In today’s episode, I have a conversation with Alex Dale, founder of Radford Dale, an innovative winery in the western cape territory of South Africa. We explore South African winemaking discussing its origins and its post-Apartheid transformation to become a leading new world region. We’ll taste three wines from our collection and hear detailed flavor notes, behind-the-bottle stories, and, of course, perfect pairings.
Ever wanted to get the skinny on South African wines? We share everything you need to know in a special one-hour episode about winemaking in the western cape.
In this episode, hear a conversation with Alex Dale, founder of Radford Dale, an innovative winery in the western cape territory of South Africa. We explore South African winemaking discussing its origins and its post-Apartheid transformation to become a leading new world region. During the discussion, we hear a lot about the regions of Stellenbosch and Swartland while tasting three of his wines from our collection: Renaissance Chenin Blanc, Granite Ridge Pinotage, and the soon-to-be-released Black Rock Red Blend.
Our Burgundian-trained guest talks about his decision to move to South Africa in the 90s. Known for pioneering many social upliftment practices previously unthinkable in that nation and introducing wine growers in the cape to the revolution of organic practices beginning to take hold in Europe, Alex also shares a few entertaining vineyard trade secrets with our listeners. He walks us through the nature of the geology, climate, and other influences on winemaking in the cape and gives us a deep dive into predominant varietals in the region.
At Wine Insiders, we love South African wines because they offer a rare opportunity for world-class taste at affordable prices, so we know you'll enjoy hearing from our very special guest, Alex Dale, what to look for and how best to enjoy these excellent new world wines with old-world style.
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In today’s episode, I have a conversation with Alex Dale, founder of Radford Dale, an innovative winery in the western cape territory of South Africa. We explore South African winemaking discussing its origins and its post-Apartheid transformation to become a leading new world region. We’ll taste three wines from our collection and hear detailed flavor notes, behind-the-bottle stories, and, of course, perfect pairings.
South African Sips Outline
Kristin:
From Wine Insiders, this is Sniff Sip Repeat—a monthly podcast for lively discussions all about wine. In each episode, we’ll be speaking with industry experts from vineyards and tasting rooms to restaurants and retail to give you a little inspiration for what to pour next.
I’m your host, Kristin. I’ve worked in the wine industry for many years now and I’m excited to bring my conversations with peers directly to you.
Are you ready? Let’s take a sip.
My guest today is Alex Dale, founder of Radford Dale, an innovative winery in the western cape territory of South Africa. I’m humbled by the opportunity to talk with such an legend and am excited to share with you Alex’s very unique journey and vision.
More than 25 years ago Alex uprooted himself from a golden opportunity in Burgundy, France to move to post-apartheid South Africa where he committed himself to creating an entirely new model of wine business inclusive of black Africans and dedicated to more sustainable agriculture and viticulture. Not only did he pioneer more natural techniques in the vineyards, but Alex reinvested profits back into his workers creating a fund for the education of the children of employees. He is shy to talk about the opportunities he creates for others, but he’s more than happy to talk about wine and trebuchets. So let’s get chatting.
Kristin:
Welcome to the Show, Alex! Thank you so much for joining me today.
Alex:
I’m absolutely stoked to be here.
Kristin:
You have one of the more inspiring stories in the wine industry that I’ve ever heard, so I can’t wait to talk about it. Before we go into what brought you to South Africa though I wanted to talk a little bit about your early experiences in winemaking. I’m always curious how people get started.
Alex:
It’s quite an easy start because I had no choice really. I’m fourth generation in the wine industry, so since the day I was born I was in the potion. Everything in my family’s existence was around wine from restaurants to wine merchants, to importing, journalists, you name it. Every facet of the industry, my family were in there. It just came very naturally and I actually never had any intention to get into wine. You know, when you’re a teenager you want to do everything to annoy your parents and not do what they do. I didn’t intend to get involved, but I managed to--I was at boarding school at Oxford and I was a bit rebellious and was very happy to find an excuse to miss a six week term by doing a vintage in Burgundy with family friends.
In fact, one of the reasons I left that school prematurely was because I was busted for having a wine merchant racket going on. At the age of 15—even in the U.K.—that’s forbidden. I was making pocket money by selling wine which I’d bring from my father’s seller at home, twice a term. So I left there and went to Burgundy, did Dijon University for three years, and followed that with a post-grad course at Beaune Wine College and I also had a wine bar and a pub in Beaune in the middle of Beaune in Burgundy, which I ran for eight years whilst also working for one of the most reputed and wonderful wine families. I was learning so much and it was such an amazing environment. And to be accepted by the Burgundians as one of them and to be included in everything and learn every day and just drink amazing wines. It was magnificent. I was so lucky. I really was. I just fell in it.
Kristin:
That’s fantastic. Can I ask which family or is it better to keep it a mystery?
Alex:
Sure. No, not at all. It was the Drouhin family.
Kristin:
Oh, okay.
Alex:
Robert Drouhin. I’m still very good friends with the Drouhin family. Veronique Drouhin, who obviously makes wine in Oregon at DDO, Domaine Drouhin Oregon. She’s one of my oldest friends. We’re still in very close contact even to this day. I was very fortunate to work for them. Amazing family. Very historic. Beautiful vineyard holdings. Great place to start your wine life.
Kristin:
Absolutely. It’s such an amazing opportunity. It makes it all the more impressive that you chose to leave. I’ve heard you talk about your decision to move to South Africa and I’m just curious—what made you make such a big decision being so integrated in Burgundy, which to some people would be the most amazing opportunity possible for a winemaker? How you felt the confidence, I guess, to move all the way around the world to create a completely different business that some people might argue at that time was…risky.
Alex:
At that time was risky? My goodness.
Kristin:
Am I understating it?
Alex:
Risky is a euphemism. I must say, a complete understatement.
