Boekenhoutskloof: tasting the 2018 wines

It might be a mouthful to say, but Boekenhoutskloof has long been a name on the lips of most South African wine lovers. As have the wines – particularly the iconic Chocolate Block.

And the man who always has a quip on the tip of his tongue is Marc Kent, managing partner and technical director of Boekenhoutskloof, who has worked at the Franschhoek winery since 1996.

Scroll down for tasting notes on six new Boekenhoutskloof 2018 releases

South Africa has had it tough recently. In addition to the health crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic and its wider impact on businesses, there were 20 weeks of nationwide alcohol sales bans.

This comes after four years of drought, seriously affecting the quantity and quality of harvests around the country. But in a recent virtual tasting of new releases, Kent said 2018 was the ‘third time’s a charm’ vintage, where winemakers had learned enough from the previous two drought seasons to create some superlative wines.

In addition to Boekenhoutskloof wines, Kent is also behind the value brands Porcupine Ridge and The Wolftrap, the acclaimed Chocolate Block and Porseleinberg wines (both from 100% Swartland fruit) and new label Cap Maritime, from coastal Hemel-en-Aarde.

In only his second vintage as a winemaker, Kent put South African Syrah on the map with the now legendary 1997 vintage of Boekenhoutskloof Syrah, made from just eight tonnes of vines in Somerset West.

With 100% natural fermentation, 20% stalks, ageing in old barrels and just 13% alcohol, it was the antithesis of the powerful South Australian Shiraz style that was then all the rage.

But the 4ha vineyard was a one-hit wonder. When Kent went back the following year to secure fruit from the grower, the bulldozers had razed the site and developers were busy building an Adult World superstore…

Premium fruit sources

While now an excellent anecdote, the experience taught him the importance of owning vineyards to secure premium fruit sources.

This led to the purchase in 2009 of Porseleinberg. Kent and other heralded winemakers, including Adi Badenhorst and Eben Sadie (with his first few vintages of Columella), had been sourcing fruit for a decade from this acclaimed schist site in Swartland.

Today Porseleinberg provides much of the Syrah for Boekenhoutskloof, along with Kent’s other Swartland property Goldmine.

Porseleinberg’s estate manager Callie Louw makes the single-vineyard wine, while Gottfried Mocke (Kent’s head winemaker since 2015 ) makes the Porseleinberg Syrah, in addition to the other labels in the Boekenhoutskloof portfolio.

This includes Cap Maritime – a label Kent registered 10 years ago but which only launched with the 2017 vintage. ‘When Gottfried joined us, with his history at Chamonix with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, I thought: “now let’s get this thing off the ground!”.

In her first project in Hemel-en-Aarde, South Africa’s star viticulturalist Rosa Kruger is designing and planting the new Cap Maritime vineyards. Until they come to fruition, Mocke has leased a Chardonnay vineyard from Sumaridge Estate in the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge appellation. The Pinot Noir is sourced predominantly from Walker Bay and Elgin.

‘Just like Callie with Porseleinberg, I’m happy to leave Gottfried with Cap Maritime. It’s his baby,’ says Kent.

The spoken word – Marc Kent of Boekenhoutskloof

On estate vineyards: ‘Franschhoek has less than 1% of the national planting but 70 producers. That means a lot of cellars buy vineyards and grapes from elsewhere. I think the estate concept has outlived its usefulness. Why limit yourself to making wine from just the grapes you grow on your property? Buy in the best grapes you can.’

On Semillon: ‘Top South African Semillons are brilliant, but it’s not a category that will fly the flag for us. Pessac-Léognan is always the reference. Some people may look to a Hunter Valley style, but we look to Bordeaux.’

On Cabernet Sauvignon: ‘In South Africa, this is the wine that has done the best for us. But we’re all grown up now – we don’t need to make 15% Cabernets anymore. And the market doesn’t want that either.’

On The Chocolate Block: ‘It is the most successful premium brand in South Africa. We’ve gone from 15 barrels of the 2002 vintage to 2,400 of the 2019. I’m proud we can produce that volume at that quality. And from the 2020 vintage, The Chocolate Block is going vegan! Not just because we’re jumping on the vegan bandwagon, but because egg-white fining is so labour intensive. Now we’re using a potato-based product.’

Boekenhoutskloof: six new 2018 releases

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