This year's Decanter World Wine Awards Regional Trophy for South African Sauvignon Blanc over £15 went to Tokara, Reserve Collection Sauvignon Blanc, Elgin 2013 (13.5%)
Tasted against:
- Spier, 21 Gables Sauvignon Blanc, Tygerberg 2013
Profile:
The Tokara estate was originally envisioned as a private residence for South African multimillionaire businessman Gerrit Thomas Ferreira in 1994, but such was its perceived potential for vine growing that he rapidly concluded the sweeping views across False Bay and Table Mountain were worth sacrificing in order to create a winery.Wine is, he says, all about ROE – ‘return on ego, rather than return on equity’, and with this in mind, no expense appears to have been spared.
Tokara harvests its fruit from three locations and this Trophy-winner hails from its Highlands farm in Elgin, on top of the Kogelberg Mountain just 7km from the coast. At 415m altitude, the grapes benefit from a long, cool ripening season and ripen an incredible six weeks later than the Sauvignon at Tokara’s Stellenbosch vineyard (which enjoy temperatures up to 4°C warmer).
The winemaker here is Miles Mossop, who joined Tokara in 2000, having graduated top of his class from Stellenbosch University in viticulture and oenology in 1998. In the two years before joining Tokara, Mossop did stints at Spice Route and Thelema in South Africa, and abroad at Knappstein in South Australia, Alain Parret in Condrieu and Planeta in Sicily.
Written by Decanter
