South Africa’s vineyards don’t just produce remarkable wines, they exist within one of the most extraordinary ecosystems on earth.
The Cape Floral Kingdom, a biodiversity treasure found nowhere else, is both the backdrop and the responsibility of the country’s winemakers. As Tamlyn Currin highlights in her latest report for Jancis Robinson MW, this is a wine industry deeply intertwined with nature, and increasingly committed to protecting it.
Today, nearly all South African wines carry the Integrity & Sustainability Certification, a quiet but powerful indication of an industry working to preserve what makes it so unique. From rewilding vineyards to water conservation and dry farming, the story of modern Cape wine is one of care as much as craft.
And the results? They’re in the glass.
From a standout 18/20 white by Draaiboek, the highest-scoring white in the report, to a host of exceptional wines scoring 17 and above, this is a collection that captures the energy, diversity and precision of South Africa right now.
Chenin continues to shine. Chardonnay impresses. And across both classic and unexpected varieties, the Cape’s most exciting producers are pushing boundaries while staying rooted in place.
Below, you’ll find our selection of the top-rated wines from the report, all available at Museum Wines, with a handful of highly anticipated arrivals landing soon.
If you’re looking to explore the cutting edge of South African wine, there’s never been a better place to start.
Shop the highlights below.
Our Top-Scoring Wines
Tamlyn Currin Says…
Tamlyn Currin – 18/20 Points
“Kinkel means ‘twist’ in Afrikaans. Fruit from a single 8-year-old south-west-facing, dry-farmed vineyard located 255 m above sea level in the south-eastern region of Elgin. Vines are planted in decomposed Bokkeveld shale containing about 20% clay. Hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed. Fermented in French oak barrels, 30% new, and matured on fine lees for 11 months. No fining or filtering was done prior to bottling. Only the best barrels were bottled. This is, quite simply, stunning. It’s like listening to a single treble voice of a chorister filling the vaulted silence of a huge cathedral. Skin-tingling, spine-ringing purity of liquid timbre. Angelic cascades of shining fruit. I don’t even want to write ‘yuzu’, ‘lemongrass cream’, ‘grapefruit peel’, ‘fennel pollen’, ‘stream-pebble stones’ and ‘apple sherbet dusted with sanded terracotta’ (although I clearly just have, and I could add kumquat sweetness, frangipani flowers to the list) because although this wine is a mesmerising mosaic of flavour, it’s just so, so much more than that. It is a masterpiece of resonant, layered, saturated perfect pitch. It has so much integrity – in its chiffon folds, it captures South African sunshine, the glitter and wild whip of the cold Atlantic ocean, the geometric precision of salt crystals, the rockiness of the mountains that I am certain rise above the vineyard, and the fragrance of the flowers that I am certain surround it. I also love the intriguing label! And I see that I also loved the 2022 vintage of this wine. The person who makes this wine is gifted.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 18/20 Points
“Portuguese varieties. Aged two years in old 4,000-litre pipe cask. Two years in cask, so it’s spent considerable time (35 years!) in bottle. And yet it is astoundingly fresh. Damson and strawberry jam on the nose, and fugitive notes of shoe polish, potpourri and beef stock. Sweet, but not massively so, thanks to time and the astounding kaleidoscope of flavours. Fig jam and tamarind. Clove. The bruised fragrance of rose and peony petals in a florist shop. Date-syrup sweetness, almost occluded by everything else here: forest-loam earthiness, gingerbread spiciness, sumac zing. And the tannins have long since succumbed to the siren song of time, now as loose-limbed as ribbons. Peppery finish, through the long, languid lick of stewing plums. A stunning fortified wine, and considering its age and glorious condition, an absolute bargain at £65.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin- 17.5/20 Points
