Klippenkop Chenin Blanc
£11.29
£15.05 per litre · incl. 20% VAT
Only 2 bottles left
Crisp, fresh and easy to love, this is South African Chenin Blanc doing exactly what it does best. Ripe orchard fruit, a pretty floral lift and bright, mouth-watering acidity make it a brilliant everyday white at a price that barely makes you think. Chill it down and pour generously.
Not for sale to persons under 18. Adult signature required on delivery.
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Our Verdict
We keep this one on the shelf because it does something genuinely hard: it overdelivers at an everyday price without ever tasting cheap. There is real freshness and rounded fruit here, the kind of honest, well-made Chenin we are happy to pour for anyone, from curious newcomers to seasoned Cape fans who just want a dependable house white. It is the bottle to buy by the case for summer lunches, barbecues and Friday nights with no occasion required. Stock moves in small batches and we are running low at the moment, so if you want a few, now is the moment.
Tasting Notes
Pale straw in the glass, with a fresh, floral lift on the nose that pulls you in. The palate is light and bright, all ripe orchard fruit: think yellow apple, just-soft pear and a squeeze of nectarine, rounded out by a gentle honeysuckle softness. What makes it sing is the acidity, crisp and clean, keeping everything fresh and lively right through to a clean, easy finish. No oak, nothing heavy. Just pure, juicy Chenin made for drinking, not deliberating.
About This Wine
Here's a wine that proves you don't need to spend a fortune to drink well. Chenin Blanc is South Africa's white-wine workhorse and quiet hero, and this Robertson Valley example shows exactly why the Cape does it better than almost anywhere else: bags of personality, refreshing acidity, and a price that leaves room for a second bottle. Expect a pale straw glass, a fresh floral nose, and rounded ripe fruit (think ripe pear, melon and a touch of soft stone fruit) carried by a clean, zippy line of acidity that keeps everything bright and moreish. It is fermented slowly and reductively in temperature-controlled stainless steel, with no oak getting in the way. That means pure, unfussy fruit from start to finish. The Robertson Valley earns its reputation here. Lime-rich soils along the Breede River and cooling afternoon breezes off the distant Indian Ocean stretch out the ripening and pack the grapes with flavour. You can taste that balance of warmth and freshness in every sip. This is a proper midweek favourite and a natural at a summer table. Serve it well chilled with grilled prawns, smoked salmon, a roast chicken or simple herby pork. Reliable, friendly and ready to go, it ships across the UK straight to your door, and makes an easy crowd-pleaser for any gathering.
Food Pairing
This is a natural with seafood. Pour it alongside a plate of cold-smoked salmon on brown bread, or grilled prawns with garlic and lemon. The fresh acidity cuts beautifully through a simple roast chicken with all the trimmings, and it does lovely things with roast pork and crackling. Equally happy on its own in the garden when the sun finally shows up.
- —Cold-smoked salmon on brown bread
- —Grilled prawns with garlic and lemon
- —Sunday roast chicken with all the trimmings
- —Roast pork with crackling and apple sauce
- —Fish and chips with a wedge of lemon
How to Serve
Decanting
No decanting needed. This is a fresh, unoaked style built for immediate enjoyment, so pour it straight from a well-chilled bottle and drink it young.
The Land
These Chenin vines grow on the riverbanks in a patchwork of soils: deep, cool alluvial ground, red earth packed with lime, and well-weathered shade soils. Rainfall is barely 280mm a year, topped up by careful drip irrigation from the Breede River. The rows run north-west to south-east to catch the prevailing sea breeze, which cools the bunches and concentrates their flavour.
The Winemaking
Everything here is about protecting the fruit. The grapes are picked at around 21 to 23 degrees Balling, then gently handled through a pneumatic bag press so only the most delicate juice is drawn off. The wine is made reductively, shielded from oxygen, to lock in the bright, natural character of the Chenin. Fermentation is slow and patient: roughly 18 days in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks held at a cool 13 degrees. No oak, no fuss. Just clean, fresh, fruit-forward white wine that tastes of where it grew.
The Western Cape Region
Le Domaine draws its fruit from vineyards scattered across the Western Cape, from coastal sites cooled by Atlantic breezes to warmer inland slopes, all planted between 50 and 300 metres above sea level. This broad sourcing is deliberate. By blending components from different microclimates, the cellar builds a consistent house style that balances the crisp acidity of cooler sites with the ripe generosity of warmer ones. It's the Western Cape's extraordinary diversity captured in a single glass.
About the Producer
Klippenkop
Klippenkop is one of those labels that quietly gets on with the job of making good, honest Cape wine, and that's exactly why we like it. The name comes from the Afrikaans for a rocky outcrop, a "klip" and "kop", and if you've driven through Robertson you'll know the hills it's named for: sun-baked, limestone-flecked, rising out of the Breede River valley like the backbone of the whole region.
Rather than being built around one estate or one winemaker's ego, Klippenkop draws its fruit from a co-operative of growers across Robertson, a region better known among South Africans than it is here in the UK, but one that deserves far more attention. The soils are lime-rich, the sunshine reliable, and the grapes ripen fully and evenly, which is precisely what you want for wines that are meant to be poured on a Tuesday as happily as a Saturday.
There's nothing showy about the range. A Chenin Blanc that's fresh and food-friendly, a Syrah with proper peppery grip, and a Pinotage that does what good Pinotage should: bright cherry and plum fruit up front, that familiar smoky, mocha undertone underneath. These are wines built to be enjoyed rather than analysed, and that's a genuine skill in itself. Plenty of producers can make one exceptional bottle. Fewer can make consistently good, reliably enjoyable wine, vintage after vintage, at a price that doesn't ask you to think twice.
We stock Klippenkop because it fills a real gap: an entry point into South African wine that doesn't sacrifice character for accessibility. If you're new to Pinotage and not sure where to start, or you want a Chenin Blanc for a weeknight dinner without overthinking it, this is where we'd point you. It's also a lovely, low-pressure introduction for anyone curious about the Cape, or a straightforward, unfussy bottle to send someone who just wants a proper taste of South Africa. Delivered across the UK, it's Robertson in a glass: sunny, direct, and entirely without pretension.