I had good friends in Stellenbosch. And the daughter of the owner who is today the owner, a very good friend of mine, Tanya, she was studying at Beaune wine school and so she would come into my pub and wine bar regularly. We became very good friends. And she said “Alex, come and do a vintage with us? It’s in February. What are you going to do in Burgundy in February?”
And Burgundy in February it is beyond freezing. I mean, it’s brutally cold, so I was like “Ok, no one is going to know.” I didn’t really think South Africa was going to be of interest to me because at that time it was still Apartheid. I’d always followed Mandela and the ANC struggle and the Free Mandela movement and the idea of going to an Apartheid state didn’t really attract me and she said “Well, it’s changing. It’s not what it’s made out to be.” She said “It’s like Northern Ireland for the Brits. You know, it’s not what it’s made out to be in the press. You only hear the really bad stuff, but it’s not like that on the ground.”
And I had thought if I’m going to do this I’ll probably go to Australia or New Zealand, you know, somewhere like that first, but she convinced me. I got on a plane and I did my first vintage in South Africa in 1990, February 1990. And you know, when I got to South Africa I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was this picture-postcard-perfect landscapes. Oceans, mountains and pristine greenery. And I just couldn’t believe this pocket of perfection—this paradisical landscape-existed and you know it was cut off from the rest of the planet, literally.
Anyway, so I really enjoyed it here and I didn’t understand before getting here how amazingly diverse the geology is here. How many different types of climates there are because of the geographic nature of being sandwiched between two oceans, but the complexity of all of the potential here was amazing and yet we were only scratching the surface because there was no exporting. There were probably two dozen wineries that bottle their own wine. The rest was all cooperatives and big bag in box rubbish.
And so, it occurred to me that this country that had been making wine for 350 years with this incredible geology had a potential that was untapped and that when Apartheid would finish, the rest of the world would open up to it. And this great wine nation would have a place and a role to play in the world of wine globally.
And it occurred to me each year that I came back—so I did six vintages in a row—it occurred to me that I had become quite knowledgeable about South Africa over those six vintages. So I thought I could really add something to this emerging industry in South Africa once Apartheid finished because I wouldn’t move to South Africa until then. So Mandela was also released in 1990 and then the first free elections happened in 1994, the 27th of April 1994.
And the day that Nelson Mandela was elected President—so it took three days to count the vote. You know all about it taking a bit long to count votes in America.
Kristin:
Oh, we know all about that.
Alex:
It took three whole days in 1994 and on the 30th of April I gave in my resignation in Burgundy and I have to serve my three months-notice. I took a month to go around France and say goodbye to all my buddies and drink lots of great wines. And then I shipped out. I came to South Africa with a couple of suitcases, a spare room in my friend’s house. And that was that.
I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do. You know, I didn’t have a lot of money. I was 28 years old., but I had a lot of ideas and I had a lot of energy and a great deal of enthusiasm and a network that existed. So in fact, I put myself in the right place at the right time. It’s as simple as that.
Kristin:
Wow. I didn’t realize that it was somewhat gradual in that you did that many harvests before you came. So upon arrival were you at the vineyard that you had done harvests or what was the next step?
Alex:
No, not there at all, but they remain some of my closest friends. So no. I wanted to do my own thing. I also wanted to do something that would be a new direction compared to what existed in South Africa before the end of Apartheid. There was no export, it was a few big companies controlling the market. It was predominantly to the benefit of white people. There wasn’t much or any opportunity for people of color previously.
So all of these things I had in my mind that I wanted to be part of a new direction for South Africa and a far more inclusive dynamic, which may sound very hip today however it certainly wasn’t 25 years ago. It was going against the grain and it wasn’t without it’s challenges, but what we’ve achieved and what we’ve done made me realize that it was one of those things in my life and in my career that I got right from the beginning. Most of what I do—I make lots of mistakes and become very wise after a long time—but that was one of the things I got right and I never looked back. It’s been, we’ve done a lot of things and I know we’re going to talk about a couple of them.
Kristin:
Well, I really would like to talk about them because it interests me both because I think it’s a wonderful story, but also I’m studying sustainability. In class we talk a lot about something called the triple bottom line and it’s this belief that companies really should commit to focusing not just on profit, but on social and environmental concerns.
And you want to make quality wines with a conscience. And your vineyards I know are accredited for environmental, ethical, and social-upliftment practices. Not everyone knows what that means. It would be really great now to talk about what that means in practice for you at the vineyards and how you got there. Were you there day one or how long did it take?
Alex:
So just as a preface to this conversation—all of the things that we do, we do because we think they’re right. We’ve never used them for Marketing. If this were a normal wine tasting gig, we’d just be tasting the wines and talking about the wines. People don’t necessarily ask me about this type of background and I don’t bring it up.
Kristin:
Ok. Is it okay that I’m asking--
Alex:
Absolutely.
Kristin:
It’s just that I’m so inspired by it.
Alex:
It’s always out back story, it’s never our front story. When I arrived in South Africa it was basically a blank canvas. I was starting a new enterprise. I was starting a new life, essentially. So I decided whatever I did I wanted to do for the right reasons and not the least given the social history of South Africa. It was literally just emerging from it. Nelson Mandela, my hero, had just become President.
When it came to viticulture I worked with growers that existed. I didn’t buy land. My model was to try and find producers who had vineyards in excellent locations. And I was interested, rather like in Burgundy, working in small parcels of vineyards in different geologies and different sub-climates and meso-climates.
So I set out to find growers, or farmers as they’re called here, who I could work with. It needed to be people with a certain mentality and that were malleable because they weren’t used to the rest of the planet. They weren’t used to ideas from outside and they certainly weren’t used to the ideas that I was bringing. Working with organic practices was unheard of then whereas in Burgundy it was the beginning of the revolution of everything turning to what they call “bio” in French. So, organics. I couldn’t kick off with organic viticulture at first, but the idea of what in French they call “la lutte raisonnée” the intelligent fight is when you use nature against nature.
