Even the Poet Laureate would have his licence revoked if he described Rijk's Neville Dorrington as a New Age man. A former surfer (by his own admission he exchanged his school desk for a surf-board soon after he went to high school) Dorrington thinks that being PC is simply pussy-footing (so to speak) around the issues. He is a blunt and unashamed "boys-do-this-and-girls-do-that" kind of fellow who has made a success of his life by rolling up his sleeves and getting on with things.

Unsurprisingly his wines reflect his personality - which makes them refreshingly direct: they taste of the grapes on the label, frank, open, no hidden messages, no secret codes. They are big and generally quite bold - but this is more a function of their appellation than a reflection of the quite wiry proprietor (who dresses rather less opulently - in T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops).

Making good wine in Tulbagh is not an extraordinary achievement. Rijk's has bagged a number of awards over the years, so has Saronsberg and Twee Jonge Gezellen. Tulbagh Mountain Vineyards is a little known - though very serious - fine wine cellar. In the 1970s Montpellier was the source of some of the country's finest white wines. There's enough shale in them thar hills for the wines to retain their freshness even when the very intense summer sun looks set to shrivel the grapes.

Still, they are generally not for the faint of heart: 14.5% alcohol is pretty much the norm (though Rijk's very good Chenin is at 13.5% and Fascination, the equally fine Semillon-Sauvignon blend, can't be much more). "Lightly fragrant, delicate, savoury" are not the notes you would expect to read about them.

The countryside around Tulbagh is markedly different from much of the rest of the so-called Coastal Region. In fact, it's something of a misnomer to use the word 'coastal' in the context of Tulbagh: it's a lot further inland than a host of places denied the right to this appellation. Rumour has it that when the authorities made the demarcation they gave in to a little political pressure. Montpellier's De Wet Theron was a KWV director and the Drostdy Cellars was a Rembrandt subsidiary.

Winemaker Pierre Wahl says that his boss gives him a free hand when it comes to running the winery. He's too busy working the vines where his years of careful observation have translated into his own - sometimes idiosyncratic - ideas about managing the fruit, and ultimately, about preparing vineyards. When an adjacent block of land came on the market a few years ago, the prospect of putting these theories into practice was irresistible.

The result is Rijk's Estate - separate vineyards whose fruit is vinified in a completely separate, simple but thoughtfully designed, cellar. The land has remarkably evenly drained soils and the vineyards have been laid out on an east-west axis to facilitate even ripening.

The packaging is simple and the label is never going to win a beauty competition. Dusty cerise on cream is very yesterday - which may indeed be the designer's intention. There is a sense that Rijk's doesn't want to be seen trying too hard to sell the wine.

The Syrah is pretty impressive and for me certainly outperforms the red blend - offered under the proprietary name of "The Master." (You can divine Dorrington's thinking when it comes to the monicker). Put the Syrah into a heavier bottle, add a gold-embossed label and claim a Stellenbosch origin and you could probably double the price.

It's not the way things are being done in Tulbagh. Wine folk there are rugged individualists. There are some concessions to fashion, but independence - rather than kowtowing to convention - is the preferred route. That's why Rijk's Estate wine is not over-dressed, why Nick van Huyssteen's Saronsberg is not easily compared with other wines, and why Nicky Krone, at Twee Jonge Gezellen, is the source of some of the Cape's best fizz.