I love tasting Pinot and Chard from outside Burgundy. As discussed many times, these are among the most terroir-expressive grapes.
So I was excited to try my first Hamilton-Russell recently. I went for the basic 2020 Hamilton Russell Vineyards Pinot Noir, just to get my feet wet. And UGH, what a disappointment! It was a sound bottle, but watery and not very appealing at all. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given very lackluster CT reviews.
I’ve heard lots of good things about this producer. So what gives? I’m willing to give it another try, but want to be a little more informed this time. Any recommendations? What are your thoughts about Hamilton Russell? Any other South African producers of Pinot and Chard to recommend?
I’ve enjoyed them from time to time, from late 1990s onwards.
One outspoken person on Wine Pages forum used to regularly berate them for having leaf roll virus in the vineyard and not addressing it, but for me the wines were good, so took his words with a large pinch of salt.
Hamilton Russell is an extremely well-regarded producer who delivers consistently high-quality wines – generally regarded amongst the very best and priciest South African wines in their respective categories.
I have tasted at their vineyard and greatly enjoyed the quality consistent with this reputation. As to your experience, any producer can have an off-bottle though I generally like to drink their wines with at least a few years under their belt.
That said, the tariff on their wines pushes it into an extremely competitive category with fine Burgundy and California producers in that Burgundian style. This tends to make me chose wines other than Hamilton Russell in my buying practices.
Like most wines, for the right price, I generally enjoy Hamilton Russell Pinots and Chardonnays, but if I am dipping my toes in the South African waters I will take advantage of the more typically value-priced offering from names like: Glenelly Estate, De Morgenzon, Tokara, Newton Johnson, Delaire Graff, Bouchard Finlayson, and many others at ~30 - 50% the cost.
Hope this helps and enjoy your exploration of South African wines.
I usually find the Hamilton Russell Pinot Noirs a bit heavy and dense for my taste, and way too funky (whatever that South African funk is). I’ve had quite a few vintages, even a couple with some age on them, but nothing in the past few years.
I haven’t had an HR wine in many years. I was served the '99 pinot blindly in the early 2000s and several of us (one of whom is in the trade, has a terrific palate and specialized in Burgundy) and we guessed a Volnay. It was a beautiful, elegant pinot.
I had a couple later vintages where the oak seemed a bit overdone, though. I’ve thought of trying them again when I’ve seen them on shelves, but have been put off by price.
I liked the chardonnay the couple of times I tried it.
I haven’t had the pinot in a long time, but I remember liking it but thinking it needed some years, a little clunky when young. I don’t think I ever quite saw it as something I needed to stock up and drink regularly, though.
The chardonnay is one of the consistently great world values, to me. A beautiful wine, priced (last I remember) in the $30s. As with many of the best South African wines, it’s a great crossover style marrying good features of old world and new wines.
Plus, one of the most beautiful labels in the wine world.
Can’t speak for the Pinots but the basic Chardonnay is good in a mid+ weight style. Well regarded - IMNSHO a bit too much so. In Ontario a bit overpriced, relatively.
Drank it many times and even hauled a few bottles back from SA before I knew you could get it here. For me, excellent PN that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. But like Chris says - their secret weapon might be their Chardonnay. Fantastic stuff.
Crystallum is excellent Hemel en Aarde Pinot and Chardonnay. I believe the Agnes Chardonnay and Peter Max Pinot Noir sell for under $30 and I’ve found them easily available. The wines are made by Peter-Allan and Andrew Finlayson who are the sons of Peter Finlayson. Peter was influential in the early years of Hamilton Russell before starting Bouchard Finlayson right up the road, another historic winery in the region.
The current Hamilton Russell winemaker, Hannes Storm, bottles his own chardonnay and Pinot under the label Storm.
Tesselaarsadal is a project started by Berene Sauls after her time at Hamilton Russell.
Ataraxia makes a delicious Chardonnay with ability to age. They use the black chardonnay method in their winemaking.
HR needs a lot of time, I do agree they are probably one of the better ones from South Africa, however having visited SA a few years ago the wines are not as impressive certain critics think. There is a lot of badly made wine. Rust en Vrede is probably my favourite producer, HR is good but not a wine I would go out of my way to buy. Burn Cottage, Chacra, By Farr and Bindi would probably be my picks outside of Burgundy and California. I am sure others can provide recommendations of SA producers, I hear Lismore wines are very good (she does not make Pinot Noir though).
I opened a 2013 Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir tonight and it was quite youthful. Showing very well. 2013 got very high marks on release from Neal Martin. I’m not sure whether he reviews SA wines anymore but he had a very good palate for them.
Thanks for the responses everyone. Sounds like I have to check out their Chardonnay.
Any ideas what happened with the bottle I had, and why it was so unimpressive? I know predicting aging can be dicey business, but I can’t imagine the wine I had will age well. Would others recommend the vineyard designates instead?
In my first career (film), I was very often in SA for shoots. On one of them quite a few years back, my camera assistant turned out to be a serious wino, and when we started talking he said “I’ll bring you some great stuff tomorrow from my cellar”. And he did. Let me try to go back through my notes and see if I can find some of the gems, but all the ones he brought for me to bring back to the US were amazing.
It reminds me of the joke about the doctor and the impatient tailor:
The impatient tailor refuses to wait for an appointment, so arranges for an assistant to drop a bottle of his urine off at the doctor’s surgery, with a note saying: “You’re a doctor, here’s some of my urine. What’s wrong with me?”.
The doctor empties the bottle of urine, pisses into the bottle himself, and passes it back to the impatient tailor’s assistant with a new note saying: “You’re a tailor, here’s some of my urine. Make me a suit!”
Joking aside, it’s just really difficult to say without being sat at the tasting/dining table with you. Off bottle, sub-standard bottle, heat damage, closed or advanced, palate differences etc. are all possible, but impossible to say without experiencing the exact same bottle of wine.
The best you can do IMO is read the CT notes on the wine for that specific vintage (as you’ve done) and see if there are similar comments from others. Are those comments vintage specific? If so, give another vintage a try if you see it.
From memory there used to be just the one estate bottling of Pinot Noir, with no reserve, SV etc. If that has changed, it may be possible they’re downgrading the estate bottling to satisfy the new premium bottling. I’ve seen it with other labels in the past.
I opened a bottle of the 2018 H-R pinot last night with four wino friends and everyone loved it. No evidence of new oak. It’s very tightly coiled at the moment, but there’s good red cherry fruit lurking there and a great backbone of moderate tannins and acid. And, blessedly, no New World pinot candy/cola.
While it’s pretty closed at the moment (even with a 60 or 90-minute decant last night), everything seemed to be aligned for a good future. I’m going to grab a couple more bottles and try them in a few years. It was ~$42.
I have the back half of the bottle in the fridge and will check in on it tonight.
