A LONG LUNCH at a good table with a view of the wonderful Cape winelands has to be one of the best ways to spend an afternoon! Especially during the holiday season! The options are many and varied but, as 2020 draws to a close, four are more topical than
AMAZING ACHIEVEMENT! A Top 10 rating for every red and white that Tokara submitted for assessment in the various Winemag reports of 2020, with three of the bottlings judged best in their category: the 2017 Director’s Reserve (White Blend), the 2019 Reserve Chardonnay and the 2017 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon –
THREE CHENINS recommended in the 2020 Uber Value SA wine guide are also to be found in the 2020 SA Wine Classification, which makes them particularly attractive! The thing is, over the past 10 years they’ve been greeted with good to very good reviews time and again, the latest top
THE VERY BEST wines of South Africa at under R100 a bottle in 2020. Recommended by the top panels of wine experts locally and internationally. Better than standard gold (some gold medals count more than others), even including a few platinum award winners and a couple of trophy laureates. 95
WITH THE 2020 addition of Chris Alheit and David Sadie, membership of the Cape Winemakers Guild (CWG) rose to 46 producers, whose names and those of the places they work at make for a list that in itself is a useful guide to much of the best from South Africa’s
THESE ARE the South African wines most highly rated in 2020, contenders for the title of SA Wine of the Year! Or should that be Winery of the Year, or Winemaker of the Year? Clearly some reviews count more than others. On the other hand, it says a lot when
THE FOLLOWING fine wines of the Cape fetched the highest prices at various auctions over the past 12 months or so – all attracting bids of more than R5000 a bottle. None of these beauties sold for over R1000 on release – the golden oldies originally changed hands for less
SURELY it’s the South African Sauvignon Blanc most raved about by most critics in 2020… With the results of the International Wine Challenge (UK) as well as the Veritas Awards (SA) and 5 Star ratings in the next Platter’s SA Wine Guide still to come, no other Sauvignon from the
IT WAS AS recently as 2012 that British Master of Wine Richard Kershaw established his business in Elgin to make world-class Chardonnay, Shiraz and Pinot Noir that would show a sense of place. Today he is widely acknowledged as one of the top producers in South Africa, one with an
SA WINE LOVERS might struggle to remember a time – not so long ago – when there was only a single bottle of note from the Alvi’s Drift cellar in Worcester: a Muscat de Frontignan, a small bottle and in small quantities, but a fine example and one of South
GOLD MEDAL and a score of 96 at the Decanter World Wine Awards (UK), Best in Class at the Trophy Wine Show (SA), Grand Gold Medal at Concours Mondial de Bruxelles (BE). Amazing accolades for the 2017 vintage of Cederberg Five Generations Cabernet Sauvignon in 2020 – or rather, as
CHENIN BLANC might be the most-planted wine grape variety in South Africa, but Sauvignon Blanc is the country’s top-selling variety… A success story for sure, and most cellars are confident about putting their wines on show for scrutiny by the critics. There were 149 submissions from 96 producers vying for
