Waterval

Two Exceptional 2024 Vintage Swartland Whites From Jasper Wickens Shine On Release…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ Leave a comment

Jasper Wickens is one of the Swartland’s most exciting young winemakers. He began working with Adi Badenhorst in the Paardeberg in 2009, then left after the 2018 harvest to focus on his own Swerwer range, founded in 2012, from the converted cellar on his Waterval farm next door. The farm’s vineyards are grown on deep decomposed Granite soils, and that terroir most definitely runs through his wines, with Jasper’s Swerwer Chenin Blanc a fine benchmark example. Even more compelling is his Wolwekop Old Vine Semillon coming from a single vineyard planted in 1963, which delivers vintage after vintage, intense, focused, fresh whites that rival the best South Africa produces. The 2021 earned an admirable 97/100 from A Fine Wine Safari. 

This is where old-vine viticulture proves its worth. Vines that have spent decades in the meagre Granite soils send their roots deep, yielding modestly and delivering fruit with an intense natural concentration, balance and a depth of flavour that stays vibrantly fresh rather than heavy. These are wines shaped by their vineyards’ terroir, made with a light minimalist hand but also built to age.

JC Wickens Swerver Chenin Blanc 2024, WO Swartland, 13% Abv. 

With so many 2025 wines coming on to the market already, this merely serves to differentiate the 2024 vintage Swartland wines all the more, after the region saw a beautifully wet, rain soaked winter to top up the ground water reserves. This Chenin Blanc from Jasper carries all the archetypal 2024 characteristics with a cool, linear, crystalline aromatics layered with white peach, dusty straw bales, yellow apples and delicate Granitic mineral nuances. The palate is incredibly pure, crystalline and precise, the texture steely, bright, and fresh with an underlying purity and clarity. This is Jasper making a very precise wine, elegant, linear and beautifully delicious. Medium bodied but very light on its feet, fresh, energetic and mouth watering, this wine will make a lot of new friends. Real class. Drink now to 2034+.

(Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

JC Wickens Wolwekop Old Vine Single Vineyard Semillon 2024, WO Swartland, 12% Abv. 

It’s hard not to get seduced by old vine wines but this 2024 Semillon made from vines planted in 1963 is simply another stunner. The aromatics are packed with orange and lemon citrus oil, white peaches, wet straw, and delicately leesy biscuit nuances. The palate shows massive concentration along side soft, supple acids, a delicious biscuity, mealy complexity and notes of lemon pith, finishing with a tangy, mineral laden Granitic finish. More accessible than some vintages, but showing beautiful complexity. Buy this to drink now and over the next 5-8+ years. 

(Wine Safari Score: 95+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

The JC Wickens wines are imported exclusively into the UK by Museum Wines.

Jasper Wickens Reaching New Quality Heights with His Two Old Vine Masterpieces – Tasting the Tiernes Chenin Blanc 2021 and Wolwekop Semillon 2020…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ Leave a comment

It’s always exciting visiting producers in the Swartland, whether it’s Eben at Sadie Family Wines, the Mullineuxs at Roundstone, or Adi Badenhorst at Kaalmoesfontein. But I certainly love how Jasper Wickens continues to beaver away producing some of the most exciting white and red wines on the market at the moment. Of course, there is plenty of competition in the Swartland, but Jasper’s wines continue to represent incredible value for money in an era when prices of the top wineries’ wines have continued to rise and rise.

If we are honest, Jasper is still a genuine Swartland young gun… not just being under 50… but under 40 years old! Full of energy, ideas and ambition, Jasper’s Swerwer brand is an incredibly exciting array of wines that continues to improve year after year, as he fine tunes and experiments in the winery to make ever more exciting wines. There are few more exiting Old Vine Chenin Blancs on the market than his Tiernes and with the Wolwekop Old Vine Semillon 2021 about to be released in the UK market, I thought I would take another look at these two exceptional white expressions that typify the supreme quality of premium fine wines in the Swartland.

Tasting the 2022 Tiernes with Jasper in March 2024. More excitement to come!

JC Wickens Swerwer Tiernes Chenin Blanc 2021, WO Swartland, 13.5% Abv.

