THEY CALL it ‘The Tea Leaf’. On the label, there’s reference to a ‘brew’, and yes, there is a note of tea in the flavour profile. But it’s made from grapes, fermented in tank and barrel, and a rather fine wine at that – a favourite of the Winemag panel and one of the best-value combinations reviewed in their 2020
Read more100 SUBMISSIONS from 78 producers was an impressive level of involvement by the South African wine industry in Winemag’s 2020 Prescient Cabernet Sauvignon Report. Most of the top seeds participated, the majority of the country’s benchmark Cabs on the tasting bench for assessment by the panel comprising editor Christian Eedes (chair) with fine wine retailers Roland Peens and James Pietersen
Read moreTHERE WAS little fanfare associated with Winemag’s 2020 Cape White Blend Report. Perhaps in part this had to do with the uphill battle to establish a new category which Winemag reasons should hinge on the most widely planted grape vine in South Africa, Chenin Blanc. Some of the country’s finest wines are single-varietal Chenins, and the best-value blend as reviewed
Read moreTHE POWERS that be at Winemag.co.za delay the announcement of exactly how the panel rated their South African favourites in the publication’s various category reviews – a Top 10 is all they’ll tell us in each instance until divulging the rankings / scores out of 100 and the names of all the winners at a gala function come the end
Read moreFOR THE QUESTIONS, answers and in part heated outbursts that ensued after publication of Winemag’s 2020 Prescient Cap Classique Report, click here. For the full report and reviews of 50 South African sparkling wines made according to the traditional method, click here. Suffice to say: some of the online publication’s readers faulted the findings for being based on a competition
Read moreTHE CONTENTIOUS issue of wine ratings and awards continues to flare up from time to time, with outspoken wine lovers, wine scribes, critics and judges at odds with each other to the point of disbelief, even outrage. The problem? Firstly, there’s not enough consensus regarding which scoring system to use – star ratings aside, there are different versions of the
Read moreWHAT ARE the chances! Using grapes gown near Elim, Cape Agulhas, they top-scored in Winemag’s SA Shiraz roundup, and with grapes grown near Ceres they topped the charts first in the publication’s SA Pinot Noir review and then in their Prescient Chardonnay Report in which 65 South African producers participated. All in the same year! Congratulations to cellarmaster Charles
Read moreTHAT DE GRENDEL top-scored (95/100) in the South African Winemag’s 2019 Shiraz Report was not surprising: the cellar is one of the country’s Top 10 producers in this category. However, whereas the better-known Shiraz from this outfit on the Durbanville Wine Route is made from grapes harvested in Paarl and Stellenbosch, the loyalty-club exclusive orginates outside Elim in the district
Read more“PERHAPS the ‘Cape Blend’ is simply a concept that has run out of time” – Winemag’s Christian Eedes, commenting on the poor showing and no-shows by Pinotage-driven combos for the publication’s 2019 Signature Red Blend Report. Perhaps what many Cape Blend producers have a problem with is the random nature of this competition whereby almost anything goes – apart from
Read moreCOULDN’T help it! At first glance, what first ‘jumped out’ of Winemag’s 2019 Cape Bordeaux Red Blend Report was that one of the Top 5 is from a cellar in Worcester, and selling for a lot less than most of the top-rated submissions from Stellenbosch and Somerset West! Turns out that the Leipzig Grand Master 2017 is made from grapes
Read moreTHERE ISN’T another wine tasting venue quite like theirs. Very few farms in South Africa are as successful when it comes to organic wines labelled as such. And while they might well be better known by many for some of their Ladybird wines than for most of their Reserves, the wine they’re best at is Merlot, Claypot Merlot –
Read moreHIGHLY RECOMMENDED in Platter’s South African Wine Guide, an outstanding review on Winemag, then platinum at the Decanter World Wine Awards in the UK. Tokara Director’s Reserve 2016. So consistently good over the years. One of the Top 10 white blends in the SA Wine Classification, Top Wine SA Hall of Fame, Top 20 in the SA Cellar Classification.
Read moreTHE STATUS of Morgenster as one of South Africa’s top cellars hinges largely on the reputation of the Estate Reserve, a top class Bordeaux-style combo and one of the Top 10 red blends overall in the SA Wine Classification. Hall of Fame. R490 a bottle for the 2013 vintage. Of late, however, the Somerset West property’s single varietals have been
Read moreMORGENSTER Cab 2014 at R100 a bottle, Croydon Covenant Cab 2017 at R110, Glenelly Glass Collection Cab 2016 at R115 and Maastricht Cab 2017 at R120. These are the best-priced of the top-scoring wines in the 2019 Prescient Cabernet Sauvignon Report compiled by Winemag.co.za. The most glowing assessments went to the Croydon and to a 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon from Rust
Read moreASSESSING 77 submissions for their 2019 Alternative Varieties Report, South Africa’s Winemag panel of Christian Eedes (chair), Roland Peens and James Pietersen stopped short of declaring anything to be extraordinary or profound but were impressed, finding 40 wines to be excellent (90 to 92/100) to outstanding (93 to 95/100). Top score went to a Semillon from the Simonsberg-Paarl cellar
Read moreWHITES from Tokara and Raats, reds from Haut Espoir, La Bri, Rustenberg, Remhoogte and Tokara, sweets from Nederburg and Boplaas… The top-scoring South African producers in Winemag’s 10 Year Old Report 2019. To quote Christian Eedes, who chaired the three-man panel that included Roland Peens and James Pietersen of Cape Town merchant Wine Cellar: “The 2009 vintage is generally considered
Read moreWITH THE possible exception of the 2014 vintage, Cape Point Vineyards’ flagship white blend Isliedh hasn’t missed a beat: among the Top 10 of its kind in the SA Wine Classification, one of South Africa’s Top 100 wines over the past 10 years, included in the Top Wine SA Hall of Fame and, at the time of writing, just voted
Read more“IS SOUTH AFRICAN Chardonnay suffering from ‘tall poppy syndrome’?” asked Winemag’s Christian Eedes in the 2018 Prescient Chardonnay Report. “In the past decade or so, the variety as made locally has achieved notable prominence but there has been a tendency in more recent times to disparage it in some quarters, the argument being that it is still some distance behind other New World
Read moreTHE FOLKS at Creation on Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge must have mixed feelings about the award for Best Wine Overall in Winemag’s 2018 ‘Tonnellerie-Saint-Martin Pinot Noir Report’. A score of 93 points (out of 100) equates to an “outstanding” wine in the opinion of panellists Christian Eedes (chair), Roland Peens and James Pietersen (both of Cape Town retailer Wine Cellar), all respected judges.
Read moreTHEY CONCEDE that it was challenging for the panel to review a line-up of very different red blends, some Shiraz-led, Cape Blends in which Pinotage dominated, some including more than half a dozen component varieties, others made from grapes usually grown for making port-style wines, etc. But Christian Eedes, chairman of the judges including Roland Peens and James Pietersen of
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