Last but by no means least in our South Africa series comes Storm Wines. Based in the cool Hemel-en-Aarde, Hannes Storm and his team craft finely tuned, site-specific wines from each of the valley’s sub-regions. Vrede is a stony, shale and clay based vineyard in the lower part of the valley, abutting the vineyards of Hamilton Russell, Ignis is located in the upper valley and planted primarily on decomposed granite, while Ridge sits at the highest elevation with a cool easterly exposure in the aptly named Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge. Here the soils are similar to Vrede in being low-vigour clay and shale.
A respected viticulturist, Hannes consulted on many of the top sites in the valley over the past fifteen years before venturing solo in order to produce a range of Burgundian-inspired wines in a more natural, hands-off way. As such, he is proud to work with only estate grown fruit, which he ferments naturally in small stainless steel batches, before aging in top quality French barriques, employing a well-judged 25-30% new oak across the range.
Read MoreThree drought years preceded 2019, itself a very dry year, which resulted in a truly tiny crop. On the one hand this is painful, but on the other, the reds are stunning as a result. Imbued with lots of concentration and a tighter, more focused line of acidity and more linear tannins than the more velvety 2018s had, the wines manage to combine high levels of intensity, freshness and complexity. Moreover, Hannes felt that the quality of the stems was good in 2019 and included around 20% in the fermentation, a little higher than usual, which brings a sense of lift and perfume atop layers of more serious Pinot fruit. As always, each vineyard has a distinct character and, while enormously enjoyable to drink already, are excellent candidates for laying down over the next decade.
The Chardonnays are from the 2020 vintage, a year that benefitted from good winter rains and moderate temperatures, producing tensile, shimmering whites of refreshing character and moderate alcohols.
Quantities overall are sadly way down on last year and, given that the Storm range continues to offer extraordinarily good value, we advise buying while stocks last.