It would be easy to tell the Diemersdal story in numbers.
For starters, there are the six generations of Louws who have grown and made wine on the Durbanville farm for 12 decades since 1885.
Then, the at least nine versions of sauvignon blanc they have produced under sixth-generation current custodian and sauvignon blanc fanatic Thys Louw.
Or that, in their best-ever performance in the 44 years of the Platter’s SA Wine Guide, they have just been awarded six five-star ratings in the 2024 guide, released last week — one five-star wine for each of the six generations!
(One 5* accolade away from Sadie, who took the Platter’s winery of the year gong.)
The numbers make an easy story to tell for sure, but one that would completely miss out on the soul of the people and the place — what Louw calls their “human terroir”, the generations who have developed intimate understanding of the soils, slopes and vines in one place, who have passed on not only winemaking skills from one generation to the next, but a shared ethos and values.
Lucky for me, a few weeks before the starry Platter’s announcement, a bottle of the 2023 Diemersdal Sauvignon Blanc Reserve landed on the doorstep, newly-released and fresh with a FNB Top 10 sauvignon blanc placing — the seventh time a Diemersdal sauvignon blanc has made the list.
This is made from two specific vineyards on the Diemersdal farm, with minimal interference and, unexpectedly, no wood — and Louw says this shows how a sauvignon blanc made in a way where the winemaker is “only but the carer of the grapes”, allowing the factors of vintage (such as the weather and growing conditions of the particular year) and terroir to determine the end-result, will always come up with the goods.
The wine? Fresh, intense, poised on a knife-edge of tension between acidity and creaminess, minerality versus the yeasty character from time on the lees.
A superior sauvignon blanc in every way (±R150).
Diemersdal’s other Platter’s 5* wines are the wooded The Journal Sauvignon Blanc 2022, the complex, oak-aged Wild Horseshoe 2022, The Journal Cabernet Sauvignon 2021, Reserve Syrah 2022, and the Bordeaux-style red blend Private Collection 2021 (the latter on promo at Preston’s Main Road, Walmer, R179.90 — a bargain for a five-star big red).
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