Two Banghoek beauties show SA is growing up nicely

Investment expert Adrian Vanderspuy was born on the farm Rainbow's End in the Banghoek valley and he found his pot of gold on the neighbouring property, Oldenburg. He now lives in Geneva and travels south four times a year.

"I've been an outsider looking into SA for over 40 years," he says, "and now I take my wines and show the world what SA can do."

The world agrees we're first rate as Vanderspuy's wooded 2010 Chenin Blanc won gold at the International Wine Challenge in London earlier this month, while his 2008 Shiraz won gold at the Syrah du Monde Competition in France. Made in an intense, almost liqueur New World fruit/Old World elegance style, it is a doppelgänger for the iconic Hill of Grace made by Stephen Henschke in the Eden Valley of South Australia.

For starters, the bottles look the same - emo black with a quartered-shield coat of arms - and for both wines, a topographic vineyard feature is the secret of terroir. In the case of Oldenburg, there is a hill called "rondekop" (round head) in the middle of the farm up which Vanderspuy walks in his beanie "through layers of air", a bit like Kate Bush. Over in Oz, the antipodean Hill of Grace requires a healthy dose of imagination as it is a bit of a pancake. Vanderspuy's hill is 3°-5° cooler than Stellenbosch in summer (thanks to catching the cooling breezes) and warmer in winter due to more sun, which makes all the difference for reds.

Both farms were established by German settlers in their respective gardens of Eden and both sites produce Shiraz grapes with muscular, yet slippery, tannins. Yet for me, the Oldenburg secret is not Shiraz but rather the 2008 vintage Cabernet Sauvignon, made by winemaker Simon Thompson, in a restrained, sweetly fruited style in the pioneering perfumed mould of Etienne le Riche, the master of this expression in the Jonkershoek, a forgotten valley full of Afrikaans-speaking billionaires. Sans the mint of near neighbour Thelema and sans the tomato paste of the rest of Stellenbosch, in a word this wine is wonderful.

This is undoubtedly the most exciting Cabernet launched in the year to date by a rare bird indeed, whose first act - "proprietor's prerogative", laughs Thompson - was to grub up the old, virused Sauvignon Blanc vineyards. "By the time we would be ready to launch, Sauvignon would be in oversupply," responds Vanderspuy with the prolific plantings in Elgin in the back of his mind. "And, besides, Sauvignon Blanc is like sweets. As you get older and your palate matures, you just can't eat them anymore."

An acute opinion from someone living in the land of Lindt & Sprüngli and other fine chocolates, but true. Could SA wine be about to leave its infancy and make the transition to the grown-up world of fine wine? SA was conspicuous by its absence at the Concours de Sauvignon Competition held in Bordeaux earlier this month at which 470 entries from around the world were judged. If SA wine is indeed moving from infantile Sauvignon to mature Merlot, Vanderspuy's investment in Oldenburg will surely shoot out the lights, as they say in investment circles.

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In 1980 two Sherry hogshead casks full of golden whisky were laid down at Bunnahabhain, on the windy Isle of Islay, off the west coast of Scotland.

Move the clock forward 30 years, and 357 bottles of that spirit have been released - 17 of which are earmarked for South Africa. We have a single bottle, worth R3800, for the best memory of 1980 - in 100 words or less - sent to wine@sundaytimes.co.za by June 13. The lucky winner will be announced on June 26th.

The whisky is not chill-filtered, has a natural cask strength of 45.4% alcohol by volume, and is released in its most pure form, the way whisky would have been produced at the hands of Bunnahabhain's master distiller many years ago.

That man's successor, Ian MacMillan, will choose the winning entry.