What I Drank Last Night

The Rudera brand has had its ups and downs in recent times but finally seems to have a happy and potentially prosperous future ahead of it. It was founded by renowned winemaker Teddy Hall and wife Riana in 1999 but when they split, ownership fell to Riana and a succession of winemakers followed.  Wines under [...]

What is to become of the Chenin Blanc Challenge now that Wine magazine is no longer? Held for the first time in 1996, it was the longest running of any of the wine competitions convened by the title and played at least a small role in rehabilitating the reputation of the variety. Over the course [...]

Yesterday lunch hosted by Singita Game Reserves at fellow Relais & Chateaux member Ellerman House in Bantry Bay. The object of the exercise? To showcase the Singita wine cellar, arguably the best stock of modern-era South African wine anywhere. The menu as follows: steamed crab and ginger dumpling in miso broth with Waterford Library Collection [...]

A mild chicken curry for lunch yesterday paired with various examples of Chenin Blanc.  The Knorhoek 2010 and the Oldenburg 2010 were both very good in terms of basic quality but divided the party along stylistic lines. The Knorhoek (R46 a bottle from the farm) from 35-year-old bush vines and tank fermented showed plenty of [...]

Lunch at top Cape Town restaurant Bizerca with Christophe Durand of Vins D’Orrance. He bought his maiden vintage 2009 Chenin Blanc called Kama (after the Sanskrit word for ‘sensual pleasure’). It consists of Perdeberg fruit including 12% Roussanne and spent nine months in third-fill barrel. Almost psychedelic green in colour, it shows pure fruit and [...]

To start the evening two examples of Chenin Blanc, De Trafford 2008 side by side with Post House 2008. I’d hoped that the wines would be rich and substantial and capable of providing some succour against the chill of winter which seems to have arrived all too early in the Cape but instead we found [...]

Among the various efforts over the last 10 or 15 years aimed at getting Cape Chenin Blanc considered among the world’s greatest wines, The FMC Forrester Meinert Chenin Blanc has played a pivotal role. It has won numerous accolades including the 2005 and 2006 being rated 5 Stars in Platter’s but most importantly it has [...]

Difficult to concentrate on work when national side the Proteas is playing in a Cricket World Cup semi-final. As I was sneaking out for a lunch-time burger at local restaurant Drew’s on Durban, an unexpected call from Sebastian Beaumont of family-owned Bot River winery Beaumont. The 2010 vintage of Hope Marguerite Chenin Blanc (increasingly well [...]

“Monotony, neutrality and non-existent regionality were sadly the buzzwords of this tasting,” begins the report on SA Chenin Blanc in the April issue of UK magazine Decanter. Below are some of the big-name wines that got trashed (panel average score out of 20 alongside). This goes beyond the vagaries of blind tasting and points to [...]

I’m still waiting for my April issue of Decanter to arrive in the letter box, but a recent posting on A Word from the Herd, the Fairview Wine blog alerted me to a tasting report in the UK magazine that is going to upset many local Chenin Blanc producers. Out of 155 wines tasted, Fairview’s [...]