Top wines to the fore again in Sauvignon Blanc SA Top 10 |

Top wines to the fore again in Sauvignon Blanc SA Top 10

10/2023 Mike Froud Leave a comment

DE GRENDEL, Diemersdal, Kleine Zalze, Steenberg, Tokara and Zorgvliet are among the standout wineries in the 2023 FNB Sauvignon Blanc SA Top 10, the panel’s favourites of the 169 entries from 106 producers judged over three days. A number of success stories for Stellenbosch and Durbanville, but no wines from Sauvignon vineyards in the Agulhas Triangle or Darling on this occasion. On the jury: Cape Wine Master Winifred Bowman (convener), wine writer Fiona McDonald, winemakers Johann Fourie (Benguela Cove) and Morgan Steyn (De Grendel), plus sommelier Gregory Mutambe (Rust en Vrede).

Ahead of the competition results being announced, the 2022 vintage of De Grendel Koetshuis had already earned a double gold medal at the Veritas Awards and was Highly Recommended in Platter’s SA Wine Guide. Of South Africa’s top Sauvignon Blancs, the flagship white in De Grendel’s range of wines has one of the best track records over the past decade.

Kleine Zalze also earned double gold at this year’s Veritas Awards for their top-tier Family Reserve, one of the Top 10 in the SA Sauvignon Blanc Classification together with two other champions in the 2023 edition of the only South African wine competition that focuses exclusively on this grape variety, Steenberg’s Black Swan and the Tokara Reserve.

Diemersdal Reserve stands out as the only wine featured in the last two years of the Sauvignon Blanc SA Top 10, i.e. the 2022 vintage among the winners that year followed by the 2023 a year later. Whereas the 2022 vintage of Zorgliet’s Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc is the only Top 10 laureate to also win a gold medal at the 2023 Concours Mondial du Sauvignon – an international competition with over 1200 entries from 20 countries that has been staged in various countries over the years and which was held in South Africa for the first time in 2023.