THE PREVIOUS Heritage Syrah from Leeuwenkuil Family Vineyards was the 2019 vintage, rated 96/100 in Winemag’s 2024 Shiraz Report. No 2020, no 2021, and then POW! A near-perfect score of 99 points for the 2022 vintage in Platter’s 2026 South African Wine Guide. “Straight out of Côte Rotie,” said Platter’s
10 YEARS AGO it wasn’t a name you’d be familiar with on the shelves of wine stores and supermarkets. Today it’s renowned as one of South Africa’s top labels in terms of quality and interest value… Leeuwenkuil (lion’s lair) was named after the large cats that once roamed the area,
OVER 150km / 1½hr drive from Cape Town, at the beach with not a vineyard in sight, The Saldanha Wine & Spirit Co of Adi Badenhorst and his cousin Hein is the only specialist Sherry-style wine producer in South Africa. According to Master of Wine Cathy van Zyl, writing for
IT STANDS to reason that because members of the Cape Winemakers Guild include a number of South Africa’s top cellarmasters, and as admission is by invitation only, whenever newcomers are welcomed on board it’s meaningful to wine lovers looking for pointers regarding top quality, interesting stuff – CWG members’ wines,
GUARDIANS of the Pinotage legacy. That’s how they refer to themselves at the Bellevue Wine Estate in Bottelary, Stellenbosch. It’s from this farm, now owned by Marinus Neethling, that the grapes came from for the very first Pinotage wine released onto the market in 1961, the Lanzerac Pinotage 1959, back
FROM a vineyard that recently turned 50, the current-release 2022 Stellenbosch 1679 Old Vine Pinotage is probably the best vintage of this wine since the maiden 2019. Its rating of 97+ at the Global Wine Masters (UK) followed a score of 95/100 at the Fine Wine Awards (SA), which came
Talk about a success story! Launched in 2019, the first of Koelenhof Winery’s flagship Stellenbosch 1679 range was the 2017 Bush Vine Chenin Blanc. Soon thereafter The Legacy red was introduced, a Cape Bordeaux-style blend, and then came the Pinotage and the Cabernet Sauvignon. All now with awards and high
WITHIN the large Perdeberg outfit in the north-western reaches of South Africa’s Paarl district there’s a boutique cellar where dry-farming (unirrigated) culminates in two special wines under the Endura label, one white and one red – a single-vineyard Chenin and a Pinotage-driven Cape Blend. With 2017 having been the first
At the heart of Perdeberg’s winemaking philosophy lies a profound respect for resilience, and nowhere is that spirit more beautifully captured than in the Endura range. These wines pay tribute to the enduring journey of dry-farmed vines, which thrive against the odds to deliver fruit of remarkable concentration and flavour.
THE GRAPES for négociant Neil Ellis’s Whitehall Chardonnay don’t come from the same vineyard that was used originally, but the Elgin beauty is as delightful as ever – and apparently it gets better with time in the bottle. Scored 94/100 in Winemag’s 2024 Report on South African Chardonnay, the 2022
THE TOP-RATED wine going into the final round of judging at the 2025 Veritas Awards – the biggest, longest-running wine competition in South Africa where very high scores are tough to come by. The 2021 vintage of Dornier’s Cape Bordeaux-style red blend Donatus – the name being Latin for a
For the first time, the story of South Africa’s most popular white wine cultivar has been brought together in a single publication: The Story of South African Sauvignon Blanc. The 248-page book offers the most complete overview of the variety to date, tracing its journey from the first plantings at
About
Top Wine SA is your go-to site for South Africa’s top-rated wines and their prices, top-rated wines at under R200 a bottle, other SA wine recommendations, the top SA wine events calendar, news and comment. Home of the SA Wine Classification and the Hall of Fame, keeping tabs on the best track records of the country’s top wines as judged by the top panels locally and internationally. A directory of the country’s top producers as well as where to eat and stay on the top farms, among the vines. And there’s more, much more…
Menu
Copyright 2026 TopWineSA | Privacy Policy | Webite by Webfactory
