I’m in South Africa, again. No great hardship: I love this country. I arrived on Saturday, and as usual, I’ve found little time to write blog posts, so this will be a brief update from day 1.

I headed to the pretty Stellenbosch Kloof, which is not yet an official subdistrict of this large region, but which is home to some very interesting producers. I visited three of them – and, for me, this was the first time for all.

I started at Jordan. Gary and Kathy are doing some really good things (they’ve been making wine here since 1993, and have expanded the farm four times with purchases from neighbours.

They are very well known for excellent Chardonnay, but I also liked their 2015 Riesling, and the two reds I tasted: the Prospector Syrah 2013 and the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon. This is not just a white wine farm. We lunched at the restaurant, which was superb.

Then it was off to De Morgenzon, one of the rising stars of Stellenbosch. Carl Van de Merwe is making some superb wines here, specializing largely (but not exclusively) in whites, which do really well on these (mainly) south facing slopes. Owner Wendy Appelbaum was there as well. We tasted a lot of wines from barrel, looking at the effect of differences in soil and aspect on the same varieties.

Then, the final visit of the day was Mulderbosch, with winemakers Adam Mason and Mick Craven. They showed me the range from Mulderbosch, including the 2014 releases of the single-site Chenin Blancs (a really exciting project) , and also wines from Adam’s own projects Marvelous and Yardstick. I was very impressed.