smaller bottles also have a shorter shelf life so producers should bottle on demand and the airline must monitor their stock rotation vigilantly. 'Make sure your wines stay fresh and friendly,' advised Hughes.
According to Jacqui O’Sullivan, Head of Corporate Communication and CSI for SAA, the airline is placing increasing focus on food and wine pairing in the form of public tastings, to ensure the selected wines complement passengers’ menus.
*The WineNews editorial team has subsequently learned that Ms Yegas Naidoo is neither a CWM or MW as stated in this article. The author made use of information supplied in the official SAA press release, which reads 'Yegas is a South African and UK Wine Master'. We regret any confusion it may have caused.