What I Drank Last Night

When the recent Big 5 Tasting which saw five local wine producers go head to head with top French doppelgängers took place, there was no Chardonnay module. The question was put to organiser Jörg Pfützner of Fine Wine Events why this was, and he proffered that South Africa didn’t have anything to touch Burgundy. While [...]

…and the Barrel Fermented 2008 doesn’t. The way that Platter’s works is that all wines are tasted sighted (labels exposed), except for those nominated for Five Stars. Each member of the tasting team gets a random selection of new-release wines to work through and those that he or she thinks are worthy of 5 Stars [...]

With my sweetheart and me both feeling disinclined to fulfil grocery shopping duties for supper last night, we debated how best to dispense with the various soon-to-expire items in the fridge: broccoli-based stir fry vs. bratwurst with broccoli vs. pasta with chicken and mushroom in a cream-based sauce. I was soon sautéing the onions, followed [...]

The Cape Wineamkers Guild deserves kudos for letting the wines selected for this year’s auction be subjected to assessment via blind tasting (see here), but what of the wines that didn’t make the cut? Andries Burger, winemaker at Paul Cluver Estate in Elgin, was made a member of the Guild this year and submitted two [...]

Yesterday a tasting of soon-to-be released wines from Stellenbosch winery Warwick.  The Chardonnay 2009 is looking particularly good, with a rich core of fruit but also some interesting secondary flavours. Grapes come predominantly from a vineyard planted in the mid-1980s and yeilds are low, typically between two and half and three tons a hectare. only [...]

This year’s Chardonnay tasting to be reported on in the November issue of WINE magazine has attracted 173 examples (28 unwooded and 145 wooded) submissions compared to 150 (19 unwooded and 131 wooded) in 2009. The panel is Carrie Adams of Johannesburg retailer Norman Goodfellows, wine writer Angela Lloyd, Woolworths wine selector Allan Mullins, JD Pretorius, [...]

Today saw a comparative tasting of Aussie vs. South African Chardonnay, 13 top examples from each country at Haskell Vineyards in Stellenbosch. Out of the 26 wines tasted, South Africa took first place, with a further seven in the top 10 – a deeply pleasing result that shows local wines can hold their own in [...]

At R458 a bottle from Cape Town boutique wine store Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellar, Laurent-Perrier Brut L-P is not the kind of stuff that a self-employed wine writer cracks open all the time. But I’ve been tasting bubbly all week (see previous posts here and here), and find myself fixated. Besides, it was a mate’s [...]

‘Cause we need stuff  that doesn’t mention “cooling sea breezes” or advises that the wine “goes well with pizza, pasta, white meat, red meat or simply on its own”. Back label for Springfield Wild Yeast Chardonnay 2006 reads: Vines are unaware that humans turn their grapes into wine. They are destined to attract birds – [...]

Lucky says: A good friend is a bit down after recently ending a relationship and I twist his arm to stop sulking alone and come over for a drink after work. We’re joined later on by an interesting new friend I’ve made. The evening passes with laughs, battle scar comparisons, excitement about the upcoming World [...]