[March 21, 2023]

Meet Duncan Savage – one of the hottest young winemakers of the Cape.

Critic Tim Atkin MW said of him, “Duncan Savage thinks he hasn’t hit his full potential yet. Heaven help his rivals when he does”! Yet, despite the praise he’s heaped with, he’s a modest guy, full of enthusiasm, passion and positivity. Even through Covid, with its added difficulties – no export sales for a time and, at one point, no domestic sales either. A beach ban was the nearest he got to a meltdown! 

He is the great guy behind the vibrant Hommage à B Syrah – a sensational red that only happened thanks to the support he received from Vineyard Partners. The wine is tribute to his great friend and grower, Boetie, who died only a few years back, far too young. Thanks to your support, Duncan can hold back the grapes from Boetie’s vineyard each year to make this fabulously sleek, pure-fruit Syrah … powerful, but elegant, more Côte-Rôtie than South African.

Duncan isn’t from a family of winemakers, but he needed a job close to the ocean. He is a mega surfing dude, and his first position, at Cape Point Vineyards, was just 1.5km from the Atlantic. An amazing, cool, windy place

He quickly rose up the ranks and there gained a 5-star reputation for bristling, fresh, cool-climate whites – a classic saline, mineral-edged Sauvignon Blanc in fact – during his 14-year tenureship there. Then it was time to start up on his own. He has a cellar now, based “in the Salt River area of Cape Town … like Shoreditch was about 20 years ago … edgy!” reported Duncan.  

His winemaking style went from pure, nervy whites to similarly sleek, fresh-tasting reds. His aim, always, is for the fruit to express the terroir of the vineyard. “Terroir is what makes a wine unique, so we want that to show in the wine, not the oak”.

Duncan has hardly any vineyards of his own, but searches out terrific, cool-climate sites – edgy in a different way – and works intently with the growers to ensure he gets the grape quality he’s after at harvest time. Lean and nervy. He largely works with Syrah (Syrah, not Shiraz you’ll notice, because Duncan is f irmly glued to elegance), Grenache and Cinsault. His parcel of Cinsault is about 40 years old, his Grenache 50 and a new parcel of Chenin Blanc he’s just got his hands on is a stunning 70 years old.  

At the last Round Table discussion (in case you didn’t get a chance to tune in, catch it on /vplounge), Duncan was telling us how much grape growing in South Africa has changed in the last 25 years. During the 1990s, there was little regard for which grape variety performed best in which climate. Since then, however, methods have been fine-tuned and Duncan is very clear that it’s what you do in the vineyards, not in the cellar, that counts.

Time in the vines

It’s Duncan who does much of the hard graft in his leased vineyards: “I work with my growers, who may not know much about wine, but they know a lot about their vineyard and its land. They grew up on it, like their fathers and their grandfathers. So I like to learn from them first-hand.” 

 “There’s no substitute for time in the vines” he says. His aim is to get to know each row, each vine even, and prune it accordingly, in winter, spring and summer, to get the right balance of canopy vs exposure to the sun, the optimum number of bunches for yield, and so on.

Big and ripe is easy to achieve – finesse is a whole different ball game.  

Duncan looked to France, where some of the world’s finest Syrahs hail from, as a place to learn. He saw that the best come from steep, wind-blown sites – CôteRôtie, Hermitage and the other key appellations of the northern Rhône. He’s tried to implement the same in South Africa – choosing much cooler sites, close to the ocean (equivalent to the Rhône river in France), sloped if he can and blessed with windy conditions.  

The result is a significant shift in style “that’s super exciting” declared Duncan.

Sustainability

Press Duncan on the subject of sustainability and he says: “It’s a necessity now … in 2015/16 we nearly ran out of water in Cape Town. Sustainability is much more than just being organic. You need to take a holistic view. When we take over a vineyard and farm it, we have to convert it gradually to being organic … train the vines, let them build up strength and the defences from within. 

Plus, a farmer has to find the right methods for each plot. Basically, you’ve got to have an open mind to find the right way for each vineyard.”  

“For maximum water retention you need a high level of carbon in the soil – it’s a win-win. We mulch the soil with straw and try to stir it up as little as possible to retain those maximum carbon levels. Increasing soil carbon is a long-term game, but you see the results in the plants very quickly.”

Duncan always has something new on the go. The latest is a 1.1-hectare vineyard that he’s planting from scratch. It’s taken him two years to find this site – it’s so steep the current grower, as well as his grandfather and father before him, refused to plant there. And it’s taken Duncan two years to persuade this guy!  

“It’s south facing, looks straight at the ocean and is in the teeth of the wind. I won’t see any fruit for a few years, but it’s exciting … there’s no limit to learning, it never stops.” Watch this space!