So for an example, one of the things we’ve done in the vineyard since the beginning and we co-manage with the owners, with our growers, is for example when we plant new vineyards the saplings are very juicy and the wildlife—we work in areas where there is a lot of natural wildlife—so the buck for example, we have lots of different types of buck. They come and eat the saplings because it’s juicy. They find it nourishing. So what do you do?
Traditionally, you just shoot the buck, right? So what we decided is, one of the things I introduced was we would try and find a natural way to get the same result to get rid of the buck without hurting them whilst keeping them within the habitat, in fact. So a friend of one of my employees had a doggie beautician parlor in Stellenbosch. It was ten minutes-drive away. And everybody likes wine—or most people like wine—so we would swap a couple of bottles of wine for a bunch of doggie hair, which they would be throwing away. So we get the doggie hair and we put it in bags you buy onions in. So you put hair in them then you put them around the perimeter of the young vineyard and of course the smell of the dog repels the buck, so it’s as simple as that. It costs a couple of bottles of wine and you don’t have to kill anything.
Kristin:
That’s amazing!
Alex:
Another thing we did very early on because it costs absolutely nothing, one of the things I asked them to do was take a couple of blocks of parcels of vineyard that we could manage to show them different techniques. And they were happy to do that because I guaranteed the income, but I said “Listen, this is the first thing that I want you to do. No herbicides and no pesticides.” And they were like, “crazy.” So “one of the things I want you to do is put up perching posts.” So wooden posts that raptors, so eagles, buzzards, owls can use just to perch on…to relax…hang out. And by doing this—it costs nothing because it just posts wood. It costs absolutely nothing. And to put them scattered around these parcels, we attracted all the raptors and buzzards and what have you and low and behold guess what they did? They feed off the vermin that are burrowing in the vineyards and eating the vineyard grapes.
So, normally what they had been doing, which most people did then and a lot of people still do, they just spray pellets, which are poison pellets through the vineyard. So you actually put poison in the vineyard. So first of all you have to pay for the poison. Secondly, you have to use a tractor, so you have to buy a tractor. Thirdly, you have to have an employee to do it, so you have to pay labor. And fourthly, you’ve got to pay for the fuel. So you have all of these costs just to put poison in your land. So we put these wooden posts up and it took care of all the rodents in the vineyard with no extra input.
Not only did we guarantee them their revenue, which is more than they would earn normally, but they halved their costs, which put money in their pocket immediately. So, then the light went on. So, this is what you do. You build up these practices by showing people that it’s possible because if you say it on paper they are not going to do it. They don’t believe it. If they see it for themselves and it puts money in their pocket that that’s all they want to do.
Kristin:
I love it. I feel like we could talk about this all day, but I feel like we should also taste some wine. But I could hear these stories all day. I saw—I’m not sure if you’ve seen—a little side note—I’m not sure if you’ve seen the movie, I think it’s called Biggest Little Farm? There’s a couple that moved out of L.A. They started a farm and the entire movie is about stories like that. About how you use nature to your advantage. They let ducks roam through their fields to eat snails.
Alex:
Nature is the most powerful thing. When you’re working in agriculture the most powerful thing is nature. If you as a human being try and take on nature every day and you spend your resources whether it’s your personal energy, your time, your staff, your inputs—if you do everything you can to try and outsmart nature, you’re stupid. If you do everything you can to put all of your energy into working with nature, you’ve got a massive force behind you helping you. You just have to get into that shift, that mindshift and to have the confidence to do it.
Kristin:
It’s such a wonderful philosophy and I believe it. It’s so inspiring to hear someone who knows it who works the land who talks about it.
Alex:
It’s exactly the same with people. It’s exactly the same with people. If you spend your time being awkward and nasty and demotivating people and belittling people, you know, how much are you going to get out of them? If you lead by example and you inspire people and you motivate people and you reward them, what do you get out of them? It doesn’t matter who they are, you know? It’s common sense. All it is is common sense.
Kristin:
Absolutely, I love it. Well, said. I really would love to talk about it for another hour, but I do feel we should taste some wine. Before we taste them, for people who do not know much about South Africa I wanted to talk about the regions where your regions are first and then talk about the wine. It appears your vineyards are in the western cape, so you could you talk a little bit for people who don’t know what that means.
Alex:
Before we get to the western cape I’ve learned that Americans are geographically challenged.
Kristin:
We are, we are. So, we always think of things in terms of relative sizes to Texas, I feel like—everyone I know. So it’s either as big as Texas or smaller than Texas or half the size of Texas. But South Africa, I understand, is almost twice as big as Texas. That’s impressive!
Alex:
Well, it is, it is a big country. It’s nowhere near as big as America, but it is a big country. If you know where the continent of Africa is it’s the bit at the bottom. So, within the bit at the bottom which is South Africa, the furthest, southernmost tip of South Africa is the cap or what we call the western cape. And the wine regions, because it’s not one wine region—it’s like you have Oregon, you have California, you have all different wine regions in America across on the east coast etc. I think most states now have wine regions. Likewise in South Africa there’s lots of different wine regions, but the western cape is the main wine-producing region by a long stretch. It’s probably 95% of the entire production of South Africa and it’s that area that hugs the southwest tip of Africa. So, if you were to drive from one extremity to the other within that as far as vineyards are concerned you could drive ten hours from one end of the vineyard to the other and you would go through probably 15 different wine regions in the process.
Kristin:
It’s far bigger than I realized.
Alex:
The next stop is the south pole.
Kristin:
Antarctica is not far.
