Culture Wines Revisited – Chenin Blanc and Colombard

By Melvyn Minnaar

When one talks South African wine culture, it’s the C-wines that tell the sharpest stories. Now that old-time Steen has taken the white wine lead as modern Chenin Blanc, many smart winemakers are polishing that other C-challenge, Colombard. Both longestablished as vineyard workhorses, time has arrived for a revisit, reinvention and a rekindling of old love-affairs.

Chenin Blanc wears the go-to, prizewinning crown with grace. The list of fine wines from this versatile and giving grape is long, honourable and beautifully diverse. Colombard or Colombar (the easygoing time of its big-time debut around the 1950s didn’t fret too
much about the ‘d’) was more of a shy operator, but widely a central one in the country’s white wine boom.

That it could be distilled for excellent brandy didn’t mean it didn’t bring zip and perfume to the so-called ‘premier grand cru’ wines of the 1970s and later. But like the trajectory of ‘Steen’ to high-end ‘proudly South African’ by inspired winemakers, Colombard now has the attention of the young and talented – and the daring.

The Overberg region and beyond have quite a few of those adventurers. And even if Colombard was comfortably at home in the more inland regions (make Robertson a key anchor, and the older vineyards northwest), the dare to reinvent this under-the-radar grape could not pass
by someone like Sebastian Beaumont of that family’s winery.

The fact that he produces one of the finest Chenins, the much-awarded Hope Marguerite, confi rms the credentials. And so does the region
– so, when in the area, check out Luddite, Creation, Gabriëlskloof, Wildekrans, Villion, to mention but a few Chenins Blanc. For Colombard you may have to drive a tad further, but do look out for labels like Naude, Sakkie Mouton, and the beauties of Robertson, McGregor and Bonnievale. The latter is also where you’ll fi nd one of my favourites, John and Karen Loubser’s Silverthorn River Dragon – a Cap Classique bubbly from an old, old Colombard vineyard.