Alheit Vineyards 'Fire By Night', Paardeberg, South Africa 2023
Alheit Vineyards 'Fire By Night', Paardeberg, South Africa 2023
From the famous rocky outcrop of decomposed granite that is farmed by local heroes like Eben Sadie and Craig Hawkins, the 2023 ‘Fire By Night’ shows classic Paardeberg characteristics of richness, minerality and tension in equal measure. Pear, mango, apple granita, green plum, lime juice and thatching straw feature in this taut and chiselled Chenin Blanc. 12.5% alc. Fermented in cement eggs. Drink now-2035.
Press reviews:
Tim Atkin MW “I was fortunate to taste this wine twice over the period of a few days and it really is a world-class Chenin Blanc. In fact, this is only the second time I've given 100 points to a Cape white. First made as recently as 2017, although it comes from a parcel on the Rustenhof farm that was planted close to False Bay in 1978, it's a wine that takes South Africa to new heights. Alas, only 50% of normal volumes, but this is all kelp, petrichor and sea breezes, with incredible extract, a note of umami and a dense, refreshing, mineral-rich finish. 2025-35.“ 100 points
Jancis Robinson.com: “Smoke and philadelphus flowers. Flowers and flint. Furrows and lime. Lime pickle and tamarind. A wine that seems to descant its own melody. A wine that tastes of borders, the places and lines where things change from one to another, where things are held back or set free. A wine in which the acidity slants across everything like a shaft of moonlight, filling the spaces with magical chatoyancy. (TC). Drink 2027-2035.” 17.5++ points
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“Exciting and sculpted. Just brilliant!” – Jancis Robinson MW, 17 points
A new wine from Chris Alheit is big news in these parts, which is a reflection of Chris Alheit’s mighty reputation and not a criticism of these parts. It’s a Chenin Blanc made from young vines, planted by Chris and Suzaan with one eye on the future (young vines eventually become old vines after all) and is made in the same way as their single vineyard wines (malolactic fermentation, 18 months in barrel etc.) and is abuzz with energy and precision. It’s a fantastic example of bush-vine Chenin full of cool stone fruits and something earthy, like grist from the mill, and plenty of dry extract and tannic pinch to give it authority. A wine that bridges the gap between their (sadly discontinued) Flotsam and Jetsam white and their premium ‘single vineyard’ cuvées. 13.5% alc. Drink now-2030.
Press review:
JancisRobinson.com: “Wild honey, sour cherry, mimosa on the nose. Honeysuckle. Quince on the palate and then both taut and rich, dense and wired to cutting point; lime marmalade and gingerbread. Floral and tense and thrilling. So goddam alive! It tastes as if it wants to take off like a rocket. (TC)” 17 points
Jancis Robinson MW: “Rich and very honeyed and Chenin. Exciting and sculpted. Just brilliant!Long, throbbing fruit. (JR)” 17 points
Greg Sherwood MW: “Made from a mixture of young and older vines aged between 5 and 40 years old, after 18 months of elevage with 66% aged on its fine lees, the complex aromatics reveal a rich leesy, savoury yellow fruited nose with pithy white citrus, peach stone, bitter almonds, dried herbs, orange blossom and hints of lemon oil. Rich but not too overtly “fruity”, the palate is plush, harmonious and textural with hints of honeydew melon, lemon pastille, white peach and savoury leesy biscuit hints. Really quite serious, and seriously delicious! Drink now and over the next 8 to 10 years.” 94 points
Vinous: “The 2022 Hereafter Here is a mixture of young and old vines due to the higher yields this year, whole bunch pressed with 18 months elevage, two-thirds on the lees. The well-defined bouquet has yellow plum, orange blossom, Japanese yuzu and crushed stone aromas. The palate is very harmonious, with a crisp line of acidity. A linear, alost Zen-like razor-sharp Chenin displaying wonderful nerve on the finish. Superb.” 91 points
Tim Atkin: “Herafter Here is Chris Alheit's biggest-production Chenin Blanc, made from five different sources in Stellenbosch and the Swartland. The vines are mostly younger, producing a wine that's comparatively immediate, with a nice interplay between peach an green apple fruit and impressive brightness for a 2022 release. 2023-28.” 93 points
Customer comment:
“A very good (if pricier) replacement for the much-missed Flotsam & Jetsam!” - Mr T.P
“Another superb Cartology release.” - Greg Sherwood MW, 95+ points
We are offering the Cartology 2022 on a 'first-come, first-served' basis, which, when you think about it, is nothing more than the usual terms of engagement between merchant and customer. In fact, supermarket checkout queues would be pandemonium if any other system were in place.
We were lucky enough to attend a vertical tasting of every vintage since its debut in 2011, so we can safely say that Cartology is a wine that ages beautifully for at least a decade. The Chenin Blanc component (representing 92% of the blend) comes from a widespread patchwork of parcels in the Skurfberg, Tygerberg and Paardeberg, as well as Bottelary, Stellenbosch, Piekenierskloof, False Bay and Botrivier and the Semillon comes from the old La Colline block in Franschhoek. You pick up a lot of minerality and stony crunch on the nose, with impressions of crushed chalk and broken clay, leading to succulent stone fruit and quince flavours on the palate and a delicate hint of frangipane. This is an intense and striking wine that is rightfully held up as one of the most important pieces in the Cape's 'old vine' jigsaw. 13% alc. Drink now-2034.
