2022 Chenin Blanc The 1947

This was my first visit to Kaapzicht in the heart of Stellenbosch, and so I began by asking Danie Steytler, the man behind its renaissance, about its history. “The family originally come from Germany and came to South Africa in 1766,” he explains. “My great-grandfather fought against the Germans in Italy, and when they returned, they were farmers out in Karoo. They bought this farm in 1946 as it was too boring out there. His son started farming with him in 1950, and my father was born in 1952. I started in 2009 and officially took over two years ago, so I’m fourth generation. The estate comprises 210 hectares. [In the beginning] it was more subsistence farming with cattle and so on, and during my lifetime, the family began to concentrate on wine. However, the wine was sold off to Distell.”

“In 1984, my father decided to make his wine because there had originally been a winery on this site, and so he started the Kaapzicht brand. The name translates as ‘Cape View’. We are on top of the Bottleray Hills. We only bottle around 500,000 bottles and still sell around 300,000 liters in bulk to various wineries, but I would like to bottle everything. There are two types of wine business, some with no external money coming in, and if you don't have a strong brand, then those are becoming extinct. After 23 years, prices of bulk wine have halved.”

“I’m pulling out everything that is virused, planting new Cabernet clones to replace old stock. I'm trying to go regenerative, bringing cattle back in to broaden what we do. For viticulture, we have stopped spraying herbicides and use cover crops instead. We are mostly northwest facing which makes bigger wines, and that was the previous style with more oak, wines more on the riper side. That’s the palate I grew up with. But the world is refining, and the world wants more elegance, so we’ve split the portfolio. We have wines more naturally made where we add nothing and others that veer towards the commercial side. But there is little margin on those when you are selling at around 50 to 60 Rand per bottle. In the future, we will focus on Chenin, Pinotage and Cabernet.”

Kaapzicht has completely reinvented itself under Danie Steytler, and in the form of their 1947 Chenin Blanc, they have one of the finest expressions of that variety in the Cape. There is much more consistency across their range, though I have the feeling that these are just the opening chapters. There’s even better to come.