Lourens, Skuinskap Steen Chenin Blanc, Piekenierskloof 2022 - 75cl
Franco Lourens learned his craft at David Ramey in Sonoma and Vasse Felix in Margaret River before coming home to become Chris Alheit's assistant winemaker at the Cape. Lourens Family Wines is his own project, launched in 2016 and named after the people closest to him. This bottling comes from the Sandell vineyard high up in Piekenierskloof, in the Citrusdal Mountains past the northern edge of the Swartland, where Chenin Blanc, or Steen as it's known in Afrikaans, was planted on decomposed sandstone in 1977. The name comes from the vineyard's slanted trellis, a training method more usual for table grapes.
Fruit is hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed with no skin contact, then fermented on wild yeasts in a single old 500-litre French tonneau. It rests ten months on fine lees in the same neutral oak, unstirred, then goes to bottle without fining, barely filtered, with a small dose of sulphur. Old vines at around 750 metres, worked dry-farmed, do the rest.
Christian Eedes scored the 2022 a rare 97 points, calling it poised and singular. The nose runs to pear, nectarine, dried herbs, hay and a whiff of lanolin; the palate has serious fruit density carried by punchy mountain acidity, with crushed-rock and salted-almond savouriness through a long, deeply savoury close. There's weight without heaviness. Lovely now, and built to hold and deepen through 2028 and beyond.
How to Serve
Serve at 10-12°C in a full white wine glass. This is not a wine to drink fridge-cold; too much chill mutes the herb and stone-fruit detail. Give it fifteen minutes out of the fridge and it broadens noticeably.
Where to Drink It
Kudu in Peckham, an obvious South African home for it, next to the braai-smoked plates. Noble Rot Soho, for the serious white-wine crowd. The River Cafe, alongside grilled fish.
Food Pairings
I'd put it with roast pork belly and apple, or grilled line fish with herbs. It's also very good with a mature Cheddar or a bowl of clams cooked with garlic and parsley.
