Being the leading arbiter of unsighted wine judging in South Africa, the Investec Trophy Wine Show’s uncloaking of a Trophy-winning Pinot Noir at this year’s show hopefully adds impetus and reason to those believing that, yes, Pinot Noir and the Cape of South Africa do match extremely well and with enthralling brilliance.
Getting here took some time. Fifteen long years had to pass before Trophy Show chair Michael Fridjhon and his esteemed local and international judges found a wine from this category worthy of anointing with a trophy – in this case the Paul Clüver Family Wines' Estate Pinot Noir 2024 from Elgin. Gazing from the outside, and being a fervent fan of Pinot Noir, this is, for me, a big deal, and the recognition from this show’s notoriously stringent judges will hopefully allow the wine fraternity to cut local Pinot Noir producers some slack by admitting that it is, too, an accomplished category of Cape wine, worthy of more serious attention than it is getting.
Too many scribes, commentators and industry figureheads tend to execute that bored, dismissive eye-roll when one mentions Cape Pinot Noir. The tedious reaction is driven by emotion and nostalgia. And who cannot blame these folk for being seduced by the red wines from the variety’s ancestral home, the mythical beauty that is Burgundy? However, really, this seduction does not have to be so overwhelming as to limit one’s vision with blinkers, causing all other nations’ Pinot Noirs to suffer by comparison with the wines made in this grape’s regal ancestral home.
With some 1 200ha of Pinot Noir planted in South Africa, only about 600ha finds its way into bottled still wines, the rest being used in Cap Classique. Yes, top Cape Pinot Noir is few and far between, but then access to fruit is limited. A general survey of the local Pinot Noirs on offer will lead one to admit that the quality varies from steady to brilliant, with ghastly examples being few. Yet try some tannic entry-level village wines from Burgundy, and the rot-gut quality of this stuff will be a wake-up call to the crowd claiming all of Burgundy is great.
Looking at the Trophy-winning Paul Clüver Estate Pinot Noir 2024, I see an example of South African Pinot Noir with a distinctive veil of Cape cool-climate originality. It does not taste of France, Oregon, New Zealand or Tasmania: it is this country’s very own, very brilliant interpretation of the story the great grape of Pinot Noir wishes to tell.
And while my limited wine-judging skills would not even allow me access to the Trophy Show judges’ tea room, I’d wager that some aspects I see in this wine were experienced by them, too.
The overriding impression of this wine is one of purity and clarity, a lucidity, an overall impression of various components joining to create a Pinot Noir of struck tuning-fork precision. Yet, in the vast tomes of rapturous commentary on the great Pinot Noirs, it is the cultivar’s tendency to veer off the track of balance and precision that appears to muster the greatest appeal.
Here, it is the murmured whispers of damp autumnal forest floor apparent in wines deemed so impressionable, together with that “unique” feral, fleshy, sensual aroma. Brushstrokes from the wilderness, the clichéd garrigue, also define Pinot Noir’s greatness, egged on by a clod of mushroom earthiness. When regal Pinot Noirs – aka Burgundian – are spoken about, these are the sensorial aspects highlighted to trumpet their superiority.
Paul Clüver Estate Pinot Noir 2024 has none of these. The aroma is refined and clean and devoid of wet leaves and thigh-sweat. There is just sun, fruit and pure mountain air. The aromatic introduction extends to the palate. Like a sliver of Carrara marble, it captivates, allures and charms with relentless, life-affirming natural beauty. Bright red fruit warms in the mouth to provide a tantalising glow. A shudder of blackcurrant offers comfort to the senses, with soul and nature combining with winemaking skill to create something where deliciousness, wonder and culture unite as one.
On the mid-palate, where it’s make-or-break for Pinot Noir due to the thin-skinned grape’s wont to deliver uncomfortably jarred layers of tannin, this Paul Clüver Pinot Noir is as seamless as a Jannik Sinner backhand stroke, acidity, fruit and sugar wrapped in a silk bracelet and tied with a secure, confident bow.
This wine’s overall harmonious, settled and unfettered nature will lead to questions seeking that Pinot Noir “edge”, the unexpected drama and broodiness that swims against vinous convention, for which the grape is so famous. Well, as Paul Clüver’s Pinot Noir shows, classic beauty and brilliance can also lie in the egalitarian harmony and accuracy of straight-lined clarity.
Will anyone dare say that the art of David Hockney, with its sunlit brightness, crisp ruler-lines and vivid colours, is incapable of creating wonder and thought? So too the luminous prose of Raymond Carver and a long, brassy blow from Chet Baker.
To me, it is this precise, respectful interpretation of Pinot Noir that gives great South African wines made from this grape a signature of individuality and distinction. A nation of sun, fruit and soil we are. Put a human soul, understanding and skill set behind it, and the result is a rendition of Pinot Noir truly worth shouting about. Clearly.
This article was originally published on Wine Goggle, Emile Joubert's blog.