Press reviews:
Tim Atkin MW: “"It was a vintage that gave you the chance to show what you were made of," says Chris Alheit of the "middling 2022 growing season". It certainly did. This is a brilliant cuvée of Chenin Blanc with 8% Semillon, sourced from ten different vineyards. Showing lots of energy from early picked grapes on granite soils, it has fennel, fynbos and lanolin aromas, citrus, green herb and wet stone flavours, and good ageing potential, despite the heat of the vintage. Drink now-2030.“ 95 points
Greg Sherwood MW: “This flagship blend from Chris Alheit is made from 92% Chenin Blanc and 8% Semillon grapes sourced from eight disparate old vine vineyards of between 40 and 60 years old. The youthful aromatics display a melange of granitic minerality over notes of peach, tangerine, orange oil and wet hay nuances. The 2022 is beautifully cool, harmonious and overtly mineral-led with dusty dried herbs, white peach, green pear and yellow stone fruits. The acids are gentle, soft spoken but deliciously tangy and the finish creamy, leesy and delightfully mouth-coating with and impressively persistent length. Yet another superb Cartology release from Chris ‘Butch’ Alheit. Drink now and over the next 10 to 12+ years.” 95+ points
JancisRobinson.com (Tamlyn Currin): “A mesmerising unfurling of fragrance from the moment you put the glass to your nose: wild-meadow grass and flowers, hay and summer honey, grainy pears. The acidity is ripe and broad and spreads across the mouth from side to side rather than beginning to end. Delicate bitterness forms the spine; apple pips, citrus peel, apricot stone. Very savoury finish. Fruit is muted. Texture is what’s left on the length. Rumpled linen. Drink now-2032.” 17+ points
“Gloriously mouth coating, hedonistic and persistent with just the most subtle sappy, pithy, bitter orange peel vermouth twang.” - Greg Sherwood MW, 98+ points
An extraordinary, one-off straw wine sourced from a Muscat of Alexandria vineyard planted in 1882! Deep amber in colour, it has intense aromas and flavours of apricot, candied orange peel, medjool dates, raisins and salted caramel. The texture is rich and unctuous, similar to a Pedro Ximenez and would be amazing to drink with hard cheeses or duck liver parfait (they do something similar with PX in Jerez and it’s amazing!) or with a fruit-based dessert. 7% alc. Only 220 cases produced. Drink now-2070.
Press review:
Greg Sherwood MW: “Looking at this rich, unctuous wine in the glass is akin to gazing through an ancient piece of Jurassic fossilised amber – ripe, captivating and most definitely warmly inviting. But this is no normal sweet wine and one sniff of the rich, ripe, potent aromatics reveals an enchanting bouquet of freshly boiled marmalade jam, green mango preserve, barley sugar, sweet herbs, wet straw and dried apricots. Give the dense, glycerol wine another slow swirl in a big Zalto Bordeaux bowl and it shifts gears again to offer yet more pithy orange peel nuances and seductive notes of quince jelly, pressed grapes and burnt caramel. Like some of South Africa’s other truly great sweet wines, the aromatics are so complex and seductive that you almost forget to sip the wine! Incredibly viscous and fleshy on the palate with a round glycerol opulence, there is no suggestion at any point that this wine is going to be overly sweet and clawing with its 450 g/l RS. In fact the sweetness is kept smartly in check by a searing acidity that scythes through the caramel and barley sugar laden fruit layers with samurai sword precision. The finish is gloriously mouth coating, hedonistic and persistent with just the most subtle sappy, pithy, bitter orange peel vermouth twang.” 98+ points
Winemaker, Alex Milner, who cycles around The Cape looking for forgotten vineyards, has raised the bar once again with the 2025 release of his (certified) Old Vine Chenin Blanc ‘Axle’ from the adorably-named region of Darling. It’s a labour of love from Alex and, as such, it seems to improve year-in, year-out, and this feels like the most complete vintage yet. It’s a little tighter and more textured than the 2024, bristling with energy and tension, but always with that core of succulent fruit and its summery scent of fynbos on a warm breeze.
The texture holds the wine together, being neither too viscous, nor too thin, and helps spread the flavours evenly across the palate. Until recently, Alex used a basket-press to extract the juice for the grapes, knocking up an impressive 80 hours of manual pressing each year, which he says “practically finished me off!”. So, he has now bought a pneumatic press and the 2025 vintage was done mechanically, which means that the wine was exposed to oxygen for less time and is notably lighter in colour and fresher in character than earlier versions. 13% alc. Aged in barrel for 10 months. Sourced from certified heritage vineyards. Drink now-2032.
