Five years ago, international tasters and wine critics had no time for South African shiraz. Many of them also did not think highly of South African cabernet and positively reviled pinotage. It's probably fair to say that our red wines in general were less well received abroad than at home.

The same view did not prevail when it came to our better whites. The sauvignon blancs had already begun attracting serious interest, so too the white blends, whether sauvignon-based or the less easily pigeonholed chenin-based wines, such as Lammershoek's Roulette. Top-end chardonnays were also generally admired - though sales were not always as buoyant as the producers would have liked: competitively priced white Burgundies and a certain boredom with New World styles no doubt played a role. Since then a few things have changed: the hundreds of new shiraz producers have discovered that making decent wine is not as easy as planting shiraz vineyards.

Many have started to focus on how to manage the vinification in order to tease the most out of the variety. Others have either given up or adjusted their pretensions: bulk grape prices have tumbled by up to as much as 90% in real terms over the past eight years.

What has been much more interesting however is the emergence of a new generation of serious players, who have identified their better vineyards and are managing the fruit in a way that suggests there are some sites that truly offer an expression of place.

The success of Eagles' Nest at this year's Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show provides a useful illustration: 10 years ago the Constantia estate was an old fruit farm without any vineyards. Then a fire swept through the property. Once replanting was inevitable, the orchards were replaced with vineyards. In 2006, Martin Meinert - acting as the consulting winemaker - produced a wine that won the show's shiraz trophy in 2008, as well as the trophy for the best red wine entered. Pundits examining the result wondered if the judges had erred: Eagles' Nest was an entirely unknown producer, Constantia does not enjoy a reputation for Shiraz, and while Meinert is one of SA's most capable winemakers, his reputation has not been built on shiraz.

A year later, Eagles' Nest won a trophy at the International Wine Challenge. A year after that, the 2008 vintage again won the Old Mutual Show's shiraz trophy as well as the best red on show award.

The newly launched SA Wine Index has given the wine an improbable 100% rating based on an immaculate track record.

Quoin Rock's Syrah has twice won the same trophy, Raka's Biography Shiraz has twice won a gold medal (on one occasion going on to take the trophy). The Haskell Pillars shiraz 2007 won a gold in 2009 and a very solid silver for its 2008 in 2010. The Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection shiraz has finished on mid-silver for two consecutive years.

None of these are names which, even five years ago, would have elicited even the faintest glimmer of recognition from any except the most studious wine buff. They are all new generation examples.

Very few - if any - were even on the market a decade ago.

They are all conspicuous examples of the emergence of a serious class of Cape shiraz producers, all drawing their fruit from quite specific sites and all honing their winemaking to optimise the expression of the grape, as well as a sense of its place of origin. Unsurprisingly, none tastes as if it was made in the Northern Rhone, or in South Australia.

The overseas critics who thought so little of South African shiraz five years ago are now showing marked interest in the top end of our market.

At least - when it comes to shiraz - we've gone from being bad producers of cheap-and-cheerful bottlings to contenders for a place in the cellars of serious collectors.

Michael Fridjhon is chair of the judges and part owner of the Trophy Wine Show

From Business Day, 21 July 2010