News release
Durbanville Wine Valley Association
November 2009
NOTHING SMALL ABOUT DURBANVILLE WINE VALLEY
Just in time for the festive season: a cornucopia of some of the country’s finest wines awaits visitors to the vibrant Durbanville Wine Valley.
Celebrating a stellar year, the Durbanville Wine Valley’s winemakers head into the summer holiday season carrying a Santa’s sack-load of awards for their wines. Having also become masters of the art of winelands hospitality with two new seasonal festivals added to their busy annual calendar, this tight-knit band of talented vintners is positively bursting to spoil wine lovers with their wares.
Hailed as probably the best Cape vintage of the new millennium, 2009 in Durbanville’s ideal cool-climate viticultural terroir – maritime mists and breezes combined with hills of ancient, deep, well-drained, shale-derived soils – was exceptional. The area has long been a well-kept secret as a source of some of the Cape’s best wines over many decades; in fact, this year it continued to contribute to several award-winning wines from other Coastal and Western Cape producers.
But with proud and energetic local winemakers having established it as a ward, the Wine of Origin Durbanville appellation, though small, has become a hallmark of quality for the discerning, from the larger cellars handling up to 6 000 tons – to the smallest like Nitída nurturing just 140 tons. Such is the quality across the style and size spectrum that Nitída waltzed off with the trophy for top producer at the 2009 Michelangelo International Wine Awards (for the highest percentage of medals per number of entries).
Vintage 2009, a benchmark for Cape sauvignon blanc, has cemented this area’s substantial reputation, particularly for stylistically distinctive cool-climate exponents of the variety. Three of WINE magazines’ top ten sauvignon blancs for 2009 hail from Durbanville: Nitída Club Select, De Grendel Koetshuis and Durbanville Hills Biesjes Craal.
At the Michelangelo International Wine Awards, the Nitída Sauvignon Blanc Club Select 2009 received the Grand D’Or. Several Durbanville sauvignons were gold medal winners: Diemersdal’s Eight Rows 2009; Durbanville Hills’ Rhinofields Inner Valley 2009, Rhinofields 2008 and Biesjes Craal 2008; and Nitída’s Sauvignon Blanc 2009. Various other special bottlings from Diemersdal and Durbanville Hills, as well as two from D’Aria (Songbird Sauvignon Blanc 2008 and Sauvignon Blanc 2008) were awarded silver, the latter two showing the bottle ageing capabilities of the variety.
The Michelangelo Awards also served to reflect the creativity typical of Durbanville’s envelope-pushing oenologists, with the valley’s favourite variety starring once again. Winner of the trophy for Most Innovative Wine was the Diemersdal Sauvignon Rosé 2009, a delicate blend of 93 per cent sauvignon blanc and seven per cent cabernet sauvignon. Equally innovative is the gold medallist from newcomer De Vallei: Annerose 2009, a blend of pinot noir and chardonnay, lightly wooded.
The area’s speciality also dominated the 2009 Investec Private Bank Winemakers Choice Diamond Awards. The De Grendel Koetshuis Sauvignon Blanc 2009 earned a Diamond Award, the trophy for best white wine and the winemaker of the year award for veteran vintner Charles Hopkins.
Durbanville sauvignon blancs featured prominently among the silver medallists at the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show, once again making a case for cool-climate sauvignon’s longevity. These included the 2008 bottlings from D’Aria, Meerendal and Diemersdal (Eight Rows), and the 2005 from Hillcrest. The D’Aria Sauvignon Blanc 2009 was also a winner at the South African Young Wine Show.
Says Durbanville Hill’s experienced cellarmaster Martin Moore of the future of South African sauvignon: ‘The variety is far too established and food-friendly to be considered a fad. I believe, however, that much of the world’s sauvignon plantings are in the wrong areas and these will be the first to go when present soaring sales lose momentum. But I’m convinced that sauvignon from our cool areas will be with us for decades.’