NB The bottle has a soft wax seal. Simply insert your corkscrew through the wax and extract the cork as normal and the wax will come away with the cork. If you feel the need to start a Twitter feud about the merits of wax seals, please pour yourself a glass of this first, take a moment, and then see how you feel.
Press review:
JancisRobinson.com: “Certified Heritage Vineyard Chenin bush vines planted in 1985 on decomposed granite. Some whole bunch and some destemmed with a bit of skin contact. Spontaneous fermentation in old 225-litre French barrels and large cask. Aged 10 months on lees.
Fragrance on the nose shifting, dappled, like spring sunlight through bare branches fuzzy with buds. Petrichor, apple blossom, acacia flowers, brick dust. Alex Milner’s chicane of making a bone-dry Chenin taste like a dessert wine. Baked pears set within a crystal cluster of acidity, prismic in its brightness, in the way it seems to split and bend the frequency of the wine’s energy into a blade of rainbows. Spiciness – cinnamon, fine-ground cigar, cardamon – rising and falling on the breath of the wine. Drink now-2032.” 17.5 points
Winemaker, Alex Milner, writes: “My wife loves the more textured styles of Chenin blanc, so I thought it would be fun if I could make her one. We were wanting to make a style that was low in alcohol, allow us to work completely naturally, but yet have a balance of acid that would have you coming back for more. We spent the most part of the winter of 2017 tasting and visiting various vineyards, to find the one that fitted our desired profile. Welcome to our Darling vineyard, which from the onset, we knew we had something interesting.”
Winemaking
“To achieve our desired goals, extreme care is taken to pick these grapes at the optimal ripeness, this happens in late January. Harvested by hand and then further sorted in the cellar, to ensure only the best fruit is used. Grapes are whole bunch pressed in our basket press, this juice is cooled and allowed to settle. The skins from the press are then put into a tank and left overnight to be lightly pressed again the following day. This is our skin contact component and adds a perfect depth to the final wine. The clean juice is then racked to seasoned barrels, some fine lees is added. Fermentation begins slowly after 2-3 days. malolactic fermentation also occurs naturally. Post fermentation baronage occurs fort-nightly for 2 months. Wines are left sur lie for 10 months in their barrels, after which it is racked and bottled. Made with minimal interference and pretence - preserving the intrinsic link between bottle and grape.”
Old dry-farmed bush vines on decomposed granite. Basket pressed and left undisturbed in a barrel for nine months.
Customer Comments:
”The Axle Chenin Blanc rather restored my faith in South African Chenin” - Mr S.C.
”Love the Axle Chenin!” - Mr. J.M.
“It’s excellent stuff.” My D.O.
”Tried the Chenin last night - it’s great!” - Mr. F. L.
”Wine received. Two have already disappeared! It's great!” - Mr. M. D.
“Do you have anymore of the Axle Chenin? Just opened a bottle, wow, I'd like to buy some more...” - Mr D.L.
”This is awesome. Really lovely SA Chenin.” - Mr. V. S.
“Just purchased 2 more cases of the Axle.. I’ve decided it going to be Xmas presents for everyone this year.. it’s very good!.” - Mr J.L.
“Superb.” - Neal Martin, 94 points
When we tasted the first vintage of this Chenin Blanc, we didn’t realise that what we were tasting was potential. It was good, very good, but with the release of their fourth vintage we’re no longer tasting potential, we are tasting the realisation of a fantastic project and I have no hesitation in stating that this is one of the finest Chenin Blancs ever to emerge from South Africa.
Brookdale may be a new kid on the block, but they have really hit the ground running. The wily Duncan Savage made the first 2 vintages, but Kiara Scott, a graduate of the Cape Winemakers’ Guild Protegé Programme, is now firmly in the driving seat and the quality just keeps getting better and better. The 2023 is a little broader than previous iterations, reflective of the sunny year, but it is still precision-tooled, with sleek contours and discreetly concentrated fruit framed by the most delicious accents of nutty, toasty oak. In that respect it has echoes of white Burgundy, animated as it is by a granitic minerality and zippy acidity, which feels more like internal ‘energy’ than simply low PH, yet its overall architecture is defiantly ‘old vine’ Cape Chenin, broadening on the palate to encompass orange orchard fruits, white pear and salted lime, before tapering slowly to a fine, focused finish. 13% alc. Certified Heritage Vineyards (South Africa's old-vine certification). Drink now-2032.
Press review:
Vinous: “The 2023 Chenin Blanc comes from vines planted in 1985 and aged for 11 months in 500-litre French oak and Stockinger foudres. This is very pure and expressive on the nose: white fruit, melted candle wax and light papaya that blossom in the glass. The palate is very well-balanced, with gorgeous texture, tensile from start to finish, with a bright, seductive apricot and clementine-driven finish that is nigh irresistible. Superb. Drink now-2040“ 94 points
Customer reviews:
”We are already one bottle into the Brookdale, delicious, I will definitely be back for more in the future.” - Mr. F. W.
“One of the top 2 whites I’ve had this year.” - Mr O. B.