Mr Chenin: The Story of Ken Forrester and the Grape That Changed South African Wine

He was a restaurateur with no formal winemaking training, who bought a derelict Stellenbosch farm on public auction and was advised to rip out his old Chenin Blanc vines. He ignored the advice. Thirty years later, South African Chenin is on tables in some of the world's finest restaurants — and Ken Forrester is largely why.

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A Farm Nobody Wanted

The property that would eventually become Ken Forrester Vineyards was a mess. When Ken and his wife Teresa bought Scholtzenhof farm at auction in 1993, the old Cape Dutch homestead — originally granted back in 1689 — had been left to fall apart. The vineyards were neglected. The house needed serious restoration. And the whole thing, by Ken's own admission, was "the biggest piece of land we couldn't afford."

Ken wasn't a winemaker. He'd spent two decades in hotel management and the restaurant trade — running hotels for Sol Kerzner, opening his own restaurants in Johannesburg, building a career in hospitality. Wine had always been on the table, literally, but making it was a different story entirely.

But he had a vision. The farm sat on the lower slopes of the Helderberg mountain, cooled by Atlantic breezes, and among its vines were two old Chenin Blanc blocks — one planted in 1970, one in 1974. Advisors told him to pull them out and plant Pinotage or Chardonnay instead. Chenin was a workhorse grape, used to bulk up cheap blends. Nobody was putting it front and centre.

Ken ignored them.

The Wine That Almost Wasn't

The early attempts at making serious Chenin were, in Ken's words, quite awful. He and his collaborator Martin Meinert wanted to make the best white wine in the world — ambitious for two men with a derelict vineyard and very little winemaking experience between them. They pushed too hard, tried to force something that wasn't ready.

They started again in 1998. And again in 1999. It was the 2000 vintage that finally clicked — a bottle simply labelled "the Chenin project" that a critic picked up at a London trade show and raved about. Word spread quickly. The wine got a name: FMC — officially Forrester Meinert Chenin, though Ken has always been happy to tell you what it really stands for.

From that point, everything changed. Ken co-founded the Chenin Blanc Association in 1998 and spent years travelling the world, bottle in hand, arguing that South Africa could make Chenin to rival anything from the Loire. He was, at various times, ignored and patronised. Then he was proved right.

Putting South African Chenin on the World Map

The accolades came gradually, then all at once. Jancis Robinson MW called South African Chenin Blanc among the finest expressions of the grape anywhere in the world. Decanter championed it. And in 2022, everything came full circle when Ken's Old Vine Reserve Chenin Blanc 2021 was awarded Best in Show at the Decanter World Wine Awards — named the finest Chenin Blanc on the planet, beating Loire producers from the grape's heartland, and scoring 97 points.

The Decanter panel wrote that they'd had Loire Chenin in their Best in Show before — but never yet a South African one. This was that moment. A line that had been coming for twenty years was finally crossed.

A year later, in 2023, Ken received the 1659 Visionary Leadership Award at the SA Wine Harvest Commemorative — an acknowledgment that what he'd built wasn't just a personal achievement, but something that had shifted an entire industry.

The Dirty Little Secret

If FMC is the wine that made the world sit up and notice, the Dirty Little Secret series is where Ken has been quietly pushing things to another level entirely.

The fruit comes from a single 1.6-hectare vineyard in Piekenierskloof — old bush vines planted in 1965, dry-farmed on decomposed granite soils at 650 metres above sea level. It's remote, low-yielding, and extraordinary. Each edition of Dirty Little Secret is a multi-vintage blend — different years, same vineyard, assembled with an almost obsessive attention to detail.

Tim Atkin MW awarded Dirty Little Secret Five 94 points in his 2024 South Africa Special Report. Previous editions have drawn comparisons to the great white Burgundies — not because they taste the same, but because they have the same kind of singular, site-driven character. This is a wine that asks you to pay attention.

The Farm Today

Scholtzenhof farm is nothing like you'd expect from a producer of this calibre. There's no grand statement winery. The gate is small — deliberately, Ken will tell you, to keep the big buses out. What you get instead is a tasting room with views across the Chenin vineyards to the Helderberg, a popular restaurant called 96 Winery Road, and a sense that the people here genuinely love what they do.

The farming is sustainable throughout — no herbicides, no pesticides, everything done by hand. Ken has always been vocal about the social responsibility that comes with running a wine estate, and the business reflects that.

More than thirty years on from that auction, the question of whether to pull out the Chenin vines has long been answered. South Africa is now considered one of the world's great Chenin nations — and the man who arguably did more than anyone to make that happen is still on the farm, still pushing forward, still finding new ways to show what the grape can do.

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Dirty Little Secret Five — Pre-Order Now

We've secured a small direct parcel from the winery, landing in Jersey in 5–6 months. Limited allocation — once it's gone, it's gone. Pre-order now to secure your bottles.