You know the holiday wine syndrome - that mean-spirited affliction which makes so many bottles knocked back with delight when you're off having fun in the sun taste disastrous back at home? Monster wine fairs work the other way round. With milling crowds, pushy marketing men, industrial surroundings and nothing to eat for hours on end but water biscuits, big international expos can make perfectly good wines taste like a waste of time. But not Cape Wine 2000.
South Africa's first major jamboree for overseas buyers and journalists was based at the Nederburg Estate in Paarl, out in the mistily magnificent, mountain-ringed Cape Winelands. Although visitors from a dozen countries were sampling the wares of over 100 producers, there was plenty of space, with friendly winemakers far outnumbering marketing suits. Fringe events included imaginatively staged tastings (bubbly on top of Table Mountain, anyone?) and trips to various wine estates - white, curvy-gabled Cape Dutch farms, set amongst vines already gold in the autumn sun. I've been picking over the superlatives in my notebook ever since.
About time, you may say. In the four years since my last visit to the Cape, South African wines have featured only occasionally and erratically in this column. Although there have been regular Dublin tastings - usually with producers present - the overall impression, to me at least, was disappointing. Too many quality lows; too many prices that should have been lower. Lack of consistency remains a problem. But Cape Wine 2000 showed how much real progress has been made over the past few vintages.
Maybe we expected too much, too soon. "It's only six years, remember, since the advent of democracy," said one producer after another. "That's a very short time for an industry isolated for so long - state-controlled for so long - to gear up to the demands of new markets." South Africa may have been producing wine for more than three centuries, but the biggest steps towards quality have only been taken in the past three years. Since the dismantling of the all-powerful KWV in 1997, it has become much easier for producers to obtain rootstock from overseas, plant better vineyards and improve the export flow. Meanwhile, SAWSEA (the South African Wine & Spirit Exporters' Association) has been out in the marketplace, not just beating the drum but listening to consumers - something a bullish, Afrikaaner-dominated industry has found difficult to do. More fruit flavours! More freshness! Less of those tired, medicinal old reds! Even with my rose-tinted spectacles safely stowed away, I think there are signs that the message is getting through.
Which wines stood out? First, South Africa's two specialities, Chenin Blanc and Pinotage. I've already confessed to a fascination for Chenin, the white grape which takes on rich, guava flavours in the Cape, where it's traditionally known as Steen. What I hadn't realised was how many brilliant examples there now are in differing styles - from unoaked (like Simonsig) to lightly oaked (Villiera) to seriously rich (Mulderbosch). Or how many foods these wines suit - until Jeff Grier of Villiera got busy pairing them with things like tuna sashimi, smoked ham, smoked salmon, Thai vegetable curry. These ripe, fruity whites are definitely high up my drinks list for summer.
More of a shock was the discovery that Pinotage - a red grape I've never had much time for - could be quite delicious. The old-style wines (sometimes redolent of disinfectant, rotten bananas or iron filings) are in decline, supplanted by juicy young examples with little or no wood, and some more serious wines with spicy richness and supple tannins. Besides those listed below, keep an eye out for Wildekrans 1999, Neil Ellis Swansong 1998, Warwick Estate 1998 and, in meatier vein, the mighty Kanonkop 1997 - an opulent star.
But even in South Africa, the red that's seen by some as a unique treasure isn't for everybody. "How do you feel about Pinotage?" I asked Andre van Rensburg, the normally outspoken winemaker at Vergelegen. "I don't think it would be diplomatic to answer that," he said, wincing. Like many, he prefers to focus on international varieties - Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc; the reds sometimes combined in Bordeaux blends. For finesse right across the board, Vergelegen had the most show-stopping line-up of wines.
Other impressive adherents of the international approach range from long-established Meerlust (where Giorgio dalla Cia has been crafting South African icons out of Merlot, Cabernet and Chardonnay for 23 years) to Jordan Vineyards (where US-trained Gary and Cathy Jordan have been harvesting awards for impeccable wines - Merlot and Cabernet especially tasty - since their first vintage in 1993). Also mesmerising is newly established Boekenhoutskloof, tucked right up at the end of the valley of Franschoek. Here a talented young Rhone fan, Marc Kent, is pulling off some pretty stunning Syrah, Cabernet and Semillon under the estate label, alongside his Porcupine Ridge bottlings - confident wines for everyday drinking. (No random name, by the way: so many porcupines were found chomping at the vines that pumpkins had to be planted between the rows to divert their hunger.) Boekenhoutskloof's wines aren't in Ireland yet, but I bet they will be soon.
For wine's holy grail - lightness and elegance mixed with pure hedonism - there was nothing to touch the Pinot Noir of Hamilton Russell and Bouchard Finlayson, neighbouring producers near the coast at Hermanus. "I see winemaking as a sport," said Peter Finlayson, who moved from the property next door to set up his company in conjunction with Burgundy's Paul Bouchard 11 years ago. "It has the same thrills, the same agony . . . and just when you feel like giving up, something happens to make you keep on going." Within minutes, we are slugging it out at boules on his front lawn - the visiting journos trouncing the home team. Almost as sweet a moment as the first encounter with his Galpin Peak Pinot Noir Reserve 1997. There's none of it in Ireland (precious little anywhere); but you'll find his tempting basic Pinot in Searsons and Berry Bros.
What were the down sides of Cape Wine 2000? Striking variations, from one vintage to the next - not something we expect from the New World. The weather was only partly responsible (1997 was the last relatively cool, hence more classic, year; the last three vintages have all been hot). Mobility in an industry awash with new investment hasn't done much for continuity. The flying winemakers who have descended on the Cape like a cloud of locusts in the past few years have set a pattern - rush in, make radical changes, rush out - which many young South African oenologists seem tempted to follow.
It would have been reassuring to see, at the fair, some of the people from the black and coloured communities who now have opportunities to become wine farmers and winemakers. The various "upliftment projects" for the "historically disadvantaged" were an obvious topic for a meaty seminar, rather than yet another press release. We might even have had a tasting of some of the joint-venture "empowerment" wines which have begun to emerge - like New Beginnings, Winds of Change and Freedom Road.
Next time, perhaps. In the meantime, we can drink South African with a new sense of confidence.