“Single 0.2-ha vineyard of old-heritage-clone Sémillon planted in 1963. The juice is left on the skins for a few hours, then pressed and cold clarified overnight, without fining agents or enzymes. The clean juice ferments spontaneously with natural yeasts in 400-litre barrels stored in a refrigerated barrel cellar. Natural malolactic fermentation. The wine is aged on the fine lees in barrels without bâttonage for 12 months before being bottled. I have a beeswax candle on my kitchen table. It’s a creamy colour, not very tall, and it has an insouciantly elegant slouch, quietly acquired under the soft warmth of its flame. Around the wick, right now, is a slowly curling mint leaf, some cumin seeds, a shiny red-and-yellow tulip petal and a freckling of turmeric. You can tell this is a candle in a busy kitchen, catching the flotsam of the comings and goings of life and family, of food and cooking. This wine is all that. Beeswax, petals, dried herbs, turmeric and cumin. Insouciant slouch. Soft flame. Baked pears. A slice of sourdough slathered in melted butter. A wine that feels like home. A wine that tastes like you could sip it in your pyjamas, bare foot, toes in a puddle of sunshine, hair unbrushed, while you scoop up fat-pink, buttery garlic, lemon-zested prawns on a chunk of toast. Chervil optional.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 17.5/20 Points
“Single vineyard planted in 1982. Smells just like the moment after you’ve lifted the blowtorch off a vanilla-bean-infused crème anglaise. And then, the sweet smell of yellow split peas simmered slowly under a gathering golden pool of ghee. It has that chana-dahl sweet earthiness, saffron and egg-yolk richness and fragrance, the comfort of baked pear. Smoky finish. The texture of a butter bean. No hurry to drink it, either. A wonderful wine. It makes me feel kind of nested in the heart of the earth. And although it would be fine (exceptionally fine) with, say, roast chicken, or scallops grilled in a cheesy buttery sauce, I actually think that this wine would be most beautiful and most interesting with vegan dishes. It seems to be so rooted to the earth in its vibe that it’s as if its frequency is tuned to plant-based dishes.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 17/20 Points
“Single vineyard. Verdelho grown organically without herbicides, fungicides, pesticides or chemical fertilisers. Spontaneous fermentation, no enzymes, fining or filtration. Apricot and apple blossom on the nose – I felt like I was smelling an orchard in late spring when I lifted this glass and breathed in. But it also smells like membrillo and lanolin. It’s a remarkable wine. Transparent and ‘clean’ in its clarity and acidity, and yet there is real richness, complexity, density and depth here. A wildness to the fruit, perhaps crab apples and quince and monkey oranges. A sense of sweet lacy herbs, fennel flowers and melissa flowers and meadowsweet. And then rolling curves and contours of ripe pear. Spicy ginger leaving a stipple of tingle and warmth on the finish. This would be beautiful with the Greek dish hoirino me selino avgolemono (pork and celery stew with egg-lemon sauce, which a very special Greek friend cooked for me recently), but also, I reckon, with Nadiya Hussain’s chickpea and ginger-rice bowl of comfort. If you want a complex, intriguing and seriously food-friendly white wine: this one.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 17 /20 Points
“Fruit from both old and young vines on shale and clay. Aged for 10 months in French oak, 50% new.This little raspberry-saturated darling is wearing its Pinot Noir DNA on its sleeve – it is so finespun and translucent! Goose-feather tannins feathering lacy fronds of red juice across a canvas of gentleness. Light (oh-so-light) notes of white pepper, charcuterie and roses, paying tribute to its Cinsault parent, too. It’s one of those wines that comes across as light (which it is) and simple (which it isn’t) until you spend a minute or two, giving it a chance to gather itself, put its shyness aside. It’s a wine full of quiet thoughts. And clouds of pepper on the finish!” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 17/20 Points
“66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, 17% Cabernet Franc. 12 months in oak barrels. Really lovely nose – raspberry liqueur, florist-shop botanicals, caraway seed. Lusciously ripe but that ripeness is kept tightly in check by tannins and the contours of the oak. Fresh, bright raspberry and redcurrant, and a kind of caraway/anise spiciness that also brings cool, earthy freshness. Firm, grainy tannins which lock in to the red flesh of the fruit with remarkable grace. It’s a broad-shouldered, rich wine that yet holds itself with finesse.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 16.5/20 Points
