Thirty years ago, if you talked to anyone about serious South African red wine, it was generally assumed you meant Cabernet Sauvignon. Of the better-than-workhorse cultivars in SA, it was the comfortable front runner.

Before the promulgation of wine of origin legislation, the word “Cabernet” was used with poetic licence. We know now that most of the so-called Cabernets of that era contained less than 50% (actually, usually less than 30%) of the variety. In effect, Cabernet was something of a brand. If you wanted your wine to sell, it was a good idea for the magical word to appear somewhere on your label. In the absence of any statutory form of verification, there was obviously a great deal of abuse.

Hard upon the heels of the legislation forcing a degree of labelling integrity on the industry came the importation of a wide range of premium varieties, including Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Pinot Noir. Initially, none of these could rival the quality claims or the cachet of Cabernet. Only once Meerlust’s Bordeaux blend (Rubicon) established itself in the market were consumers prepared to pay more for a blended wine than for a Cabernet.

This is now pretty much the prevailing situation. At a recent red-wine tasting, the Bordeaux blends looked better on average than the “pure” Cabernets, and probably sold for more. I started with the 2007 blend from Creation (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot) in Walker Bay. It had none of the muscularity of the old style reds but it was easy drinking, though somewhat gamey.

Lined up alongside the 2004 Delheim Grande Reserve — an industry benchmark for more than 25 years — it had neither the weight nor the intensity of this more classical Medoc style of wine. Vintage and bottle maturation played a role here. The three extra years in the life of the Delheim have translated into greater vinosity while the charm of the Creation lies in its freshness.

The Meinert Devon Crest 2005 seemed a useful combination of the virtues of the Creation and the Delheim: savoury, but with a dense, flavour-compressed palate. In all of these wines the Cabernet dominates, though none of them are like the gooey, rich reds of yore. These were more interesting than the pure Cabernets. I only really liked the 2005 Topiary — unshowy but still quite elegant and infinitely better than the overly herbal Zonnebloem.

But then I tasted a couple of the latest Pinot Noirs — and these convinced me that this is the red-wine category making the greatest progress in SA. The 2008 Creation Pinot was better than many wines from the 1990s but it was over-shadowed by the 2007 Oak Valley from Elgin and the 2007 Galpin Peak Tete de Cuvee of Bouchard Finlayson.

In a sense, Peter Finlayson is the original pioneer — having been the first wine maker at Hamilton Russell in the 1970s. Thirty years of working with the “heartbreak grape” give him an expertise and skill which is worth more than the purity of new clone vineyards. His latest super-premium offering is priced at the top of the market (don’t expect much change from R450) but it is utterly Burgundian.

The Oak Valley is plusher and slightly more New World, the Finlayson wine is spicier and more demanding. Both, however, now offer the kind of pleasure that only the best Cabernet blends can begin to rival. We’ve come a long way.

From Business Day 8 April 2009