NO SIMONSIG, no Beyerskloof, no Diemersfontein, no Kaapzicht and/but… There are some familiar names plus a bunch of respectable newcomers among the 20 finalists in the 2015 Absa Top 10 Pinotage competition of which the winners are due to be announced on Friday, August 28. The biggest head-turner among the Top 20 chosen from over 150 entries in the Pinotage (Producers) Association’s taste-off this
STELLENRUST Clement de Lure MCC Brut NV was recently chosen as the favourite sparkling wine in a line-up of 44 bubblies judged ‘blind’ (labels out of sight) by a group of knowledgeable wine folk who’d gathered at the upmarket Harrow restaurant at Little Bedwyn in Marlborough, Wiltshire UK. A “shock result” was how the organisers of the inaugural Little Bedwyn World Sparkling Wine
THE RESULTS of Winemag.co.za’s Riscura ‘Red Hot Wine Awards’ confirmed the good credentials of numerous Bordeaux-style blends from the Cape – including a couple priced at around a third of what the top-rated wines are going for and a helluva lot less than the winner of the competition. In the final taste-off the honours went to the Mvemve Raats de Compostella
THE TERMS Rosé, Blush and Blanc de Noir describe ‘white’ wines made from ‘black’ grapes, grapes that are actually red in colour… Typically they involve a gentle pressing of the grapes, limiting the time that the juice and the skins spend in contact with each other, and then proceeding with production along similar lines to wines made from ‘white’ grapes, grapes which actually range from
IT WASN’T that long ago when the edibles in a Cape winery’s tasting room were limited to water biscuits or cream crackers. Today, some of South Africa’s best restaurants are located alongside some of the country’s top cellars and matching wine with food at the cellar door extends to a variety of different experiences, some offered even where there aren’t complete meals to
AN EARLIER POST listed South African wines that were (a) below R100 a bottle, (b) highly rated during the 18 months to July 2015, and (c) likely to still be available for purchase. The response was a call to cut to the chase, to come up with the most easily affordable recommendations suitable for a very casual lunch or supper: what’s out
FINDING good wine on sale for less than R50 a bottle has become a big ask, and not only in terms of reds. It might be so that there’s far less rubbish being made these days, but at under R50 there’s plenty of plonk, pedestrian and boring stuff as well as simple fruity drinks that are more like cooldrinks than products of the vine.
AS OF mid-July 2015, the following Top 100 cellars were open to the public on Sundays – unlike the others only open five or six days a week or strictly by appointment: Constantia, Tokai Constantia Uitsig – 10:00 to 17:00 Eagles’ Nest – 10:00 to 16:30 Groot Constantia – 09:00 to 18:00 Klein Constantia – Summer, 10:00 to 16:00 Steenberg – 10:00 to
WHEN SURVEYED mid-July 2015, the Top 100 cellars in South Africa included the following that were offering free tastings of their wines regardless of whether you purchase any afterwards: Ataraxia on Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge outside Hermanus Bouchard Finlayson in Hemel-en-Aarde Valley outside Hermanus Bon Courage Estate in Robertson Glen Carlou on the Simonsberg in Paarl Hamilton Russell Vineyards in Hemel-en-Aarde Valley outside Hermanus Le Riche in Raithby/Helderberg,
THE LAUNCH of Simonsig’s ‘Garland’ Cabernet and Neil Ellis’s ‘Webb Ellis’ Cabernet Shiraz blend brought the number of Top 100 SA Wine Cellars selling recent releases for over R1000 a ‘pop’ in 2015 to nine – nobody’s dared to seal their iconic wines and luxury stuff with a screwcap, not yet! And no doubt the number will climb further before the
NEDERBURG Private Bin Eminence Natural Sweet Muscadel 2008 placed among the Top 10 at the 2015 Muscats-du-Monde in the Languedoc Roussillon region of France. The only other South African gold medallist was the 2010 Eminence, and the only other South African wine to earn a medal of any sort in the competition was the Orange River Cellars Red Muscadel 2013, which won
THE WINERY of Good Hope’s featuring Radford Dale Freedom Pinot Noir 2012 among the wines on tables at the Stockholm wedding banquet of Princess Sofia and Prince Carl Philip, son of Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf, prompted flash-backs to various other occasions prior to this June 2015 event that South African wines have been served to royalty… Graham Beck Brut NV Cap Classique
FOLLOWING good reviews for the 2012 vintage, The Pierneef Collection Syrah Viognier from La Motte joined a very select group of beauties in the Top Wine SA Hall of Fame with eight or more vintages to receive very good ratings from top tasting panels locally and/or overseas during the past 10 years. And with a gold medal won at the 2015 Trophy
GOING BY the last count in 2014, South Africa has some 3300 farms on which grapes are being grown for making wine and there are around 550 wineries in the various regions, districts and wards. According to industry data published by SAWIS, about 200 farms are registered for the production of Estate Wine – wine that is grown, produced and bottled on
AS ONE OF the Cape’s ‘First Growths’ with a history of winemaking going back to the 1700s and uninterrupted since 1892, Rustenberg in Ida’s Valley and on the slopes of the Simonsberg in Stellenbosch has not been resting on its laurels. Far from it. The Barlow family stands out as one of South Africa’s Top 20 producers as regards dry reds and whites
PARTICULARLY good reviews for Rustenberg and Groot Constantia on the show circuit in 2015 have revived discussions about the so-called ‘First Growths’ in the winelands of South Africa – First Growths being defined as the areas or wines from those areas regarded as among the very finest of a particular district or region, based on the concept of terroir, which has to
DEMORGENZON, Elgin Vintners, Lomond, Paul Cluver and Perdeberg were among the International Trophy winners at the 2015 Decanter World Wine Awards – DeMorgenzon (Stellenbosch) with their flagship white blend, Elgin Vintners with their Pinot Noir, Lomond with a Syrah, Paul Cluver (Elgin) with a Riesling for UK retailer Marks & Spencer and Perdeberg (Paarl) with a Chenin from their Dryland Collection. Overall, Paul Cluver was
ACCORDING to the restaurant critics commissioned by Italy’s ‘Fine Dining Waters’ S Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, the best in the world in 2015 is Spanish, there aren’t any French restaurants currently quite good enough to warrant inclusion among the planet’s Top 10, and of South Africa’s finest only two are rated exceptional enough to make the cut when it comes down to
JUST WHEN you think you’ve heard about, seen or drunk every port-style fortified wine from Boplaas Family Vineyards in Calitzdorp, along comes another. And the point can be well made by way of their fine Tawny, which is rather topical of late. According to their pricelist and website, the Nel family is currently selling a non-vintage Boplaas Cape Tawny for R100
ACCORDING to 2015 statistics announced by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) based in Paris, France, South Africa now ranks 7th among the biggest wine-producing countries in the world: 1 France (16.7%), 2 Italy (16%), 3 Spain (14.9%), 4 USA (8%), 5 Argentina (5.4%), 6 Australia (4.3%), 7 South Africa (4.1%), 8 China (4%), 9 Chile (3.8%). Spain has the most
