‘Budget Burgundy for the world’: Hamilton Russell at 50
Five decades after his father bought the family estate near the whale-watching seaside town of Hermanus in South Africa, Anthony Hamilton Russell has come to peace with the B-word, believing that comparisons of his Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays with the Côte d’Or are simply inevitable. Richard Woodard reports.
You can’t try to make top-level Chardonnay or Pinot Noir anywhere in the world without, at some point, the inevitable comparison with Burgundy being made. It may be lazy, it may be facile, but there it is: for many, the Côte d’Or remains the benchmark by which all others are measured.
A lot of winemakers, perfectly understandably, try to fight it, determined to forge their own identity and reputation, and to be the best expression of their location without the need for external reference. A suggestion to a producer in the Mornington Peninsula or the Russian River Valley that their wines are ‘Burgundian’ may not always be received as a compliment.
As for Anthony Hamilton Russell, owner of Hamilton Russell Vineyards, the cool-climate South African winery that celebrates its 50th birthday this year – well, he’s just come to terms with it. “There’s no language for wine,” he says. “All you have is analogy. Burgundy analogies are given to us; I’ve given up trying to avoid them.”
Making peace with the B-word has given Hamilton Russell access to an easily comprehensible vinous vocabulary. The 52-hectare vineyard that yields the estate’s flagship wines is described as a ‘monopole’, comprising 10 Pinot Noir and 18 Chardonnay parcels that are, where possible, vinified separately.
Hamilton Russell highlights the monopole’s stony, shale-derived soils, comprising 35-55% clay with high iron content, “but sadly no limestone” – a nod to the Côte de Nuits. Nonetheless, he says: “The aesthetic that emerges from that piece of ground is remarkably Burgundian at times … Some magic happened on that clay.”
It’s as good a time as any to assess Hamilton Russell’s place in the wine world. This year marks a half-century since, on 27 February 1975, Anthony’s father, ad agency owner Tim Hamilton Russell, bought a 170ha farm called Braemar in the Hemel-en-Aarde (‘heaven and earth’) Valley for ZAR58,000 (then about £36,000).
By coincidence, the winery’s 45th Chardonnay and Pinot Noir harvest concluded on 27 February this year, while Hamilton Russell, by his own calculations, has now been involved with the business for one-third of a century, or – as he puts it – thirty-three-and-a-third years.
It was only during the 1990s that the winery narrowed its focus onto Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and carried out the research that pinpointed the ‘monopole’ as the place to be for top-quality fruit from both varietals.
Since then, the estate’s flagship Chardonnay has been served to Nelson Mandela at Buckingham Palace and is listed, by Hamilton Russell’s calculations, at 30 Michelin star restaurants in France, as well as at the LVMH-owned Cheval Blanc Hotel in Paris.
“That gives you the idea that the aesthetic of these wines is not typical of the New World,” he suggests. “In essence, we make budget Burgundy for the world, because we all know what Burgundy costs these days … People can drink that aesthetic, but at half the price. That’s not us being brilliant in the winery, by the way – it’s an accident of geography.”
‘Geography’ has always been a watchword – the mantra is that Pinot Noir and Chardonnay express the identity of Hemel-en-Aarde, rather than the other way around, and Hamilton Russell plays down the human aspect: “It’s a privileged geographic site, and it will go on much longer than us.” But vintage too is important.
A recent revamp of the winery has given winemaker Emul Ross the ability to control the amount of solids going into the barrel prior to malolactic fermentation of the Pinot Noir. “So, when the malo happens, we don’t compromise the vintage,” says Hamilton Russell. “Too much solids going into barrel for malo can mask the vintage.”
Another lesson has been to respect the unique character of each year, and not to make subjective assumptions about quality based on preconception. Two wines spring to mind here: Hamilton Russell Chardonnay 2022 and Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir 2020.
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Of the Chardonnay – tasted from magnum, full of tension, well-structured and precise – Hamilton Russell says: “That was a wine that, on release, was very austere, linear, like licking a stone dry, virtually no malo … Critics liked the drama and voluptuousness of 2021 or 2023. But 2022 evolved massively in the bottle. Chardonnay is one of those things that grows very quickly. Within a couple of years in the bottle, it develops these secondary aromas.”
And the 2020 Pinot? “That was a vintage, like 2024, that was tricky for us – it’s under 13% alcohol. Those vintages, those lighter wines on release that perhaps we respect a little less, tend to become more and more interesting over time.
“We learned the lesson that we have to respect the site, whatever the vintage, year after year. We don’t have a right to impose our vision on it – it has to be a true expression of the wine. In challenging vintages with a good team, you can get something fantastic.”
Hamilton Russell’s oak policy is light touch: barrels tailor-made by François Frères, seasoned for a year longer than the norm, with an “extremely light” toast. “So I hope you don’t pick up too much wood on these wines,” says Hamilton Russell, adding wryly: “We spend a lot of money for you not to have wood-dominant wines.”
Not that the winery’s predominant style has remained static. A bottle of Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir from 2005 shows a much denser, more savoury and – even allowing for its age – less fruit-forward profile. “Whether we like it or not, we imbibe crazes and fashions, some to a greater extent than others,” admits Hamilton Russell. He advises anyone doubting the point to look back at their hairstyle, and what they were wearing, in photos taken a couple of decades or so ago.
One fashion that Hamilton Russell will not be following is the pursuit of a more reductive style of Chardonnay. He explains: “You will notice very mild levels of reduction across these wines, but we avoid too much of that ‘New World reduction’. A lot of New World Chardonnays, when they come out of the blocks, have that dramatic, struck-match reduction. To me, it obscures site.”
And what’s the right amount of reduction? Imagine a hard-boiled egg, says Hamilton Russell, that’s still hot as you toss it between your fingers. “The smell that comes off it is just the right level of reduction for me. We’re very conscious of the fact that that’s winemaking interference, rather than site.”
What is apparent on tasting recent Pinot vintages is that, although the wines have a common thread linked to their origin, they are also quite noticeably different from one another, conveying the changing conditions of each growing season: from the poised purity of 2020 to the more austere, structured 2023 and – from a challenging vintage where yields were decimated by strong winds during flowering – the ‘Goldilocks’ balance of 2024. In this respect, if no other, they could be said to evoke a rather more famous source of Pinot Noir from the Northern Hemisphere.
Which brings us back to where we started, and a reprise of Hamilton Russell’s philosophical take on the dreaded B-word. “There’s no language for wine. All you have is analogy. Burgundy analogies are given to us; I’ve given up trying to avoid them.
“And I do think that 2024 is a little more Côte de Beaune – and we’re happy with that.”
Hamilton Russell Vineyards is represented in the UK by Mentzendorff. Hamilton Russell Chardonnay 2024 (UK RRP £41 per bottle) and Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir 2024 (£45) will be released in the UK this summer.
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Congratulations Anthony. You have ventured much, given much and earned respect