You just "d'ont show up" in South Africa - Miguel Chan Wine Journal quoted and "to be most helpful"

You just "d'ont show up" in South Africa - Miguel Chan Wine Journal quoted and "to be most helpful" by Vintagehighway.com

In little more than two weeks—after nearly a year of gestation—I’ll be embarking on the trip of a lifetime to Cape Town, South Africa. Over the past week, I’ve begun in earnest to learn more about this exotic destination, as well as commenced making contacts with wineries in regions with engaging names such as Constantia, Franschhoek and Stellenbosch.

South Africa is lumped into the “New World” of wine producing countries, along with relative newcomers to the pursuit—the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina. Yet the first dumented vintage of wine was crushed in what is now Constantia in 1659 by an early settler named Jan van Riebeeck.

That’s a legacy dating back 352 years, hardly “new’, but still not in the same ancient, “Old World” class as Italy and France.

Cape Town is the largest, southern-most metropolis on the African continent, and it is a long, long ride from Sacramento.

Flying time is nearly 24 hours, and when you factor in a nine-hour layover at Heathrow in London, this is not a trip for the timid.

What helps make this ordeal manageable will be a respite in a 100-square-foot “Yotel” room in Terminal 4, equipped with double bed, bathroom (with shower) flat screen television and Wi-Fi, all for about $80 for five hours. A screamin’ deal, in my opinion.

I’ll be traveling with my beloved, Ellen, who has friends living in Cape Town where we will stay for about two weeks, not counting six nights away visiting wildlife sanctuaries.

There is plenty to do in the Cape Town area, but I’m allocating a sizeable chunk of time for visiting wineries in this country that ranks eighth or ninth globally in wine production, a rounding error behind Germany (and believe it or not, China is now the third largest producer in the world of wine from grapes, just behind Italy and France and ahead of the United States).

What is known as South Africa’s “Winelands” comprises the vast majority of the country’s five hundred wineries packed into the Western Cape, a region with a costal influence very similar to California’s and Table Mountain as a stunning centerpiece near Cape Town. Cold Atlantic air flows in from the west, colliding with warmer, moist breezes from the Indian Ocean to the east.

There are vast tracks of vineyards totaling 270,000 acres, with some of the oldest estates trapped in the grip of the suffocating advances of metro Cape Town. Total finished wine production is in excess of 4 million cases per year.

In doing my homework, I’ve read everything I could get my hands on: a mass of winery brochures brought home by friends who visited recently; The Essential Guide to South African Wines, by Elmari Swart; a piece in Wine Spectator, “ABCs of South Africa,” by James Molesworth, as well as scads of wine reviews; Eric Asimov’s “Wines of the Times” New York Times piece from a year ago in which a tasting panel was blown away by the quality of South African cabernet sauvignon.

Without question, the most influential and useful guide I have obtained is Platter’s South African Wines 2011, which I purchased as an iPad app for $10.99—a fabulous value. This comprehensive overview of the country’s 800 wine producers offers tasting notes on some 6,000 wines, plus information on wineries and GPS mapping. I’ve used Platter’s to locate South Africa’s top producers and connected directly to individual web sites.

There are tons of tourist sites, including wine sites, but I found the “Sommelier Miguel Chan Wine Journal” blog to be most helpful.

It’s hard not to get really juiced up about hitting the ground running when noted wine reviewer Eric Asimov gushes, “I want to tell you straight out that South Africa, of all places, is one of the greatest sources for moderately priced cabernet sauvignon on the planet today.”

That’s a hell of a commentary, as is this endorsement from Asimov, “Though it has a ‘slim’ track record, South Africa has the potential for greatness.”

What’s not to be excited about? The prospect of exploring a distant wine region with stellar, affordable wines hits Carpe Vino’s sweet spot smack in the solar plexus. I’ve contacted a number of wineries in the Western Cape and have received warm invitations to visit.

A good example is Klein Constantia, one of South Africa’s oldest wineries, with origins dating back more than 320 years. It gained widespread recognition in the 1800s for its elegant Constantia, a wine that rivaled Yquem, Tokay and Madeira in the courts of Europe. Today, a similar dessert wine called Vin de Constance rivals the legendary flavors of the original. It consistently garners high scores from Wine Spectator, most recently 94 points for the 2005 vintage (about $50 for a 500ml bottle).

Lowell Jooste, who owns Constantia with his father, Alan, invited me to taste and tour at the winery. I’m also looking forward to meeting winemaker Adam Mason; three of his wines just earned coveted five-star awards from Platter’s.

Now, gotta get back to sending out introductory emails to wineries.