WTN: Paul Cluver wines (attn: JC!)

[Jenise]

Went to a winemaker dinner with Paul Cluver of South Africa the other night. Paul spent most of his U.S. trip on the east coast and flew west just for this event. We hung out afterwards (that's him on the right with my dear friend Gabe).

DSCF1410.JPG

Paul's winery is in the here-to-fore unknown-to-me region of Elgin, which Paul called the most eco-diverse region in South Africa about 70 klicks southeast of Capetown and surrounded by mountains. It's the region of South Africa and supplies 60% of all the apples consumed on the African continent. He grows and makes Reisling, Gewurz, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. He was, in fact, expected to become an apple farmer, but a stint in Germany changed him. He fell in love with wine, and as he told his father when he revealed his change in plans, "No one in the history of apples ever sat up at midnight and told another guy, 'You've just got to taste this apple!' "

I did not take handwritten notes at the dinner. But here is what I remember about the wines:

2014 Sauvignon Blanc: straw colored, exceptional depth, rich without any heaviness, classy, serious. Neither extremely melon-y nor leaning toward grassy in style, but minerally and balanced somewhere in the middle of everything possible with the grape.

2014 Gewurztraminer: I don't care for gewurz, they're usually too-too for me and endowed with RS. But I loved this. In fact, at the end of the night when I had a chance to ask for an extra glass, this is what I asked for. It has the ginger-spice pertinent to the variety, but it's not oily or heavily perfumed. I've ordered some.

2014 Chardonnay: As I raved about last week, this chardonnay is exceptional. Very pale, Burgundian in style with layers of piercing fruit kept fresh with bright acidity. Class all the way--drinkable now but should do some nice things with cellaring.

He also served a late harvest Reisling, didn't catch the vintage. Wow. The owner of the wine store who has a great palate and I agreed that blind, we'd have guessed Semillon. It didn't have the usual reisling markers. Brilliant depth of flavor and acidity here.

JC: I described your experience with the '11 chardonnay to him and he agreed you had a heat-damaged wine.

Cluver were the pioneers of winemaking in the region, which was and still is a huge producer of apples but as export markets for apples receded more wine farms have appeared. Although Elgin* is in a shallow valley it actually on a high plateau which means the climate is cooler which is good for fruit

I was one of the team together with Cluver's daughter Liesl training as instructors for the Cape Wine Academy in London

When you drive on the N2 motorway east from Cape Town and the airport you come to a seemingly impassible** mountain range where the road twists and turns to get up over it, then you're on the plateau where Elgin is and you see the fruit trees and apple processing plants and now increasingly vineyards. Then after a while the N2 comes to the other edge of the plateau, you get an incredible view and the roads steeply descends down to the Walker Bay region.

We stay in Gordons Bay, a small town on a sandy beach under the first set of mountains and often ascend to go the pictureque back route to Franschoek and to buy lovely dense bread baked at Hoew Hoek farm shop. Incidentally they also make the best custard tarts I've encountered outside of Pasteis de Belem in Lisbon and have an excellent wineshop and cafe..



*Elgin is pronounced with either a hard or soft 'g', seems there's some cultural background to which, but I can't remember which. I most often use a hard 'g; as in Lord Elgin and the Elgin Marbles but change to soft if talking to someone who uses the soft g.

**Before the road was built in 1830 they hauled their ox-carts up the cliff by rope and the groves gouged out by cart wheels can still be seen on the edge.

[Jenise]

Thanks for the description. We had looked at some incredible pictures on the internet and your words give them context. It looks like a most beautiful place.

Thanks, Jenise, for asking him about the 2011 Chardonnay.