Alex:
The Benguela Current takes the ice cold water of the South Pole and channels it up past the west coast of South Africa, so the water there is very cold. We may have 100 degrees on land, but the water will be close to freezing in the summer. So, it’s a very interesting dynamic and that, of course, creates very cool winds that come across the vineyards. That in and of itself is very important. But then if you cut diagonally across the cape and go out to the southeast you’re in the Indian Ocean. It’s the beginning of the Indian Ocean actually. Technically speaking, it’s the end of the Atlantic and just about the beginning of the Indian Ocean, so the waters there are mixing. The water is much warmer because the Indian Ocean goes past the Seychelles and Mauritius and Madagascar and that’s warm water. And then you’ve got mountains and whenever you’ve got mountains you’ve got a thousand different soil types and different orientations and different gullies and rises, which all give different results with different vines, so it’s a myriad of possibilities. It’s extraordinary.
Kristin:
I feel like we should jump into the wine, ok?
Alex:
Let’s do it.
Kristin:
So, one of the first wines I wanted to talk about was Radford Dale Renaissance Chenin Blanc. So, Chenin Blanc, much like you, has a history in France and then came to South Africa. But I know that even though it is originally a French grape, I believe it’s considered a signature grape in South Africa because it’s so planted there. So, could you talk about it as a local grape?
Alex:
So, the Loire valley is the ancestral home of the Chenin Blanc grape. You never see the Chenin name on a label. You see the appellation, you see the name of the village, but never the name of the grape. So, it’s one of those grapes that’s not well known by name, but the two white grapes of the Loire are Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc.
So, South Africa—in 1659 our first wine was made and that was a Chenin Blanc. And those were cuttings which came from France. At the time the cape was a very small colony on the tip of Africa. The Dutch were the ones that colonized it. And it was between Europe and the Spice Islands in Asia and it was a refueling station and so that is how it came to be colonized by Europeans. And so wine was part of European culture. So Chenin Blanc, to get to your point, it’s an industrious grape. It’s a grape which is very versatile, very flexible, it grows well under many different circumstances. So, it’s one of those grapes that just naturally taken to the environment here.
There’s all sorts of grapes that are planted here, but because it’s over hundreds of years—we’ve been making wine here for 365 years—because it’s just naturally adapted so well to our conditions here it’s being planted everywhere. So, whether in the hotter areas, because we’ve got some savanna areas which are planted to grapes, we’ve got mountain areas, we’ve got plain areas, we’ve got all sorts of different regions and topographies and climates and it just works. It’s just taken to our climate.
And, you know, even when I got here in the 1990s you’d go to these cooperative vineyards that were so neglected, so badly run, they got so little return, of course they put any effort into them, but walking through those vineyards tasting the Chenin Blanc from these old bush vines—no trellising, just growing out of the earth completely neglected—I marveled at how even in those conditions the Chenin Blanc consistently always tasted good. And it occurred to me immediately and in those first six years when I was doing vintages here before I moved here, it occurred to me that Chenin Blanc had found a natural equilibrium with nature in South Africa.
So, of course, when I moved here and I started my own wine business, subsequently my own winery, what was I going to start with? I was going to start with the grape that had found its greatest balance in nature rather than trying to make a wine or a style that I would really have to work hard to achieve and work against nature. For example, we don’t make a single Sauvignon Blanc because I think it’s a weed whereas Chenin Blanc I simply adore! I’ve grown to love it. The estate where we’re based, I ripped those—the first thing I did was I ripped out the Sauvignon Blanc and we planted Chenin.
I like mineral Chenins, I like dry Chenins, I like Chenins that have that freshness and acidity and balance and they have a grip and they have potential. You know, some you can drink bracing and young and they’re frivolous and some are super specialized like the Renaissance Chenin Blanc which is from 52-year-old bush vines—gnarly old bush vines that have never been irrigated on the top of a mountain with quartz and granite and you know, these very mineral-style wines and they will age for decades.
You guys have from time to time our Vinum Chenin Blanc.
Kristin:
Yeah! The Vinum is both a customer favorite, I believe, and it won the Sommelier Challenge in 2020.
Alex:
And that’s a far less complex wine. It’s incredibly well-priced, but extremely high quality. And that’s one of the things I love about South Africa. Because our costs are not the same as California or Champagne or Burgundy, there is no reason why we can’t produce world class wines at very affordable prices. Frankly, you can get extraordinarily good wines from South Africa—anything from $15 to $40—you can get remarkable world class wines.
Kristin:
So if somebody’s gonna pour—somebody that’s listening is going to pour a glass of the Chenin Blanc what do you say are the primary flavor notes. How would you describe it?
Alex:
Flavor-wise, it depends how old the wine or young it is because it’s the type of wine you can age for easily twenty years. You can drink it when it’s 2 or 3 years old. When it’s 2 or 3 years old it tends to be very mineral when you open it and sort of quite tight. It can be a little bit abrasive, if you like, but if you allow it to breathe for a little bit, then the fruit side of it—yellow fruits, and quince, some floral notes, those type of characteristics, even some honeysuckle, can come out quite quickly. In only half an hour you can release those types of notes. But if you open the bottle, pour it and drink it then you’re going to miss out on that completely.
It’s important not to serve the wine too cold. If you serve white wines too cold, you don’t taste any of the flavors, in fact. In this country, as it’s a hot climate, people tend to serve the wine too cold. So, don’t fall into that trap with a wine like Renaissance. It’s fine to do that with your box-standard Sauvignon Blanc. You probably don’t want to taste it—you don’t want to taste the Sauvignon Blanc. It’s has a function and it’s to go down your throat.
So, yeah, so first of all, don’t serve it too cold. And then some of the characteristics, you know—I’ve heard somebody, I’ve heard many people actually over the years when I show them our wines blind, say “my goodness it tastes like fine white Burgundy”. There’s some citrus to it, there is some biscuity characteristic because it’s been fermented and matured in barrels, but it’s not vanilla and it’s not really heavy oak, nothing like that, but it’s there in the background because it did spend its entire life in older barrels. So that you have that complexity of that biscuity-ness, again which comes out with a little oxygen. You need to prepare it. It’s like a stew and it’s better on the second day, right? So with the Renaissance you need to either decant it or drink half the bottle and put the rest back in your fridge and come back to it in four days later and you’ll see an unrecognizably different wine. You’ll see the burst of flavors that you’ll not see when you’ve just open it and pour it.
