2021 Cartology

I always meet and taste with Chris Alheit, more known by his nickname “Butch”, with fellow winemakers John Seccombe (Thorne & Daughters) and Peter-Allen Finlayson (Crystallum and Gabriëlskloof). In fact, the first time we met a decade ago was at the winery these three musketeers were sharing. Alheit’s debut Cartology put the estate on the map (no pun intended). Since then, he has augmented his portfolio with a dazzling array of single-vineyard bottlings that push the envelope of both vines and winemaker, sometimes over the limit in the case of the now defunct “Radio Lazarus”. In 2020, his Fire By Night is M.I.A. as Alheit declassified the cuvée a month prior to bottling. He is constantly foraging for new parcels of old vines on terroirs that meet his exacting standards; this vintage is no different with a couple of new labels, including “Hereafter Here” that comes from younger vines on the Nuwedam Farm that Alheit purchased in 2019. Alheit informs me that he declassified fruit from the farm in 2020, and they will enter his portfolio in the future.

“The 2020s were fermented to dryness and stayed on the gross lees for 12 months,” he explains. “We transfer into blending tanks in January for bottling early June. From 2019 onwards, there is a total of 18 months’ élevage, making the wines more integrated with more depth and finesse. I feel that they are now comfortable in their own skin. We moved to Diam in 2018, and consequently, the wines need a little more time. I have quite a light hand with SO2, so the change hasn’t been difficult.”

Alheit’s wines typify contemporary winemaking in the Cape: terroir-driven, low intervention (but not natural), texturally-satisfying, cerebral and occasionally challenging wines that can rivet you to the spot. I often find that when drinking these at home, they benefit from an hour decant as they can be a bit shy on first pouring. But they represent some of the greatest wines being produced on the Cape at the moment, and the allocations sell out almost immediately upon release.