What I Drank Last Night

A cracking wine showing a range of aromas and flavours from grassy-green through to ripe granadilla with bright but not harsh acidity. Pure fruited and not as “nervy” as I suspect it was on release. It rated 5 Stars in Platter’s 2010, where it got this rather fanciful description: “Minerality is the seam binding in [...]

Spectrum 2008 was made by Callie Louw during his brief stint at Tulbagh Mountain Vineyards and drinking it yesterday I can see why Marc Kent was so keen to poach him away to work on the Porcelain Mountain project in the Swartland. Bottled exclusively for retail chain Woolworths, this wine was rated 5 Stars in [...]

This wine was the 1998 winner in Wine magazine’s Pinotage Champion of the Year competition and also received 5 Stars in the 1999 edition of Platter’s. It was the first solo bottling  from a vineyard that was then 45 years old, and it spent 22 months in French oak, 100% new. Drinking it 15 years [...]

Recently I reviewed the Syrah 2008 from Swartland property Lammershoek on this blog noting that I was “a little underwhelmed” by it on account of it showing “super-ripe fruit on nose and palate” while it also seemed “short on freshness and tannic grip”. Shortly after the posting went live, I had an email from Carla [...]

One of only two examples of Chenin Blanc out of 58 wines  to be rated 5 Stars in Platter’s 2011, Botanica 2009 is worth seeking out (the other being StellenRust ‘45’ Barrel Fermented 2009). What is striking about this wine is just how subtle and understated it is: there’s stone fruit on nose and palate, [...]

The fifth annual Wine Judging Academy run by Wine magazine in conjunction with leading wine critic Michael Fridjhon was held this past weekend, its aim since inception being to help raise the standard of local wine judging. During a module presented by international guest lecturer Peter McCombie MW, the Cape Point Vineyards Isliedh 2005 was [...]

The main aim of a tasting with Ian Naudé of Adoro Wines yesterday was to introduce his sweet Mourvèdre 2009, intended specifically to be served with cheese. The sommelier of a London private club frequented by the “Russian mafia and shieks” and famed for its cheese trolley apparently approached Naudé to come up with a [...]

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 [...]

Lammershoek in the Swartland is top of the pops at the moment thanks to the 2009 vintage of its white blend Roulette Blanc being rated 5 Stars in Platter’s 2011. A major success like this serves as impetus to reconsider the rest of the wines in the range, and we recently drank the property’s Syrah [...]

Hardly have we finished exchanging greetings and Eben Sadie, responsible for the acclaimed Swartland wines Columella and Palladius says “I’m not interested in winemaking anymore.” Noting a quizzical look from me, he adds a qualification: “I still want to know what’s going on in the cellar as I don’t want to lose a wine but [...]