Kristin:
That’s great. I actually don’t know if I’ve ever heard anybody suggest that before, in terms of several days later. I mean, definitely, we suggest that people decant sometimes and for white we sometimes say if you don’t have a wine fridge pull it out—twenty minutes later, then it’s ready. That’s interesting. Okay! I’m going to try that. I’m going to pour half of it, I’m going to have half in the bottle then try it in four days.
Alex:
When you’re a consumer you buy a bottle of wine and you drink it, whether it’s immediately or two days, whatever, you put it in the fridge. I tend to open half a dozen bottles at any given time and then put them back in the fridge or I put a really cool walk-in cellar in my home, so I put them in there. Most handcrafted wines never tasted their best when you crack them open. They need a little bit of oxygen, whether it’s decanting for an hour or two or whether it’s taking a glass or two out of the bottle and leaving the rest in your fridge for a few days. It will make a huge difference and you’ll increase your enjoyment.
Kristin:
I know this is a great wine to just sip for happy hour, for example, and it doesn’t need food, but do you have a pairing you suggest?
Alex:
Yeah, I mean, like I said Chenin is very, very versatile, so it actually goes with a lot of different things. When it’s younger and more mineral, you know, Crustracea. In South Africa, one of the great things here I think I mentioned is oysters, so if you like oysters or that type of thing. I don’t like oysters, but I do like game fish. So, we have amazing fish in South Africa—yellowtail, things like that, sort of white fleshy fish. That cooked on a barbecue with briars, we call it here.
Kristin:
Briars?
Alex:
Yeah. Those are some of my favorite things, but if you like spicy foods. So, Chenin goes really well with anything that’s got spice in it. Even a curry.
Kristin:
I was just going to ask if Indian was a good pairing because I sometimes do Riesling with Indian food, so, okay.
Alex:
Anything spicy is very good with it, but my absolute favorite with this wine—and I think it surprises people—is at the end of the meal with hard cheese.
Kristin:
Oh okay.
Alex:
Even something simple like cheddar. My favorite is Comté, which is from the Jura region of France. Any hard, Swiss cheese, whatever. Hard cheese with a great Chenin Blanc at the end of a meal or even on its own with a piece of bread at lunchtime. White wines and cheese go really well. It’s a complete fallacy that you need red wine with cheese.
Kristin:
Okay. Another wine I definitely want to talk about today is Pinotage. We have one in our collection that is 100% Pinotage and I wanted to talk about it because Pinotage is distinctly South African. It didn’t come from somewhere else. It was created there. Could you talk for a little bit for people who don’t know the varietal why it is so South African and then a little bit about what to expect?
Alex:
Okay, so, yes. You’re correct. It is a South African grape. Most of the wines grown in South Africa, most of the varieties, are from France. There’s very few non-French varietals. There’s a little bit of Italian, a tiny bit of Greek, but essentially our entire industry is based on French wine. It’s very much like California, historic.
In 1925, so during the 1920s, South Africa’s first true viticulture scientist, a gentleman called Professor Abraham Perold, was experimenting is his laboratory at Stellenbosch University with different varieties and trying to come up with new varieties—he would cross one with another—to try and find uniquely South African varieties for vines which were hearty that would thrive in the heat and needed less water, so he was very forward thinking in that era. And he made all sorts of different crosses. And one of the things that he tried, which was quite obscure, he took Pinot Noir and crossed it with Cinsault. So, Cinsault is from the south of France. It’s one of the grapes that you get in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, for example. So, Southern Rhône predominantly and then the Languedoc, a much hotter area. And he crossed it with Pinot Noir, which is obviously a cool climate grape, which is a very strange thing to have done, but he did. And he created this new thing called Pinotage. Now, the reason it was called Pinotage is because Cinsault in South Africa was erroneously known as Hermitage, so Pinot Noir crossed with Hermitage became Pinotage, but it is in fact the Cinsault grape and not Hermitage.
So Pinotage was born from this experiment in his lab in 1925 and it was planted. It thrived. And so it became planted. It was one of the red grapes that was planted in South Africa. Not to the same degree as Chenin Blanc. So, Chenin Blanc was about a third of the entire vineyard of South Africa because it was also used for spirit production. Pinotage, I think, at its height it’s never gone more than 6% of the vineyard. It is one of the grapes, so don’t make the mistake of thinking that its most of what South Africa produces. It is not.
Now, I call it the angry grape. Because it’s one of those grapes that eternally in a bad mood. And what happens if you treat anyone that it’s in a bad mood? If you treat it with disrespect or if you treat it badly, guess what? The bad mood doesn’t get any better. So a lot of Pinotage is what I call angry wine. It’s—the grape itself—although it’s made from two lighter varieties has the thickened skin of any grape you’ve ever seen. And if you screw with nature you get monsters, right? So, the Pinotage grape is very thick skinned, very tannic, very bitter. When you’re making red wine you macerate the wine in the skins usually, which means all that tannin all that bitterness and what have you gets into the wine, so Pinotage can be very disagreeable when it’s badly made. It can have all these weird, plastic-y, tannic, bitter, smoky flavors and it’s given Pinotage a bad name. And in America people tend to like red wines which are riper, fruitier, softer and anything with more tannins tends to be difficult at the best of times, so if you come along with an awkward Pinotage, you know, people are not going to like it. And Pinotage has a bad name.