A visit to the Swartland Waterval farm of Jasper and Franziska Wickens is always enlightening. But it is only when you walk around the upper reaches of the farm, high up in the old vine Tiernes Chenin Blanc vineyard planted in 1983 that you see, smell, and taste the true terroir of the decomposed Granite-rich soils of the Paardeberg. Planted on deep granitic deposits, these vines yield an exceptional expression of Chenin Blanc that in cooler, fresher, more crystalline vintages like 2021, reveals the true majesty of this cultivar. Bright, fragrant and notably mineral on the nose, the aromatics display a complex interwoven array of white blossom, peach stone, green pears, waxy green apple skins, wet hay, sweet baking herbs, fynbos, crushed granite and dried lemon peel nuances. In the mouth this medium-bodied wine simply shimmers, illuminated by its fresh vibrant acids and an intense, concentrated, harmonious melange of nectarine, peach and pear fruits infused with a salty liquid mineral essence that grows incrementally in the glass as the wine continues unfurls. This is an incredibly special wine graced with a real presence, finesse and stand apart greatness. But you do need an extraordinary vintage like 2021 to realise this kind of exceptional quality and also an agile, skilled, artisanal mastermind like Jasper to capture its essence and bottle it for others to experience. Drink this beauty on release and over the next 10 to 15+ years.

(Wine Safari Score: 97+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

JC Wickens Swerwer Wolwekop Old Vine Semillon 2020, WO Swartland, 13% Abv.

This enticing Swartland single vineyard old vine Semillon planted in 1963 shows a brightly polished bronze colour in the glass before delightfully lifted aromatics of sweet yellow honeysuckle, lemon custard, lemongrass, iced tea, white pepper, lanolin, dry bushveld and a dusty granitic mineral spice. Like the nose, the palate also reveals an incredibly plush, harmonious integration with seamless layers of textural and flavour complexity. In true old vine Semillon fashion, the flavours coat the mouth from corner to corner, lingering to display a cornucopia of honied yellow fruits, lemon pastille, pineapple confit, glacé orange peel and a subtle savoury, buttery, pithy white citrus spice on a long, dreamy finish. This really is an astonishingly delicious and profound expression of old vine Semillon that comfortably rubs shoulders with some of South Africa’s greatest expressions, most notably from the Swartland and the Franschhoek Valley. Definitely a savouring, cerebral style of Semillon but also one that every connoisseur will want to have in their cellar. Drink on release or cellar for 10 to 12+ years.

(Wine Safari Score: 97/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

The Swerwer wines are imported into the UK by specialist wine merchant Museum Wines and retail for circa £36pb.

http://www.museumwines.co.uk

Jasper Wickens Muscles His Way Into the Leading Pack of Top Syrah – Shiraz Producers in the Swartland…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ Leave a comment

Jasper Wickens and his viticulturist wife, Franziska Wickens, live and make wine on her family farm, Waterval (Waterfall), in the very heart of the Swartland. Neighbouring some of South Africa’s most sought-after Swartland producers in the Siebritskloof Valley on the northern side of the Paardeberg, they are in the proverbial thick of it with people like Adi Badenhorst, Jasper’s previous employer on Kalmoesfontein, Eben Sadie on Rotsvas, and David & Nadia Sadie.

The Paardeberg, with its 500-million-year-old magma and the resulting domes of granite and microclimates, makes for an intriguing winegrowing terroir. The different soil types, specifically decomposed granite, offer a freshness unique to the Valley to both whites and reds – something the whole wine-drinking world has started cottoning on to. With an unusually cool and slow ripening vintage like 2021, Jasper Wickens has produced some of his most profound wines yet.

Jasper’s Waterval farm wine cellar in the Paardeberg.
Tasting new vintages with Jasper in March 2023.

At a recent tasting, I caught up with famous wine critic Dr Jamie Goode from the Wineanorak.com and shared a bottle of the latest release Swerwer 2021 Shiraz from Jasper. We were all suitably impressed.

JC Wickens Swerwer Shiraz 2021, WO Swartland, 13.5% Abv.

The Swartland is a warm, dry grape growing environment which makes this beautiful new release Shiraz 2021 from Jasper Wickens all the more remarkable. A bright vibrant ruby red colour, the expressive aromatics simply burst out of the glass, teasing the senses with incredibly intense, pure floral aromatics of violets, cherry blossom and rose petals that melt into pristine notes of sweet red cherries, tart red plums together with hints of cranberry and wild strawberry. The subtle notions of white pepper and salty red liquorice follow to the exquisitely elegant tight-knit palate that displays wonderful freshness and energy, drawing on the cooler vintage conditions of 2021 to offer up such impressive purity and precision matched by a deft pinpoint structure. The finish is delightfully cool, mineral and restrained delivering a deliciously focused raspberry and cherry fruited saline persistence that will definitely lure you back again and again for another sip. A truly noteworthy expression of Swerwer Shiraz. Drink on release and over the next 6 to 8+ years.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

The JC Wickens Swerwer wines are imported and distributed in the UK by South African specialist merchant Museum Wines.