This is a quite stunning wine for the price (from £9.95 in the UK, $12.49 in the US and 74.50 rand, the equivalent of £6.44/$12.17, in South Africa). I have long been an admirer of South Africa’s best Chardonnays – and as faithful visitors to this site know, I am not the readiest fan of Chardonnay in general. To me they offer the same sort of spine and savour as white burgundy, at much lower prices. They are not fat.
Rustenberg has one of South Africa’s most enviable track records, one of its most far-sighted owners in Simon Barlow, and one of its most colourful winemakers in Adi Badenhorst. Throw into this promising cuvée the fact that Adi’s colleague Maxwell Danana won the 2003 Beaune travel scholarship sponsored by the French government (according to the SA wine bible, the Platter Guide to South African Wines 2004) and you have a heady mix of ambition and competence.
This wine was made from 19 year-old vines (old as time itself for South African Chardonnay) grown on decomposed granite, whole bunch pressed and fermented and matured in Burgundian barrels, 40 per cent new, for a year. That’s the techie stuff but all you really need to know that this is very fine and concentrated without being sweet or too oaky. Serve it in a decanter to friends who love Meursault.
Since Rustenberg also produce a cheaper line of wines, under the name of Brampton, I had assumed that this Chardonnay was made in quite limited quantities but when I went to look it up on our good friend www.winesearcher.com I found no fewer than 34 stockists (once I’d picked out the Brampton bottlings) in the US, UK, South Africa, Germany and Belgium. There seems to be particularly wide variation in pricing for this wine in the US, so be warned. Canal’s Bottlestop in NJ has a particularly good deal on it currently while the best price in the UK seems to be at Waitrose, including Waitrose Direct online at http://www.johnlewis.com/Shopping/Product.aspx?ARA=Waitrose+Wine&CAT=White+Wine&SCU
=White+Wine+&PRT=White+Wine+&Type=SKU&Id=230211213
Meanwhile Vino!, FL is asking $23, almost double Canal’s price. Deuced useful, these online price comparisons.
Vergelegen Chardonnay 2003 Stellenbosch, just £7.99 at Majestic in the UK, is another very superior example, not available in the US according to winesearcher.com but on sale in Germany, Switzerland and Hong Kong.