Tag Archives: Top 5

Driehoek, La Vierge and Lothian vintages shine yet again

THERE WERE 30 of the Cape’s wine producers vying for the 2023 Mosaic Top 5 Pinot Noir Awards, which is fairly impressive, given how niche the variety is in the country relative to Cabernet, Shiraz, Pinotage, Merlot… To lay claim, as the organisers do, to having come up with “the best Pinot Noir wines in South Africa” is a bit

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Elgin 3:1 Hemel-en-Aarde – SA Pinot Noir Report 2022

SA Pinot Noir Report NO DOUBT some of the folks up and down the Hemel-en-Aarde between Hermanus and Caledon were a little twitchy after the results of South Africa’s 2022 Mosaic Top 5 Pinot Noir Wine Awards went public. Only one of the winners was from that area of the country most renowned for this variety. Many of the entries

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Feeling of déjà vu about latest competition involving ‘heartbreak grape’

  THE SECOND annual Mosaic Top 5 Pinot Noir Wine Awards were contested by 42 producers who submitted 64 entries from various areas in South Africa, primarily from the Walker Bay district (24), Elgin (16) and Stellenbosch (6). Incredibly, four of the five winning producers in 2021 (see below) were among the previous winners in 2020, albeit with just a

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Mosaic Top 5 panel chuffed with best SA Pinot Noir, but hardly ecstatic

ANOTHER interesting line-up of wines from that ‘heartbreak grape’. To think that there are so many Pinot Noir producers in South Africa! And kudos to Elgin-based Master of Wine Richard Kershaw, the only winemaker to place among the winners of both the inaugural Top 5 competition associated with the country’s Pinot Noir Association and that organised by Winemag.co.za which involved the

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Cape Blends make for delightful drinking but lack industry commitment

  THERE ARE STILL a number of Cape Blend sceptics and naysayers. Apparently they don’t know what they’re missing, or don’t know better! Various expressions of Pinotage are enjoyed by wine connoisseurs around the world, and many of the cognoscenti are as enthusiastic about the red blends in which the SA-born variety plays a pivotal role – a minimum of

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Pinotage Association chooses Top Cape Blends ahead of game changer

THE KWV has enjoyed a rather good run in the Absa Perold Cape Blend Competition with five wins for their Abraham Perold Tributum since the first taste-off in 2011 – twice now with the 2014 vintage, having also won with it in 2016, but also with the 2013 (in 2015), the 2011 (in 2013) and the 2010 (in 2012). No other

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