Ahrens Family Kwarts van die Paarl Chenin 2023 Paarl, Western Cape, South Africa 75cl

The Ahrens Family is the work of Albert Ahrens, who founded the small Paarl label with his wife Heidi in 2008. His approach is unusually hands-on: he sources fruit from old vines right across the Cape, drives huge distances to tend them, and makes each wine simply, letting the vineyard do the talking. The guiding idea is that a wine needs a fixed address to call its own.

Kwarts van die Paarl, meaning quartz of Paarl, sits in his Terroir range and is the lightest of his old vine Chenins. It comes from a 1977 bush-vine block in the northern Paarl ward, planted on shale scattered with medium quartz rocks that lend freshness and mineral cut. Around a tenth is old inter-planted Palomino, adding a subtle saline savour. Ahrens hopes it will help define northern Paarl’s style.

The cooler 2023 season was welcome in normally hot Paarl, where growers got most of their whites in before the heavy March rains. A dry, warm winter led into a cool, even ripening spell, so the grapes kept their acidity and delicacy. For the lightest wine in the range, that freshness is everything, giving a Chenin that feels crisp, precise and cool-climate in character.

Pale straw with green tints. The nose is bright and fresh, with green apple, lemon, pear and white blossom, plus a wet-stone, faintly saline minerality. The palate is light to medium-bodied and precise, its crisp citrus and orchard fruit framed by a fine, chalky texture and a savoury, salty whisper from the Palomino. The finish is dry, clean and mineral. Serve well chilled with fish, salads or fresh cheeses.

If Koffieklip is the powerhouse of Ahrens’s Chenin family, Kwarts is the featherweight, and his old vine Chenins are regulars in Platter’s guide. In style it sits with the crisp, mineral end of fine Chenin, closer to a bone-dry Loire white than to anything rich, and the Palomino gives it a food-loving twist all its own. A precise, refreshing white for lighter meals and warm-weather drinking.