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Little Known South African Wine Named Best In The World

Little Known South African Wine Named Best In The World

From AFP via  Malaymail Online

Gnarled and gnomish, the vines that produced the best white in one of the world’s top wine competitions crouch low and untrellised amid more traditional vineyards in South Africa’s scenic Cape winelands.

The Chenin Blanc made from these 40-year-old “bush vines” beat global competition across the full range of white wines to take the top spot in this year’s Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, which tested a total of 8,000 wines.

Winemaker Reginald (RJ) Botha says the Kleine Zalze estate outside Stellenbosch set out to build a wine that tasted of “elegance”.

Given that more than 320 experts from some 50 countries chose the 2013 Kleine Zalze Family Reserve as best white at the 22nd edition of the Concours Mondiale in Italy this month, they must have succeeded.

But elegance is not a word that springs to mind when looking at the denuded bush vines amid the autumnal beauty of the surrounding landscape.

Unlike trellised vines, they are three-dimensional, with at least five arms rather than two, and stand about knee-high.

Bush vines are less productive than trellised vines because they provide a greater canopy of leaf coverage to the fruit, and are also labour-intensive, as they cannot be harvested by machine.

But their advocates say the lower yield and greater effort is worth it because the berries have much thicker skins and therefore produce more concentrated flavours.

Read more at Malaymail Online