South African white wines – the best of summer sippers

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Examiner.com / article by Leslie Cramer

Steen. What, you’ve never heard of it? Let’s clarify- this is South Africa’s name for the Chenin Blanc grape here, and is the country’s largest-producing wine-grape varietal. Generally producing inexpensive wine (the Steen), South Africa is the world’s seventh largest wine-producing country. But as South Africa emerges as a major player, that picture is changing, forever.

For centuries, South Africa has made good dessert and fortified wines. But dry wines of true quality have only come into the forefront in the last fifteen or so years. Today, South Africa’s white wines can rival most any other country’s in regards to quality, with the possible exception of France’s white Burgundies.

Sauvignon Blancs and Chardonnays are the best white wines hailing from South Africa, and in that order. But there isn’t the discrepancy between these two grapes as great as in New Zealand, where Sauvignon Blanc is the undisputed king.

South Africa also happens to be one of the few spots on the planet where you may find a Sauvignon-Chardonnay (or vice-versa) from a blend of these two grapes, not often seen as a desirable blend (though, certainly worth a try).

The wine-style of South African whites is unique to the country, be it the Chardonnay or the Sauvignon Blanc. On one hand, South African whites have some of the complexity, leanness, and subtlety of European white wines–particularly French one’s–but they have marked differences. On the other hand, they don’t exhibit the fruit, oak, body, and ripeness of New World whites from, say, California or Australia.

Winding it up, South African white wines combine features of both innovative New World techniques, along with traditional European. Their wines, in a manner of speaking, are somewhere between both worlds.