Other white wines from the valley have done equally. Michelangelo International Awards gold medal winners included Nitída for its Weisser Riesling 2009, Sémillon 2009 and Coronata 2009 (a sauvignon/sémillon blend), and De Grendel for its maiden, classically Alsace-styled, delicately wooded Pinot Gris 2009. The De Grendel Winifred 2009 was voted the best white blend at the SA Terroir Awards.
Following on the success of the Durbanville Wine Valley’s red wines during 2008, a slew of national wine show and competition accolades in recent months provides evidence of a track record being established for great reds, marked by a distinctively classic elegance synonymous with a cool-climate terroir.
The Diemersdal Shiraz 2007 won the 2009 WINE magazine’s annual Shiraz Challenge. This came just a month after the farm’s Private Collection 2006 Bordeaux-style red blend was awarded five stars in the magazine’s category tasting, one of only 38 wines ever so lauded in the publication’s 16 years. Which augurs well for the Diemersdal Shiraz 2009 (a winner at the SA Young Wine Show) when it’s released in a couple of years’ time.
Popping up among the ABSA Top 10 Pinotages this year was the Altydgedacht Pinotage 2008.
Four Durbanville reds earned gold at the 2009 Veritas Awards. Featuring the area’s top-performing red variety were the De Grendel Merlot 2007 and Meerendal Merlot 2006, while the Altydgedacht Pinotage 2008 and De Grendel Shiraz 2008 illustrated the valley’s versatility.
Another Michelangelo International Wine Awards Grand D’Or winner was red blend D’Aria Music 2008. Michelangelo gold stickers will also be spotted on the Durbanville Hills Pinotage (2007 and 2006) and Durbanville Hills Merlot 2006; Nitída Cabernet Sauvignon 2008; Diemersdal Cabernet Sauvignon 2008; and De Vallei Syrah 2008.
Nitída Winemaker Jacus Marais was not only delighted with Nitída taking Michelangelo top honours, but was particularly proud of the valley’s performance as a whole, given that judging is by an international panel. ‘The fact that cellars both big and small did so well, goes to show what wonderful quality this area produces. But it’s not only the terroir; the Durbanville vintners are a great team, working together and committed to expressing that potential.’
This energy is evident in the two new seasonal valley festivals introduced in 2009. The ‘Season of the Grape’ in March saw exhausted but exhilarated winemakers celebrating the bounty of the land with wine lovers who flooded to the valley for wine-tasting, grape-stomping, feasting and family fun. The ‘Soup, Sip and Bread’ winter weekend in June provided the perfect environment to enjoy the valley’s reds, combining hearty, homemade country fare matched with selected wines at each farm. Nine local artists were commissioned to render their vision of each wine farm, on show in the tasting rooms. During the winter the wine farms also donated soup to a Durbanville soup kitchen feeding the destitute.
The two new events join the already hugely popular ‘Season of Sauvignon’, a weekend in October showcasing the valley’s star variety in all its glorious guises – which this year attracted record crowds. Besides launching their brand new vintage of sauvignons, the wineries offer ‘open house’, with food, wine, music and fun for the whole family.
* The Durbanville Wine Valley Association wineries open for wine tastings and sales, as well as either picnics or meals, are: Altydgedacht, Bloemendal, D’Aria, De Grendel, Diemersdal, Durbanville Hills, Hillcrest, Nitída and Meerendal.
For more information email the Durbanville Wine Valley Association on info@durbanvillewine.co.za or visit www.durbanvillewine.co.za
Ends
Issued for Durbanville Wine Valley Association by Errieda du Toit PR
Contact: Ian du Toit / Errieda du Toit
Tel: 021 913 2248
Cell: 082 921 3842
E-mail: ian@edtpr.co.za / errieda@edtpr.co.za
Durbanville Wine Valley Association (DWVA):
Contact: Michelle van Staden, manager
Cell: 083 310 1228
Email: info@durbanvillewine.co.za
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