THE NUMBER of wines on the market that are made from seriously old Pinotage vineyards (way over 50 years) edged back up from three to four following the release of the 2023 Heritage Block Pinotage from Herman Coertze’s Meerendal Wine Estate in Durbanville, Western Cape. Meerendal was one of the
THE FLUTE is dead… Long live the flute! You could say the same about the coupe… Wine glasses, that is, stemware for sparkling wine specifically. Is there a right and wrong one to serve bubbles in? Well, yes and no. In part it depends on the occasion, e.g. chilling, doing
Every three months, members of Caroline’s Quarterly Wine Club look forward to more new discoveries from top South African producers. “Wine lovers can sit back and have our fine selections delivered wherever you are in the country,” says Caroline Rillema of Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellar in Cape Town. “We select
PINOTAGE, Pinotage, Pinotage… At the Truter family’s Beyerskloof Wine Estate in Stellenbosch, they call themselves “The Home of Pinotage”, and for good reason. On the winelist, the number of different expressions by the bottle or by the glass stands at nine – more if you add the Pinotage-led Cape Blends.
Every three months, members of Caroline’s Quarterly Wine Club look forward to more new discoveries from top South African producers. “Wine lovers can sit back and have our fine selections delivered wherever you are in the country,” says Caroline Rillema of Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellar in Cape Town. “We select
STELLENBOSCH, Swartland, Constantia… Wine from Kanonkop, the Sadie Family and Klein Constantia were most in demand as regards South African producers represented at Strauss & Co’s ‘2015 Vintage’ online auction concluded on 10 March ’25. The highest price fetched at the sale was R7035 (US$386) for a single bottle (750ml)
BUKETTRAUBE can be a lovely aromatic white wine, so why is David Nieuwoudt’s outfit among the Cederberg mountains the only top South African producer that makes one? Well, this is a grape variety particularly susceptible to downy/powdery mildew, a serious disease that can cause severe crop loss and which is
Every three months, members of Caroline’s Quarterly Wine Club look forward to more new discoveries from top South African producers. “Wine lovers can sit back and have our fine selections delivered wherever you are in the country,” says Caroline Rillema of Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellar in Cape Town. “We select
A PINOTAGE that originates in a vineyard unlike any other: 24 double rows of vines planted in a fan-like semi-circle to expose the plants to varying amounts of sunlight through 180 degrees. A tiny patch of land in a residential area at the southernmost tip of the Jonkershoek ward in
AT THE timed, online Rhône Theme wine auction conducted by Strauss & Co on 10 February 2025, somebody paid over R8000 for a bottle of 1997 Syrah from Boekenhoutskloof in Franschhoek – double the price fetched for the second-most in-demand SA wine on this occasion, a bottle of the red
THE GARLAND 2020 from Simonsig in Koelenhof-Stellenbosch is the most highly rated Cabernet Sauvignon in the 2025 edition of Platter’s South African Wine Guide. Five Stars, 97 points on the critics’ 100-point scale, tasted ‘blind’, the identity of the wine not disclosed during the final round of assessment. This after
THERE ARE still some cellars on the Cape wine routes of South Africa where they don’t charge you for a sip of their wines, a tasting of what they produce, but such places are very few and far between. Boekenhoutskloof is one: free wine tastings and tours at one of
