Just when you think you know who’s who in the zoo in the world of wine, along comes a dark horse – or, more precisely, a striped horse.Merlot the Zebra is the familiar symbol of the widely available cheap ’n cheerful wines of Perdeberg, but the dark horses of this vast Paarl winery are their premium Dryland Collection and Vineyard Collection ranges.
For those who know Perdeberg only for their appealing mass-market “perdjiewyne” like the big-selling R45 soft smooth red, the upper-level wines prove to be a great surprise, and at great value too.Marketing manager Johan van Dyk says the company, which started life as a co-op in 1941 and now produces around 300,000 cases of wine a year, had taken a “layered” approach to their wine ranges – bringing better quality to the entry levels to achieve brand recognition and encouraging consumers to try the premium wines because they already know the name, its quality and value.
Chenin Blanc is a big focus for Perdeberg, and they do eight different variations – from a bubbly and a natural sweet wine, to the entry-level R45 job, a reliable favourite which gets a respectable 3 stars and a “hidden gem” rating in Platter’s (and advice to “buy bootloads”), through to the multi-award-winning Dryland Collection Courageous barrel-fermented version.Courageous shows off the complex flavours and intensity that come from dryland-farmed grapes whose roots have to dig deep to survive the hot Paarl summers, producing low yields and small grapes that pack a flavourful punch.
It’s been a Top 10 Chenin winner four years in a row now and gets 5 stars in Platter’s – the wine rich and creamy with baked spice, nutty and honey notes, and ridiculously great value at around R100!
The cellarmaster’s “labour of love”, says Van Dyk, is the single-vineyard Endura Chenin – only 2,000 bottles are made of this full-bodied, ripely flavoured wine with touches of marmalade and spice, and it’s worth making Perdeberg a destination on a wine-route trip just to taste this.
The Vineyard Collection offers a range of single vineyard, single cultivar wines, including two examples of classic Rhone varietals – a beautifully feminine and floral, aromatic easy drinking Grenache Blanc (in 2015, the first of the varietal to ever get a Veritas double gold) and a deceptively light Cinsaut that delivers some Christmas cake spiciness along with sweet-sour cherry notes.Either will set you back around R100.
Perdeberg’s upper-level reds over-deliver too – the Dryland Collection all four-star-rated, with the standout being Joseph’s Legacy, a big, flavourful Shiraz-led blend that’s all spicy-smoky-savoury with ripe cherries and plums – complex, layered and delicious, and another great value one at around R140.
The big daddy of the lot is Rex Equus, an elegant Cape blend of pinotage, shiraz, malbec and grenache noir, probably Perdeberg’s most expensive offering at R300 with a deserved 4.5 stars for its balance of full-bodied deep fruitiness and savouriness with smooth freshness.The entry-level wines are widely available locally and some of the Vineyard Collection wines can be found at various PnP Liquors and Spar Tops, otherwise order online from Perdeberg’s website (www.perdeberg.co.za) or wine.co.za