South Africa – A Delayed Primer

BY NEAL MARTIN | FEBRUARY 18, 2021

It was early March 2020, and I was meeting dear friends for our annual lunch at Limewood in the New Forest, where we put the world to rights and gossip like there’s no tomorrow. And in a sense, there was no tomorrow. This turned out to be the last time any of us enjoyed a day trip, mingling with others without fear of falling ill. But the normal world was slipping away, as evidenced by the manner in which the receptionist kept her distance, the novelty of widely spaced tables and, on the train journey home, news that my daughter’s exchange trip to Germany was canceled. I remember the wine that day, a delicious bottle of 2017 Chardonnay from Ataraxia, prompting thoughts of visiting the Cape in the late summer, when surely the pandemic would be in the rearview mirror.

Not that any country was spared, but I feared for South Africa, imagining how the virus would rampage through crowded, impoverished townships, where life was hard enough already. The recent identification of an even more virulent mutation in South Africa means that in all likelihood, it will be a while before I can return to this wonderful country. But I will. 

With any hope of visiting dashed for the foreseeable future, I planned to have samples shipped to the UK, just as I did in 2019. However, fate seemed determined to intervene; having shifted tastings and reports forward, I was thwarted by the South African government’s banning of exports of alcohol (not to mention domestic sales). A few cases were gleaned from UK importers, and then a colleague kindly handled the logistics in receiving over 300 bottles from the country’s top producers for me to taste at the end of September.