What I Drank Last Night

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 [...]

De Trafford Keermont 2001 made by David Trafford was joint winner of the 2002 Wine magazine Chenin Blanc Challenge 2002 and if the competition which dates since 1996 has tended to favour wines made in a rich and ripe, heavily oaked style this wine was an exception. Grapes were from a 29-year-old Helderberg vineyard, picked [...]

When the Ken Forrester Chenin Blanc 2003 came up for review in the April 2008 issue of Wine magazine as part of a tasting of 5-year-old whites, it rated 5 Stars. Drinking it yesterday, the wine a further three years older, it not only remains superlative but I think it’s got another three to five [...]

Some thoughts on the Chenin Blanc category from Cathy van Zyl MW and panel member at  this year’s Wine magazine Chenin Blanc Challenge: Interesting but challenging class to judge because of the diversity of styles from the fresh fruit/acid attack versions to the rich, botrytised and oaked creations. There also seemed to be a fair [...]

De Morgenzon in Stellenbosch owned by Johannesburg-based high-flyers Wendy and Hylton Appelbaum burst onto the scene when the maiden 2005 vintage of its Chenin Blanc made by Teddy Hall acting in a consultant capacity was rated 5 Stars in Platter’s 2007. In a word, it was an opulent wine (residual sugar of 6.8g/l and eight [...]

In a masterstroke of brevity, the back label of Hope Marguerite Barrel Matured Chenin Blanc 2004 from Bot River winery Beaumont describes it as “Toasted almonds, rich and rounded”. Drinking it just about seven years on from vintage, the wine is all these things and more: a classic wet-wool note on the nose and then [...]

Yesterday lunch at Bodega, the restaurant at Stellenbosch winery Dornier to sample winemaker JC Steyn’s three interpretations of Chenin Blanc. First the entry-level Cocoa Hill 2010, selling for R45 a bottle from the farm. This wine includes own grapes as well as a portion from Bottelary and is unwooded. It comes across as very primary [...]

The older I get, the more I think I suffer from agoraphobia (fear of public places). With the 2010 Stellenbosch Wine Festival in full swing this weekend, I have to confess that I was glad to decamp to my parents-in-law’s home in Wellington for the week-end. Needs must when the devil drives and upon awakening [...]