Now, you’ve started to understand a little bit about how we approach things. We try and work with the grape to its strengths. So what are the strengths of the grape? We’ve discovered that if you don’t work in a heavy-handed manner, if you don’t prod the bear—and if you stroke the grape, and you tickle it’s underbelly and you talk nice to it, you’d be surprised how wonderful a result that can have on the wine that you make. It took many years and a lot of skepticism on my behalf and input from my team and we came up with a technique which is actually, traditionally from the Beaujolais area of France where they work with a light-skinned grape and they do everything they can to make a pretty, light wine. And I so thought, why don’t we work with this awkward grape. Let’s try a technique to try and make a soft, lighter style of wine and so we adopted a fermentation technique called whole berry fermentation, technically carbonic maceration, where in fact when you pick the bunches you don’t crush them at all. All of our wines all of our grapes are picked by hand, doesn’t matter whether it’s Chenin, Chardonnay or Pinot, or whatever—everything we do is picked by hand so we don’t damage the grapes. Then we take the grapes and we remove the stems without puncturing the grape and rather than crushing them and releasing the juice and then macerating on the skin what we do is we allow a natural fermentation to occur, you know it takes a few days, and it ferments inside the berry itself. So it’s an old-fashioned technique and it’s zero manipulation, which means the juice doesn’t come into contact with the outside of the skin where all that hard tannin and dryness and weird flavors are. We then very gently press the mass, if you like, and we release the juice and so this free run juice from this gravitational pressing that you get are much lighter in color, they’re much softer and more fruit driven and they don’t have all the angular tannins and the harshness that you would associate with the grape. And so it’s worked incredibly well for us.
So our Pinotage—you know, you guys buy it regularly—it will always be Pinotage, so there’s always going to be a little bit of dryness, there’s always going to be a nod to its natural character and I like that. I embrace that. I don’t want to turn it into something it isn’t. It is definitely a Pinotage, but we have this lovely, suave, seductive side to it as well which is very engaging. And then it has a lovely acidity and for me acidity is not a bad word at all. In fact, it’s the most positive word because what does acidity bring you in wine? It’s brings you refreshing character. For me, all wines should be refreshing. It’s a drink, first and foremost wine is a drink.
So our Pinotage is very pretty, it’s very engaging, it’s one of those wines you can chill slightly. I like to chill it a little bit. Not fridge cold, but, you know, leave it out of the fridge for a half an hour. And whether it’s in the summer or autumn time or fall, as you call it, whatever, it’s a very, very easy drinking, pretty red wine. And red wines should be pretty as well. I want to make a pretty red wine.
Kristin:
I am a red wine drinker. I agree. I am more of a red wine drinker. If you had to give it a few flavor notes, it’s one of the plum wines, right? Like, there’s a plum flavor to it, right?
Alex:
Yeah, I would definitely go more into the darker fruits. It wouldn’t be strawberry or raspberry, plum is a very good description. You can get dark cherry sometimes, not the lighter red cherries, but the darker, sort of black cherries. Those are very definitely the predominant fruit notes you could expect from our style of Pinotage.
Kristin:
This one I think you could drink without food, but if you were going to have food is there a perfect pairing?
Alex:
Yeah, there’s lots of things it goes with. We outside a lot living in the climate we do, so we do briars or barbecues all the time. So, any meat that’s cooked on a grill over a fire really likes the association with the little bit of dryness in this characteristic Pinotage. Saltier style meats, so pork as an example. Even lamb is fantastic. One of my favorite things with it is a burger.
Kristin:
Oh that’s great!
Alex:
Even something that’s cooked over a fire, like a pizza! Pizza with Pinotage if it’s got salami or some sort of meat on it, it’s absolutely fantastic.
Kristin:
Those are two really good American pairings. I like that because we’re getting to—as I said—our summer is not here, yet. We’re getting to that, so this will be a good Memorial Day barbecue suggestion.
Alex:
The ultimate thing to have with it is wild boar.
Kristin:
Wild boar? Ok.
Alex:
It’s a pork related meat. Wild boar with Pinotage is actually sublime.
Kristin:
I have to admit I’ve never had wild boar. I go to Hawaii a lot, I’ve been to a lot of luaus, but tell me—is there such a thing as a wild boar briar in South Africa? Is that something you would cook outside and do a…
Alex:
We have all sorts of different game in South Africa, as you can imagine. I think what we find here mostly is buck, deer or venison. Wild boar is more associated with northeastern France and Belgium and places like that.
Kristin:
Oh!
Alex:
It’s funny, the older a Pinotage becomes–and Pinotage ages incredibly well, some of the best Pinotage I’ve ever tasted are from the seventies, they age incredibly well—the older they get the more indistinguishable they become from Pinot Noir. I’ve actually served in France, with friends of mine who are grape producers or wine producers in Burgundy, I’ve served old Pinotage with Filet de marcassin, which is wild boar with morilles, which is morel mushrooms. I’ve served it and they’ve all picked it as Burgundy. They’ve just assumed it was a Burgundy.
Kristin:
Ah, like a blind tasting. Judgment of Paris style!
Alex:
I do that every year.
Kristin:
Fantastic.
I spend a month in Burgundy every year. I didn’t last year for obvious reasons, but since I left Burgundy I spend at least a month a year and I always take wine back. I quite like to bring them out blind in a meal and see what people think.
Kristin:
I love it. Fantastic. I love that Pinotage. We also have a new wine that is going to be added to the collection, so I know nothing about it, but I’m excited to hear about it. Radford Dale’s Black Rock Red Blend, is that what it’s called?
Alex:
The Black Rock comes from a region which is about an hour west of Stellenbosch. It’s a much, much warmer area, sorry hotter. It’s far more arid there. There’s a lot less rainfall, so it’s a very different style of wine that is naturally made there. And so, what we worked out pretty quickly was that the best type of wines to make there were red blends. Varieties like Grenache, Syrah, Carignan and Mourvèdre. You know, varieties that you find in equivalent heat and actually similar soils in certain cases to the south of France and in southern Rhône, so Châteauneuf is a very good comparison. So, since 2003 we’ve been making one red wine from this region. And we were one of the very first people to take this region seriously. We were one of the very first people to make premium wines from what was considered to be a very lowly area, you know they made spirits and port and jug wine and lots of wheat.
