Raats Family Wines

Most estates hedge. They plant a dozen varieties, cover every base, and hope something sticks. Raats did the opposite. Out in the Polkadraai Hills, on the western edge of Stellenbosch, Bruwer Raats built an entire estate on two grapes the rest of the Cape treats as supporting cast — Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc — and spent more than two decades narrowing that focus instead of widening it. The payoff is a cellar that runs from the everyday Original Chenin Blanc up to MR de Compostella, one of South Africa's true collector reds.

Here's why it works. The estate sits on the False Bay side of the district, where the soil turns to decomposed granite and dolomite and the afternoons cool under breezes off the sea. Mineral ground, cool nights, maritime light — that's the whole argument in one line. Raats didn't pick these grapes for fashion. He picked the site first, then picked the two grapes that read it best.

The man and the mission

Start with the conviction, because everything here follows from it. When Bruwer Raats founded the estate in 2000, South Africa was underrating two of its most interesting grapes and he refused to let it stand. Chenin Blanc — the Cape's most-planted white — was still being poured into cheap bulk wine by the tanker. Cabernet Franc was worse off: never the star, always a splash of perfume in someone else's blend.

He bet against both conventions at once, and won. Today he's among the most quoted advocates for Cabernet Franc as a stand-alone wine anywhere in the New World, and one of the producers who dragged serious Chenin into the conversation about the Cape's fine wines. For most of the estate's life the cellar has been a family affair, with his cousin Gavin Bruwer Slabbert working alongside him on winemaking and viticulture — the same partnership behind their separate B Vintners project.

Most estates plant Cabernet Franc to season the blend. Raats planted it to lead.

Chenin Blanc, taken seriously

The Chenin Blanc comes in two registers, and both matter. The Original Chenin Blanc is the one to reach for first — unwooded, high-acid, all orchard fruit and stone, made so nobody can hide the grape under oak. It built the estate's name and it remains one of the most reliable everyday whites in the Cape. Buy it by the case and thank yourself later.

Above it sits the Old Vine Chenin Blanc, drawn from older vineyards and given a broader, more textural, barrel-touched treatment — savoury, serious, built to age. Taste them together and the point lands: Chenin isn't one wine but a range, capable of the same ambition the Cape usually reserves for Chardonnay.

Cabernet Franc, as the headline act

If Chenin is the foundation, Cabernet Franc is the flag. Raats bottles it as a single variety — graphite and red fruit, floral lift, the cool freshness the grape gives on the right soils, and none of the green edge it shows when it's picked underripe or planted in the wrong spot. The Dolomite bottling and the more ambitious cuvées trace the grape across the estate's different soils, which is about as close to a Cabernet Franc terroir study as this country gets.

The summit is MR de Compostella, a Cape Bordeaux blend led by Cabernet Franc rather than the usual Cabernet Sauvignon. It's made only in vintages the family judges worthy of the name, and it belongs among the Cape's genuine collector reds — the wine that proves the whole thesis in a glass. Set it beside the region's classical Cabernet Sauvignon-led blends and the gap is the message: this is Stellenbosch's red-wine tradition read through a cooler, more perfumed lens.

The setting

Come for the wine and the argument behind it, not the photo op. The Polkadraai Hills are a quieter corner of Stellenbosch than the postcard valleys around the town — lower, more open, tilted toward the water, working-vineyard country rather than manicured cellar-door theatre. It suits the estate's temperament exactly. Nobody here is selling you a wedding backdrop.

Visiting

Book ahead. Raats is small and specialist, so a seat arranged in advance beats turning up on spec. A tasting walks you through both halves of the estate's split personality — the Chenin range and the Cabernet Franc range — and in the right company the family will happily tell you why they backed these two grapes when almost nobody else would. Book through the estate's site, and confirm the current visiting arrangements before you travel.

What to buy

Start with the Original Chenin Blanc — the estate in miniature, and one of the best-value serious whites in the country. Then, if you want the bottle that explains why Raats exists at all, reach for the single-varietal Cabernet Franc: few estates anywhere make a more convincing case for the grape alone. And if you're buying to lay down, a strong-vintage MR de Compostella is the estate at full stretch — a Cabernet Franc-led blend with the structure to reward years in the cellar.