Once again, a winery I discovered at the Cape Town WineX – owned by an American Jim Atkinson, who made his fortune in oil, and apparently doesn’t drink all that much, he leaves the running of the winery to his son in law, Rusty Myers.

Rusty has been looking after Amani since 2002, and prefers to ‘take as many variables out of the hands of nature’ preferring a more scientific approach to viticulture. This approach requires more investment, but consistently good quality grapes is what he is after in order to give the winemaker the best chance to make the best wines she can.

Rather than trying to make consistent wines though, when it comes to winemaking, excellence is the goal. As well as trying to make the Amani excellent year after year, if the wine is eceptional enough, they will release it under the premium ‘Atkinson Ridge’ label.

The wine that really struck me at WineX was the Amani Chardonnay, although they now have more Shiraz planted than anything else. Their reds are in such high demand though, almost all of last years release has been sold. We did try some of their reds, but mainly wines that were so ne to the bottle that they had yet to be labelled, and not having yet recovered from the disruption of being bottled, they were quite reserved.

Amani’s whites were what really got me going though, the two Sauvignon blancs: The Amani Sauvignon blanc 2007 – a well balanced, ripe zesty style with all the citrus, ripe gooseberry and mango that you’d expect, with a mouth watering finish. And the Atkinson Ridge Sauvignon blanc 2007 which is a little more of a grown-up style - leaner, with a green, herbacious character of green pepper and cut grass. On the finish, as Rusty observed, a tangy edge reminiscent of salad onions. Relative to the Amani, it is a more complex wine with the interesting tangy finish I can imagine developing even more complexity with a couple of years age.

The Amani Chardonnay. Well, being able to sample two vintages together, with the 2004 and 2005 was a fascinating look into the development of the wine. The similarities were obvious – classic, well made Chardonnay, but the fresher style of the ‘05  with zesty tropical fruit and aromas of tinned sweetcorn, compared to the more developed, rich butter sauce on the nose of the ‘04 – both ending with clean minerality, with a slightly longer finish on the older wine.

Lovely both of them, I forgot to ask about suppliers in the UK, and am, as ever pressed for time in an internet Cafe, but please leave any findings you have as a comment below…