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 most. In Somerset West, ‘Botanicum’ has taken over from 95
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 – the latter also getting the nod as Best Red Wine
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 ratings and awards following a number of others for a
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 points or higher if scored out of 100 (scores of
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 wine cellars. You only get to be on this list
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 a wine wows more than one panel of experts
SOLD FOR OVER R5000 A BOTTLE 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 than R100 – and
TROPHY at the 2020 Absa Top 10, Double Gold Medal at the Veritas Awards and 5 Stars in Platter’s SA Wine Guide! The Journal represents what cellarmaster Thys Louw and the team of winemakers regard as the ultimate expression of the variety at Diemersdal Estate in Durbanville. And what a flying start to a new chapter of this farm with
IN THE LAST of the world’s major wine competitions of the year, Boschendal (Franschhoek) and Groot Constantia (Cape Town) scooped two of the top trophies going – Boschendal Elgin Chardonnay 2018 named top South African White Wine and Groot Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 2019 judged best Sauvignon Blanc. Period. This was the first time in 10 years that the top Sauvignon
THE LAST Strauss & Co Fine Wine Online Auction in 2020 comprised a sale of ultra rare Bordeaux, beginning with Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux-style red blends from the Cape and finishing with some of the best from France. Top price paid for a South African beauty was R32 830 for a single bottle of 1966 GS Cabernet – not far
CELEBRATING excellence and innovation, the ‘Great Wine Capitals’ Best Of Wine Tourism Awards recognise the top experiences on offer to those visiting the 11 greatest wine regions of the world, although, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only six of the 11 regions participated in the 2020 contest. The participants this year comprised 200 entrants in the winelands surrounding Adelaide (Australia),
IN THE 2021 edition of Platter’s South African Wine Guide, the number of 5 Star laureates runs to 210 – in the 2020 edition there were 125, a year before that there were 90 and 10 years ago there were 56. In part this could be ascribed to rising standards throughout the industry with a growing number of producers delivering
THE LAUNCH of Platter’s 41st South African Wine Guide has not gone smoothly, to say the least. In advance of the hardcopy version reaching the book stores, the publishers chose to announce the recipients of their awards bit by bit in a fashion that was frustrating, if not irritating, and somewhat confusing – even for some of those on the
NO OTHER CAPE PORT has been more highly rated during the past 12 months. In 2020 it was judged Best in Class at the Trophy Wine Show, Best in Class at the National Wine Challenge and one of the Top 10 in the Winemag’s report on the category. This after several top accolades in 2019: 5 Stars in Platter’s SA Wine
SOUTH AFRICA’S 2020 Veritas Awards attracted some 1300 entries that were assessed over five days by 64 judges teamed-up into panels of three – all local wine experts, as the travel restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the participation of international critics. The most keenly contested categories were Red Blends (181 entries), Sauvignon Blanc (149), Cabernet Sauvignon (123),
2020 marks the 300th anniversary of De Grendel as a Cape landmark. Renowned for its award-winning wines and fine-dining restaurant, the estate on the Tygerberg hills outside Cape Town was granted in 1720 and today is a leader in sustainable farming and conservation, home to vineyards and a prized Holstein cattle stud, a dairy, sheep, horses, orchards, fields of
WAITING AND WONDERING… First the publishers put the word out that the Winery of the Year in their 2021 edition of Platter’s SA Wine Guide will be announced to the world via Facebook and Instagram on the evening of 11 November, South African time, but with subscribers permitted to view the “full results” via their website. Then they announced that,
THERE WERE 320 entries in South Africa’s 2020 Ultra Value Wine Challenge. 73 won silver, 64 won gold, 23 wines won double gold and of these 10 were lauded as the most highly rated – see below. Ultra Value Red Wine of the Year: Pandora’s Box The Persian Connection Shiraz NV, from Nicholson Smith Agencies. Ultra Value White Wine of
ACCORDING to Winemag’s 2020 Prescient Minority Report, the focus of the competition is on South African “wines from varieties whose respective total plantings do not exceed 2000ha… this is a chance for the more subordinate varieties to shine!” Catchy name, but talk about sticking your chin out! It wasn’t long before sombebody rushed to the defence of Cabernet Franc, commenting
THERE WERE 307 wines from 27 countries on the tasting bench at Syrah du Monde 2020, the 14th edition of this international competition held in the Rhône Valley, France. After three days of judging dry and sweet wines, reds, rosés, bubblies and desserts made from Shiraz, 101 medals were awarded – 87 silvers and just 14 golds, of which two