“Die Posman means ‘the postman’. Grenache Blanc from a vineyard planted in the early 2000s on the Riebeekberg. 50% fermented in used 500-litre oak barrels and 50% in stainless-steel tanks, where it ages for nine months. It’s introvert but does, eventually, tentatively open up in the glass. Apricots and nectarines at first. Warm hay, ginger root, the smell of red earth and chalk dust scuffed up into the air on a hot day. It feels like a daisy chain of teeny tiny star-petal flowers on the finish. Little nip-and-tuck of bitterness and citrus right at the very end. It would be the wine I would open with delicate but deep-flavoured fish, plaice or sole maybe? Pan-fried in an abundance of butter and chervil? Although, I think it would also be damn fine with a humble chip-shop pea fritter! ” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 16.5/20 Points
“Smoking libraries and cigar jackets. This wine smells like it comes off the set of Downton Abbey. Majestically old-school. Plums and pepper. Topiary, freshly shaved into place. Stolid and grand with a touch of moss on those old, old stone steps.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 16.5/20 Points
“20 months in French oak barrels of which about 18% are new oak. Plum on the nose and plum-jam sweetness (not jamminess) on the palate. Some dark chocolate, a hint of cigar. The sweetness offset by plenty of sharp blackcurrant-infused acidity, and autumn-leaf undertow. Very fresh, thanks to tendrils of dried-herbs fragrance in the mid-palate, with tannins elegantly aligned. A touch of oak-sent vanilla-coffee cream on the finish. In a very sweet spot for drinking right now.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin- 16.5/20 Points
“60% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot, 20% Malbec. 12 months in oak barrels. You can smell ripe Cabernet Franc on the nose! Lovely silky fruit and soothingly smooth, suave tannins. Malbec brings a dark-indigo swirl of inky calligraphy. It’s a conservative, classic but well-modulated cuvée. Real ‘family Sunday roast’ wine! ” – Tamlyn Currin.
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Tamlyn Currin – 17.5/20 Points
“Certified Heritage Vineyard Chenin bush vines planted in 1985 on decomposed granite. Some whole bunch and some destemmed with a bit of skin contact. Spontaneous fermentation in old 225-litre French barrels and large cask. Aged 10 months on lees.
Fragrance on the nose shifting, dappled, like spring sunlight through bare branches fuzzy with buds. Petrichor, apple blossom, acacia flowers, brick dust. Alex Milner’s chicane of making a bone-dry Chenin taste like a dessert wine. Baked pears set within a crystal cluster of acidity, prismic in its brightness, in the way it seems to split and bend the frequency of the wine’s energy into a blade of rainbows. Spiciness – cinnamon, fine-ground cigar, cardamon – rising and falling on the breath of the wine.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 17.5/20 Points
“Certified Heritage Vineyard planted in 1978. Dry-farmed bush vines. Fermented in concrete tank, basket-pressed, aged in large old oak casks for 14 months. I first tasted this the day after it had been bottled at Natte Valleij, and so perhaps feel a kind of irrational emotional connection to this wine, although it has been my ‘darling’ Cinsault since I first tasted it in 2019. I tasted this over several days, and it’s a liminal-and-light wine, sometimes tasting like sunrise, sometimes sunset. Sometimes like strawberries and malt, sometimes raspberries and pepper. Always haunting. Always a wine full of pauses, which is where the tannins seem to tuck themselves. Always a sense of forgotten, overlooked spaces and places, which is where its leaf-and-mineral notes seem to hide, like mossy crannies in stone steps.” – Tamlyn Currin.
Tamlyn Currin – 17 /20 Points
“Smells like lime curd and tastes, unexpectedly, and rather gorgeously, of blood orange. So far, so not very Sauvignon. Some ripe gooseberry notes, though, with lovely tarragon and lightly roasted fennel seeds playing through the fruit. Sorrel notes. A real wash of cleansing, bracing, enlivening acidity. I would love this with a creamy chicken-and-herb bake, or with a simmering bowl of butter beans, leeks, lemon and herbs swimming in peppery green olive oil. ” – Tamlyn Currin.
