Paul Clüver Family Wines’ commitment to producing world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines from selected sites on its cool-climate Elgin property has once again been underscored in Master of Wine Tim Atkin’s freshly tasted South Africa Report where the Elgin estate landed among the country's most consistently decorated producers, headlined by a 95-point score for the Clüver Prieur Colline du Matin Chardonnay 2025, with another Chardonnay and a pair of Pinot Noir wines tied on 94 points.
All together, nine of Paul Clüver’s wines garnered 90 points and above in Atkin’s latest report, a showing of marked consistency for its array of offerings.
It's the kind of showing that confirms what most of those in the wine business have known for a while: that Elgin, and Paul Clüver in particular, has become the reference point for cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in South Africa.
The top mark of the release belongs to the Colline du Matin Chardonnay 2025, a wine that carries a story as compelling as its score. It is the product of a collaboration between Paul Clüver Jnr, cellarmaster Andries Burger, and Martin Prieur of Domaine Jacques Prieur in Meursault – a friendship translated into a specially planted vineyard on the Clüver estate, and now into one of the more talked-about Chardonnays to come out of the Cape in recent vintages.
Atkin's 95 points for the wine is a serious statement, and it places the Colline du Matin firmly among the country's elite white wines this year. “For a project born out of a personal relationship between Paul Clüver Family Wines and the Prieur family in Burgundy rather than a marketing brief, that kind of validation from Tim Atkin carries extra weight,” says Paul Clüver Jnr, managing director of Paul Clüver Family Wines.
One point beneath the achievement of Colline du Matin, lies the icon Paul Clüver Seven Flags Chardonnay 2025 with 94 Atkin points, with a brace of Pinot Noirs also at 94.
The CWG Auction Selection Pinot Noir 2025, made for the Cape Winemakers Guild's annual auction, is the kind of small-batch, hand-selected wine that allows Burger to push the Pinot Noir programme to its most expressive limits: more structured fruit from specific parcels, bottled in tiny volumes for a discerning audience. Alongside it, the Seven Flags Pinot Noir 2024, the flagship red of the range and long regarded as one of the benchmarks for the variety in South Africa, matched that score. Seven Flags has carried the Clüver name at the top table of SA Pinot Noir for the better part of two decades, and a 94-point rating from Atkin this year is confirmation that the wine remains right where it should be.
The strength of the showing doesn't stop there. The CWG Wagon Trail Chardonnay 2025 picked up 93 points, continuing its run as one of the estate's standout barrel-selection whites, while the Estate Chardonnay 2025 and the Riesling 2026 both scored 92. The Village Pinot 2025 Noir, the estate's more approachable expression of the variety, also came in on 92 points, and the Sauvignon Blanc 2025 rounded out the results on 90. It's a spread that tells its own story, not one or two hero wines carrying the range, but strength from top to bottom, across styles, price points and grape varieties.
For Andries Burger, who has been at the helm of winemaking at Paul Clüver Family Wines since the estate's maiden vintage, reports like Atkin's carry a significance that goes beyond the numbers themselves. "Ratings by acclaimed international critics such as Tim Atkin MW are vital in today’s competitive global wine industry, and the fact that Paul Clüver has over the years consistently accrued top scores gives this year’s rating added importance," says Burger. “This is due to our commitment to terroir-driven wines, especially Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, that reflect the cool-climate Elgin region, and – important to add – the splendour of the 2025 vintage.”
What these scores reinforce, more than anything, is the clarity of purpose that has defined Paul Clüver's winemaking philosophy for years.
“This is an estate that has never tried to be all things to all people,” says Clüver Jnr. “Instead, it has committed itself, harvest after harvest, to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grown in the cool, high-altitude vineyards of Elgin – a valley the Clüver family were the first to plant back in 1987, and one that has since become synonymous with freshness, elegance and site-driven wine in the Cape context.”
Latest Tim Atkin ratings for Paul Clüver Family Wines:
- Clüver Prieur Colline du Matin Chardonnay 2025 - 95pts
- Seven Flags Chardonnay 2025 - 94 pts
- CWG Auction Selection Pinot Noir 2025 - 94pts
- Seven Flags Pinot Noir 2024 - 94pts
- CWG Wagon Trail Chardonnay 2025 - 93pts
- Estate Chardonnay 2025 - 92pts
- Riesling 2026 - 92pts
- Village Pinot Noir 2025 - 92pts
- Sauvignon Blanc 2025 - 90pts