Kristin:
Sauvignon Blanc? Just kidding.
Alex:
No. Not Sauvignon Blanc. The weed shrivels.
Kristin:
Sorry, what is the name of this region? Is this in Swartland?
Alex:
Swartland.
Kristin:
Ok, that’s what I thought.
Alex:
So Swartland, literally—so the language of most people in the cape is the language of the colony and that language is called Afrikaans. It’s sort of an old-fashioned Dutch. When the Dutch people hear it they think it’s hilarious because it’s so simple. But it is a fully fledged language. But anyway, to cut a long-story short, Swartland means black land. The reason it’s called black land has nothing to do with politics it’s because in the 1650s when the European settlers arrived from Holland this whole area, these mountains and these plains, was covered in a black bush, which is the staple diet of the rhinoceros. And that is called the swart swartrenosterbos, which means the black rhinoceros bush. So the Swartland is called the Swartland because this whole expanse of mountains and plains was covered in this black bush.
Kristin:
I’m scared to ask this because I don’t know if it’s a silly question, but does that mean there are still rhinoceros roaming in that area?
Alex:
Man being man, there are no more rhinoceros in the area, but there are still lots of areas where you can find the black bush.
Kristin:
But you can still find the black bush? Ok.
Alex:
It is indigenous. We have lots of rhinoceros in the northeast of South Africa, which is a massive reserve which is bigger than the United Kingdom, the reserve.
Kristin:
This wine is a Rhône style blend?
Alex:
It’s very much a southern Rhône style blend. In our version it usually has a minimum of three varieties, maximum six. We don’t have a recipe. As you probably understood by now, we do everything according to season. It’s like a chef going to the market, you’re not working with a recipe. It’s what does the day, the season bring you. Our approach to this wine is we let the season dictate what grapes are included and which is the dominant grape. If you take ten years, Syrah will be the dominant grape in six of those years. Carignan is a slightly more obscure grape, slightly more rustic, a little bit more acidic. That’s very important for the backbone of the wine. Grenache tends to be more textural, it can be jammy. But if you pick it not too ripe it has lovely flavors that contributes. The most important thing is that they are made in unison with nature is doing that year, so they will reflect differently from year to year. So, you will not buy one of our wines and know what it’s going to taste like from one vintage to the next. And I like that about wine. Wine should be a surprise.
Kristin:
Absolutely! And I think that’s why people who are wine enthusiasts love to talk vintages specifically. So your 2018, what are the predmoninant flavor notes?
Alex:
I was just going to finish by saying how boring would it be if your favorite group, every song was the same.
Kristin:
Yeah! Absolutely.
Alex:
However much you like that song, it would be very boring. 2018 again was the third year in a row of his drought. This area already has incredibly low rainfall. Generally speaking, we’re talking 400 millimeters of rain per annum, which is very low. In 2018 we got about 145 millimeters, so vines were dying. Even hardy old bush vines in a location that are used to it. We had one vineyard in particular with one of our growers that died. It was exceptional. So we made a tiny amount, but it’s bursting with flavor. It’s got a certain wildness to it, which is something I really like about it. You know, if you taste the difference between a cultured strawberry and a wild strawberry you’ll know what I mean by a certain wildness. It can have a hint of a herbaceous character, but not green herbaceous. Americans tend not like green flavors, so I don’t mean that at all. If you are walking through the south of France when the lavender is in bloom—that type of wild flavor we call it “garig” in South Africa it’s called “fynbos” it’s the natural vegetation. So you get these wild—the bush smells of rosemary or thyme, things which are similar to that. But then you’ve also got lavender type aromas and other floral aromas and those are the natural aromas around the vineyard. And because we work as naturally as possible, any grape, if you look at any red grape, it’s has a sort of waxiness on it. And that waxiness captures all of the natural aromas that are around it. For example, if you’ve got a bushfire in your neighbors vineyard and the smoke goes you’re your vineyard, even if that fire hasn’t been in your vineyard your grapes will retain the smokiness because of that wax on your grape. So that wax on the grape picks up the natural environment around it. If you’re working naturally. So those natural herbaceous aromas we have around the vineyard can be picked up especially in certain vintages. We find it very characteristically in the Black Rock. And because we’re using natural fermentation, because we’re not using enzymes, we’re not using chemicals, we don’t fine, we don’t filter, so all of our processes are as unintrusive as possible it comes through in the final wine. And that’s something I really adore. And it a blind tasting it’s difficult not to know where this wine comes from because it has that characteristic.
Kristin:
I can’t wait to taste it. Our listeners also love red blends, whether it’s a super Tuscan from Italy or from California, so I’m excited for them to taste it. It’s not in the shop yet, but I think we’re getting it soon.
A couple of fun questions because we have in the past had a wine in our collection, Trebuchet, which when I looked through some of the material on it there is actually a trebuchet at a vineyard near you. For people who are history buffs will know what that is, everyone else will think it’s a Microsoft font. I thought you could explain briefly what a trebuchet is and why there is one near you and explain the picture that I saw of a wine barrel being chucked.
Alex:
A trebuchet is a catapult, a medieval war machine. And the label depicts it in the wine you are referring to. There is a very good friend of mine whose just up the road from me, about fifteen minutes from me. He’s a slightly mad Englishman, funnily enough, whose family has been in the wines of South Africa for two generations. They own two beautiful wine estates in Stellenbosch on the eastern extremity of Stellenbosch right overlooking the ocean underneath the mountain, a beautiful part of the cape.
He’s completely mad. Back home he has this trebuchet that he likes to throw machines with for fun. He’s got this on his farmland and he throws trackers and caravans using this medieval machine of war. And so, of course, he spends a lot of time in South Africa because he owns two farms here and he felt homesick without his medieval war machine, so he got his friend I think from Shropshire in England who makes these machines for him to make one and disassemble it and put it into containers and ship it down to South Africa.
