Boekenhoutskloof: Reflecting on 30 years with the 2021 releases

Few wineries have achieved so much in such a short time as South Africa’s Boekenhoutskloof.

From putting Syrah on the map with its celebrated 1997 vintage to pioneering the Swartland and rehabilitating Semillon as a premium white variety in the Cape, it’s hard to overestimate the contribution of this Franschhoek-based winery.

A recent tasting marked 30 years at the helm for Boekenhoutskloof managing partner and technical director Marc Kent, who showcased the 2021 vintage while taking the opportunity to look back at the 2011 and 2001 vintages made under his direction.

Scroll down for Boekenhoutskloof’s new 2021 releases plus library wines from 2001 and 2011

Formative years

By his own admission, a childhood in Durban – some 1,000km east of the vineyards of the Western Cape – didn’t bode well for a career in wine. ‘Beer, cannabis and whisky country,’ is how Kent describes it.

He waited on tables in restaurants but caught the wine bug, encouraging him to going to wine school. After a stint at La Motte winery in Franschhoek, Kent joined a new project called Boekenhoutskloof. ‘I arrived there with a fridge, a hi-fi and a car. Today we sell about 7 million bottles across 60 countries.’

Kent is someone who would probably have been successful in any field he chose. He’s hard-working, smart, observant and not timid about challenging orthodoxy.

His presentation to UK wine media was scattered with provocative little gems (‘wine is made in the cellar’, ‘oak is very important to me’) and yet he’s not afraid to own up to his mistakes. ‘All the vineyards that I planted in the 1990s we grubbed up. I did such a shit job that we replanted,’ he freely admits.

Kent might have an impish tendency to be contrary, but it comes from a confidence in the project that has been gained through self-reflection. ‘We had a period where we were actually quite introspective,’ he recalls. ‘I was very conscious that we made wines that were quite big and rich and ripe but we came to the conclusion with our team that that is our house style. We weren’t about to start producing Syrah with 12% alcohol.’

The vintages

The trio of vintages presented at the London tasting in February showed an emphasis on tannin structure, well-judged oak influence and rigorous fruit selection.

The harvest of 2021 is acknowledged as one of the great modern Cape vintages, with steady ripening conditions allowing producers the chance to pick at will. By contrast, drought marked the 2011 vintage, while 2001 was notably warm with small quantities of intense and concentrated fruit giving wines that have matured well in bottle.

Kent made both 2011 and 2001 vintages and remains deeply involved today, still overseeing the blending of all the wines across each range. However, since 2020, Kent has been living in Portugal so the 2021 vintage was managed by Boekenhoutskloof head winemaker Gottfried Mocke due to Covid travel restrictions keeping Kent in Europe.

Kent had hired Mocke in 2015 as head winemaker at both the original Boekenhoutskloof winery in Franschhoek and its Helderberg winery in Stellenbosch. The latter was acquired in 2009 and is responsible for production of The Chocolate Block – one of the Cape’s great commercial success stories – and the entry-level ranges Porcupine Ridge and The Wolf Trap.

Since 2017, the busy Mocke has also managed Kent’s new Hemel-en-Aarde project, Cap Maritime, focusing on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Today, Boekenhoutskloof has some 130ha in Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, 20ha in Hemel-en-Aarde and another 200ha in Swartland, headed up by Callie Louw at Porseleinberg, who supplies fruit for the Boekenhoutskloof label while also bottling a Swartland Syrah under the Porseleinberg label. ‘The only thing really missing now is Constantia, but that’s not our gig,’ Kent says.

Next steps

The focus in future will instead be on buying vineyards to secure production. ‘When I joined Boekenhoutskloof in 1994, the national planting was at about 120,000ha with about 400 registered bottlers. Today it’s more than 1,000 bottlers, but the vineyard footprint is now less than 90,000ha,’ Kent reveals.

In that time he has seen the market evolve away from freely available fruit available to buy on contract, to an increasing number of grower labels, turning former grape suppliers into competitors.

It’s not the only, or even the biggest change Kent has witnessed in 30 years at the vanguard. ‘The first vineyard that we pick each year we did the first-ever harvest on 14 February 1997. Considering that we looked for the same ripeness 25 years ago as we do today, we picked that same vineyard in the third week of January this year [2024].’

Climate change has been dramatic in South Africa, where crippling droughts have affected the nation, and the number of days above 40°C at harvest continue to increase, leading to changing practices in the vineyards, such as increasing canopy coverage to protect grapes from scorching sun.

Even so, Kent remains ambitious and optimistic about the prospects for the winery. His aim is to establish Boekenhoutskloof as a global winery ambassador for South Africa, just as Penfolds has done for Australia, or Jackson Family Wines for California.

‘It’s really the first time people are seeing South Africa as a reliable, consistent source of quality wine at a premium level,’ he asserts. ‘If we can continue to do that at Boekenhoutskloof, then I think I’ve achieved what I’d really like to do.’

Boekenhoutskloof: New 2021 releases plus library wines from 2011 and 2001

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