This bottle of The Foundry Roussanne 2015 was a gift from my friend Keith Prothero. He spends half the year in South Africa and is a great ambassador for the wines of that country. He has recommended me a plethora of wines from there and most have been pretty bloody good.
If you are ancient as I am you may remember the South African, seemingly universal-brand KWV. Forget all that generic co-op shit, South Africa is now an excellent source of very high-quality wine. The Foundry make an array of wines priced at a wallet friendly level and the couple I have had, both Grenache Blanc, were delicious. This is quite surprising as most French Grenache Blanc is not only incredibly insipid, but also, if they have any character at all, it is unpleasantly filthy. Not so from The Foundry!
I am rather partial to Roussanne, so I hope this is at least of the quality level of the Grenache Blanc. I must admit to having a worry that I am going to be disappointed. Alas Roussanne, we are led to believe, is not the easiest grape varietal to grow and vinify. Moreover, this wine is distinctly at the affordable end of the cost of love lavished upon it-spectrum.
So now we have refreshed our prejudices about cheap wine being rubbish for philistines, let us dive into the wine!
Roussanne 2015, The Foundry
Good grief this smells marvellous! It is a very classy Roussanne I can tell from just a quick sniff. It has the stone-fruit aromas, a shade of glue and a hint of creamy minerality. Very importantly, it shows no oxidative characters at all. These are all important markers for quality Roussanne.
The stone fruit is apricot-y and slightly peachy with a hint of pear. It’s all quite primary, that one would expect from a very young Roussanne, and it certainly has fruit enough to keep it pleasurable over a long life.
I recently had an excellent St Joseph Blanc 2006 from Chapoutier (whose wines I normally completely detest; in my experience they are vastly over-priced and distinctly lacking dimension – I once told one of the Chapoutier brothers that it was a shame his winemaking skills were eclipsed by his desire for money) with the epithet ‘Granite’. It was totally delicious (thank you for bringing that, Charles) – a near pure Roussanne wine of great sophistication and class. The stoney, slightly creamy minerality that had seems similar to this Foundry Roussanne. It seems from the nose of this it has what it needs to age was long and as gracefully as the StJo, even though they are not exactly the same.
My impression of this nose is that it belongs to a wine that demands ageing. I feel there is greater complexity bubbling under the surface and I feel that will express itself with more age and develop into a wine of quite a classy and sophisticated nature. As the StJo 06 showed, Roussanne can age with great success – this will I feel sure.
Like Northern- (and, from Chateau Beaucastel, Southern-)Rhone Roussanne-based wines the palate is a shade unusual. Despite the excellent acidity, which is to be applauded, this has a powerful, unctuous texture. It is not sweet, but it almost feels like a sweet wine – it has the density of a Sauternes or a Vendanges Tardives Riesling from Alsace. Let me repeat that it is totally dry, though. I like the thick, dense mouth feel of Roussanne – it is lavishly enjoyable.
This voluptuousness is perfectly balanced by the good acidity I mentioned and a solid stoniness, both of which keep it energetic and give it what it needs where it needs to age well. It has a long finish which is quite delicious. There are no oxidative flavours on the palate that is a great thing to enjoy in a well-made Roussanne that transcends its bargain price. It deserves some cellar time.
However, good as The Foundry Roussanne is, and it is very good, I don’t quite think it has incredible, involute detail of really great examples of the grape from the Rhône Valley. This is only a minor rebuke as it is still a damned good wine.
The wine is deliciously tasty, well-balanced, long and very well-made; The Foundry Roussanne punches way, way above the level of its few quid under twenty notes-price. At that price one cannot realistically expect it to compete with some of the finest appellations in the world that cost many, many times its price.
If you buy this, especially if you age it, you will be impressed. I’m glad I have a few bottles of the wine to age, and when I pop them in 5-10 years time, everyone will be impressed as well!
Thanks Davy for your review of a wine and winery I really admire. They also make an excellent Viognier and Syrah which you may like to try ?
Cheers Keith
Thank you, Keith, you know how to steady nerves. Based on the Grenache Blanc and this bargain, very high quality Roussanne, this is a winery I admire as well! If you let me know who stocks the Syrah I’ll pick one up as soon as funds allow – I’ve come to learn that South Africa produces Syrah of superlative quality.
I said this wine wasn’t ‘truly great’, but I got some bottles locally for £17.50, which isn’t a lot of money. The quality of this very difficult varietal in a wine of this price point that, as soon as I smelled it, shouted, “Age me!” is really remarkable. Stunningly so. I will age my other bottles, as I have a bit of a ‘thing’ for mature Roussanne, but I shall forever remember the raw quality and enjoyment-value of this bottle popped randomly on a Thursday night!
This is a comment from Chris Williams, The Foundry winemaker:
Hello Davy, thank you for your kind review of The Foundry Roussanne 2015. I am convinced the Roussanne has a very bright future in the Cape. Although not an easy vine to cultivate anywhere, I do think it has found a great home in the Mediterranean climate of the Western Cape while the abundant pockets of granite soils, particularly in Stellenbosch and in the Voor Paardeberg. The prevailing South Easterly wind keeps the vines healthy and just ever so slightly stressed, allowing the fruit to build up character through the growing season. It is also challenging to vinify, the tiny berries have thick skins and more pulp than juice. Pressing takes ages and we only recover 50% juice per ton. (Something like Sauvignon Blanc can achieve 73%). You also have to be careful not to extract too many phenolics from the thick skins leading to course, imprecise wines.
I ferment the hard-won juice in older French oak barrels, tight grained. Partial in-inoculated fermentation ensure we balance primary fruit with delicious secondary flavours.
I hear what you say about complexity and detail and I think this is down to the age of the vines- planted in 2006, they are mere babies and so I am excited to watch the wine become more complex with age.
I am dabbling with Marsanne as well, and will also try vinify from a new site in the Paardeberg next year, all with a view to making more striking, individual, idiosyncratic and delicious wines.
Once again, thank you for your favourable comments , and thanks to Keith Prothero for getting a bottle to you.
Chris Williams
Chris, thanks for trying to comment, I’m most flattered that you’ve taken the time to read my note. Elitistreview is being a bit weird, I think it is due to the amount of traffic right now (this post is *incredibly* popular), but I’ve managed to post your comment using my administrator account.
My reply:
I didn’t know Roussanne yielded so little juice and your description of growing the grapes makes them sound more of a chore than I thought.
Nine year old vines are never going to produce the most complex wine in the world but clearly the stress the vines are under makes the fruit a bit better than it would be from grapes that have it easy as there’s a pretty good degree of complexity and I feel that as this delicious wine ages it’ll show more and more sophistication.
The Editor and I had a really enjoyable time with this bottle and I think you are right about the potential in the Western Cape for the varietal – isn’t it a *good* varietal? It’ll be brilliant when your vines have another ten years on them!
Your Grenache Blanc was a revelation for me, I never thought the varietal could be so nice or complex – the stuff they grow in the South of France is comparative rubbish.
I greatly look forward to trying your Syrah and I thoroughly expect to be buying your wines every year.
Many thanks for dropping by my organ and attempting to comment, I am most chuffed you thought it worth doing so. If you ever come over to Blighty let us go out with Keith and I’ll bring a bottle or two of something good and interesting and we can chat winemaking (my hands on experience of winemaking is Pinot in Morey-Saint-Denis). Thank you again for your time!