Driehoek, La Vierge and Lothian vintages shine yet again

08/2023 Mike Froud Leave a comment

THERE WERE 30 of the Cape’s wine producers vying for the 2023 Mosaic Top 5 Pinot Noir Awards, which is fairly impressive, given how niche the variety is in the country relative to Cabernet, Shiraz, Pinotage, Merlot… To lay claim, as the organisers do, to having come up with “the best Pinot Noir wines in South Africa” is a bit of a stretch given the absence of benchmarks including Bouchard Finlayson, Crystallum, Hamilton Russell, Newton Johnson, Paul Cluver… But nevertheless, many of the market leaders were represented among the 45 entries, and for three of the competition winners it wasn’t the first time that these vintages had received rave reviews: the 2020 Driehoek Mieke having won a trophy at the Michelangelo Awards (SA), the 2020 La Vierge Apogée scored 95 points at the International Wine Challenge (UK) and the 2020 Lothian awarded a trophy at the 2021 edition of the Challenge.

The panel of judges on this occasion: Winnie Bowman CWM (chair), wine writer Fiona McDonald, sommelier Gregory Mutambe of the Twelve Apostles Hotel, together with winemakers André van Rensberg and Anton Swarts CWM of Spier.