Kristin:
Wonderful.
Alex:
Of course, he did not declare that it was a medieval war machine on the customs documentation because it probably wouldn’t have been…
Kristin:
Weapon of destruction being shipped, I love it.
Alex:
He’s erected this massive catapult on one of the fields of one of his properties here in Stellenbosch. We did a combined event where we invited customers from different countries. And because they have come a long distance each day we do a different property and a different producer and we get together it’s a lot more fun. And one of the events was at his place and he had these old barrels not being used filled with water with red dye in them to make it look like wine and he was with the trebuchet firing these at a caravan parked at the furthest side of the field possible and we spent an hour and a half until we eventually hit it. And it exploded the caravan and the barrel and it looked like wine everywhere and it was a lot of fun.
Kristin:
It looks like fun. The pictures were great.
Alex:
And of course you do a tasting of the wine whilst you are doing this.
Kristin:
Well, if it becomes an annual event I would like to see it in person, so I will have to come.
Alex:
He’s quite a crazy guy. He makes amazing wines from easy drinking everyday quality wines right up to some of the finest wines on the cape. He’s a very interesting character and I’m a big fan of his and I love their wines. I know that you’ve got their Chardonnay, for example, they’re very famous for.
Kristin:
Yes, we have a lot of their wines. We didn’t really do a formal tasting today, but I’ll make sure I share those links with everyone.
Alex:
They have a very good red blend as well.
Kristin:
Okay, before we wrap up—I hate to call an end to it, this has been so fun—
Alex:
You have one more?
Kristin:
I do have one more question. I’m just, you know, we don’t have to go into too much detail, but I know that unfortunately that one of the many things that has happened in the past year is that there was a partial ban on alcohol from South Africa and you were unable to export for a while given the situation, so without going into the politics of it I was just hoping you could give us an update. You’re able to export now?
Alex:
It’s worse that than unfortunately. We’ve had three total bans on the sale of wine in South Africa, meaning Prohibition, like you guys had in the thirties.
Kristin:
Oh, we’re familiar with that.
Alex:
And like you guys had in the thirties it’s given a big boost to organized crime, unfortunately. But we were also, in the first of the three bans, we were also banned from exporting, which was a huge surprise. We became the first wine-producing nation in the world to ban the exporting of its own wine.
We still haven’t understood why our government did it. It’s very punitive. It’s destroyed a lot of jobs. It’s put a lot of people out of business. It’s creating havoc in a country where we have 43% unemployment, so it’s a very major-owned goal. It was a very bad decision. And all of these separate alcohol bans that we’ve had, in the last 11 months we have not been able to sell wine in South Africa for five and a half months. So it’s had a dramatic effect.
Which means that our export markets, now that we are allowed to export, our export markets are our lifeline. They have literally kept us alive. Without our exports our entire industry would be dead. 365 years later, in one year, we would have been killed. So every bottle that you have shipped for us has contributed to keeping people in work and keeping people’s livelihoods going, giving people hope and allows us to enjoy our lives even during these extremely difficult circumstances, so we’re exceedingly grateful. I’m involved in lots of different projects. We brushed on the Land of Hope project earlier, which is and educational foundation. I’ve done this for fifteen years. We pay for the education of all the black staff’s children and dependents and we do a lot of good things for social upliftment and education and society, but in this instance we thank all of our export markets and America’s been our biggest supporter. Because without you, without exaggerating or trying to be dramatic, you have literally kept us alive.
Kristin:
I’m so happy to feel that we can do something for it. I did want to do a podcast about it. People are already excited about South Africa wine, but I felt like now would be a nice time to renew the demand because I know that it’s been a rough year for everybody everywhere in so many ways, but it’s been a dramatic one for your industry.
Alex:
South Africans are a proud people. We certainly don’t ever come out with a begging bowl. We’re proud as a nation. The Zulus are some of the proudest people you’ll ever meet, for example. They are the largest tribe in South African. The Afrikaners are incredible proud. People are not easily, publicly showing that they are on the edge, but unfortunately that’s just reality. You cannot cut off an industry for five and a half months and expect people not to be in grave, grave difficulty. Export has really kept us alive and because we are successful at export our winery has always been at the forefront, my background being lots of international customers when I came here, we’ve always done well internationally, but lots of my neighbors have really struggled. It’s important not just to drink the wines from us that we’ve talked about today, but any South African wines. New Zealand has done incredibly well. They don’t need our help at the moment. They’re wines are great. They’ll be fine.
Kristin:
Well, I’m going to get the word out. I’m going to edit this podcast immediately and get the word out because I want everyone drinking South Africa wine for a few months. For years—but immediately for a few months.
Alex:
At this point in history it would make a significant difference, so please do.
Kristin:
I will, absolutely. I’m so grateful for your time today. We’ve talked so long! So thank you so much, Alex for spending so much time with me today and talking to our listeners. The wines are absolutely delicious, so I’m going to make sure everyone in our Wine Insiders community gets to taste them.
Alex:
Pass the word on to everyone in your team. Tyson supports incredibly and we’re really happy for that and I cannot tell you how much that means to us this year.
Kristin:
We’re so happy to have you part of the Wine Insiders family, so thank you so much.
Alex:
I’ll drink to that!
Kristin:
I’ll drink that!
Alex:
Cheers!
Kristin:
Thank you, Alex.
We’d like our listeners to enjoy a storewide discount should they wish to purchase wine from South Africa during the month of March. Just go to Wineinsiders.com and enter the code AFRICA35 and add any of our South African wines to your cart.
Today we tasted three wines from Radford Dale:
2018 Radford Dale Renaissance Chenin Blanc
2019 Granite Ridge Pinotage
2018 Black Rock Red Blend
Other South African wines discussed on the podcast include Vinum Chenin Blanc, Trebuchet Chardonnay, and Trebuchet Red Blend.
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