My year of wine: A dash of semillon makes for a winner

Jacques Erasmus is my kind of man. Like me, he grew up in the Platteland.

At 12 he made his first bottle of wine in his mother's kitchen, with chenin blanc and baking yeast. I made mine in the common room at boarding school with rotting hanepoot. If his merry mood at the weekend was any way to judge, he, like me, drinks.

But unlike me, Erasmus made a second bottle of wine, and has since become a winemaker. Jealous as I am, I'm happy that good men such as he have taken to producing quality wines for me to drink.

Always interested in farming, Erasmus's hard work and passion were recognised when he became Diner's Club Winemaker of the Year on Saturday.

The team of judges led by David Hughes found that Erasmus's Creative Block 2 2014 was the best of 73 entrants in this year's category, dry white blends.

An 85% sauvignon blanc 15% semillon blend, this Bordeaux-style blend has been very successful for Spier wine farm, where Erasmus works.

But it's not an easy sell, he says. Although it does well commercially, it doesn't do brilliantly. Drinkers are sceptical of blends, especially when a varietal, such as semillon, is not well known.

The same blend in 2013 got four stars in this year's Platter's guide (a Diner's Club product): "Strident grassy muscularity of dominant sauvignon gets width and balance from 14% unoaked semillon." The 2012 vintage got four-and-half stars: "Satisfying, but a yard off mineral."

Erasmus, now 38, describes his wine as having flavours of peach, winter melon and green fig. At the awards dinner in Franschhoek it was paired with a forgettable fish dish.

Unforgettable, though, was the wine - light, crisp and very palatable. When it becomes available in stores, it should retail at about R85.

For this year's Young Winemaker of the Year, the category was unfortified dry red wines. JP Pretorius won for his Steenberg Merlot. The merlot was good, too, but I drank the generous top-ups of Erasmus's white blend.

The dinner chatter was about how improved South African wines are and how proud we should be. Some suggested that South Africa was becoming a harder sell now that our politics has turned so ugly. A sobering thought.