A taste of South African Wines from 1948 - 1975

November 25, 2010

Last night I had the rare privilege of tasting South African wines dating from 1948 to 1975.

That’s a date range spanning 27 years which is almost as long as I have been alive. The oldest wine was 62 years old - more than double my age. The youngest wine was 35 years old - which alone is 7 years older than I am. What the hell!

The thought of the above overwhelms me somewhat and it’s hard to comprehend or fully appreciate their place in time - especially given that I didn’t even exist when they were created.

Remarkably - all the wines showed beautifully and possessed characteristics a modern day fruit bomb could only dream of.

If I were to create a ‘tag cloud’ of all the flavours I experienced in the wines it would look something like this:

toffee, butterscotch, biscuit, mint, salty, sweet, brown sugar, burnt sugar, coffee, mocha, hay, liqorice, banana, tabacco, leather, shoe polish, medicinal, smokey, ham, bitter, soaked prunes, dried fruit, apricots, honey, maple syrup, boiled sweets, caramel, rusty, orange, brown, smooth, light, textured, secondary flavours, menacing, sensual, velvety, gentle tannins

Here is a full list of the wines we tasted:

Meerendal Shiraz 1975
Groot Constantia Shiraz 1973
Overgaauw Cabernet 1974
Backsberg Cabernet 1974
Nederburg Cabernet Barrel Select 1974
Chateau Libertas 1968
Zonnebloem Pinotage 1974
Simonsig Pinotage 1974
Lanzarac Pinotage 1966
Nederburg Edelkeur 1974
KWV Muscadel 1953
KWV Rubi Port 1949
Monis Vintage Port 1948

All these wines represent a particular time in our history  - they capture, like a photograph does, the culture, the climate, the people and the politics at their time of creation. They have also lived and developed through a great deal - and survived with a small spring in their step.

To fully appreciate their place in time - lets have a quick peek at what they have collectively lived through:

1948 - Apartheid begins.

1955 - Vietnam War

1957 - Sputnik 1 - the first earth-orbiting satellite is launched

1960 - The Sharpeville Massacre

1962 - Madiba arrested and sentenced to life in prison

1963 - JFK is assassinated

1968 - Martin Luther King is assassinated

1969 - Neil Armstrong walks on the moon.

1976 - Television introduced to South Africa

1981 - AIDS/HIV officially recognised as a disease

1982 - I was born

1980 - John Lennon is assassinated

1985 - Scarlett Johansson is born

1990 - Madiba released from prison

1994 - Apartheid ends.

1994 - Madiba becomes South Africa’s president

1995 - South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup

1997 - Princess Diana dies.

2001 - September 11 terrorist attacks

2008 - Barack Obama becomes the USA’s first black president

So while all of this was going on in the world (and this is just a select timeline) - these wines lay silently and patiently evolving and achieving their own mini milestones in taste and texture.

So I drank a piece of history, culture and climate last night and my wine journey is immensely enriched by the experience.

Thanks to Roland and the Wine Cellar team and to my drinking partners Cuz and Harry - the experience will not be forgotten in a hurry.

[Special mention must be made of the aged Pinotage's - sensational stuff - they would convert any Pinotage hater.]

Posted in Iconic Wines of South Africa, Old Wines, Rare Wines