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Clayton Controversial

By Neil Pendock | 19 hours, 46 minutes ago

Well the worst kept secret in the local spittoon is now finally out in the open. If Diners Club Young Winemaker of the Year Clayton Reabow only joined Franschhoek producer Môreson in May 2007, how much of the winning wine, a Môreson 2007 Reserve Chardonnay, did he actually make? A question asked by Michael Fridjhon in Business Day on Wednesday. According to Diners Club Western Cape regional manager Jane Ledger, Clayton was responsible for “barrel selection, final blend, and bottling” and Diners were presumably aware of the timing issue as their own press release supplies the facts, reporting “he joined Môreson, as winemaker, in May 2007.” So Diners claim he did enough, although others beg to differ.

Clayton at the Diners Club awards lunch

Clayton at the Diners Club awards lunch

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Rolling Out The People’s Guide

By Neil Pendock | 1 day, 5 hours ago

After being blamed for the bad weather at last week’s launch of the Platter sighted wine guide that had anoraks huddled in Black Hole of Calcutta Conditions to pay homage to oxidative Shiraz, I made sure the weather at the Splash Café at the Vineyard Hotel was tip-top this afternoon for the launch of The People’s Guide. As Bob Dylan sang it “you don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows” (especially in Cape Town) but an honest blind assessment for under R100 of some of the most widely available SA cuvees might come in useful to consumers, a market TPG is unashamedly aimed at. It seems that consumers agree as WINE magazine has come back to us twice to ask for more copies of TPG for the subscription special they are running (subscribe to WINE and receive a free copy of TPG).

The People's Guide is launched this afternoon

The People's Guide was launched this afternoon

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Benromach @ Bascule

By Neil Pendock | 2 days, 3 hours ago

When Robin Knox-Johnston sailed singlehandedly around the world back in 1969 without stopping, five-six pm every afternoon would be his happy hour. “I’d huddle in the cockpit and pour myself a dram, light up a cigarette and do my thinking for the day” he recalls. “It kept me going sometimes, that having something to look forward to.” On that occasion, he sailed past Cape Town but had stopped by four years before when he sailed his yacht Suhaili, built in Bombay, back to Blighty. “She had 7½ tons of teak in her, real 1½ inch stuff. Cost a fortune then and would be totally unaffordable now.”

Robin Knox-Johnston

Robin Knox-Johnston

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50 Years of Pinotage: the 70s

By Neil Pendock | 2 days, 23 hours ago

Five wines from the second decade of a five decade Pinotage tasting held at Beyers Truter’s Vermont beach house on Monday.

The most unexpected wine from the seventies was a Simonsig 78. Reading back my tasting notes of blackcurrant tea and cassis, I did a double take, for it read like a note on Cabernet Sauvignon. Yet the label said “100% Pinotage” – a claim that got the late Frans Malan into a lot of trouble as the implication was that wines labeled “Pinotage” were not necessarily pure Pinotage. Which could indeed have been the case, as 75% (and only an incredible 33% in the case of Cabernet Sauvignon) was the legal requirement for single cultivar labeling.

Chateau Beyers

Chateau Beyers

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Pass the Prosecco

By Neil Pendock | 3 days, 7 hours ago

One man’s meat etc. While Champagne sales are down 45% worldwide, exports of Prosecco, the Italian sparkling wine made by the Charmat method (essentially a second fermentation in stainless steel controlled by temperature) are robust with exports up 8%. As Enrico Dini, export manager for Astoria Lounge Prosecco launched earlier this evening at the in-store Tapas Bar of the all singing, all dancing Woolworths Melrose Arch, put it “if you have a party and replace Champagne with something else, people think you’re cheap. If you replace it with Prosecco, they think you’re trendy.” The love of money is the root of all evil and this one too. As Woolies wine buyer Ivan Oertle put it “whose got R400 for a bottle of Veuve in this economic climate when Astoria Lounge costs R80?”

Ivan and Astoria president Giorgio Polegato

Ivan and Astoria president Giorgio Polegato

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WOSA Shoots the Messenger

By Neil Pendock | 3 days, 18 hours ago

An e-mail from André Morgenthal, communications manager at WOSA (Wines of SA, the exporters’ mouthpiece) this morning forwarding foreign reaction to a story I ran on www.winenews.co.za on a tasting of 25 Pinotages at last month’s London Mega-Tasting. The story soon attracted over 1000 hits and many comments and rocketed to the top of the winenews pops, where it stubbornly stays. An accusation is made that I’m “always anti-WOSA” and the question is asked whether I have a grudge or am I simply anti-SA wines? A bit rich, coming two days before the launch of The People’s Guide, a blind-tasted guide to SA wines I’ve written with Michael Olivier and Aníbal Coutinho. WOSA itself obviously didn’t think the story was intended to bash them as they posted it on their website.

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50 Years of Pinotage: the 60s

By Neil Pendock | 3 days, 23 hours ago

A remarkable Five Decades of Pinotage tasting was held at the Vermont holiday home of Beyers Truter yesterday.

As Emile Joubert, dressed as a Hawston perlemoen negoçiant, reminded us at the five generations of Pinotage tasting yesterday, “if you can remember the sixties, you weren’t there.” So what was South Africa drinking during the summer of love while Janis Joplin was bemoaning her lack of a Mercedes Benz and Jimi Hendrix was burning guitars at Woodstock? The answer: 1963 Lanzerac Pinotage in camp pink skittle bottles. Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery would “hold back reds for 3-4 years” according to Distell director Dumpie Bayly who was involved in making the stuff as opposed to today when reds appear as soon as they are made.

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50 Years of Pinotage: Preparations

By Neil Pendock | 4 days, 19 hours ago

The hottest ticket in SA wine this year is the one to the vertical tasting of five decades of Pinotage at the Vermont beach house of the Prophet of Pinotage, Beyers Truter, this morning. Altydgedacht winemaker Etienne Louw and I drove up yesterday to help IWSC Winemaker of the Year Abrie Beeslaer and Beyers with preparations, a bit delayed due to windy conditions that delayed Abrie and Beyers diving for kreef.

Beyers, Abrie and Etienne spotting kreef yesterday

Beyers, Abrie and Etienne spotting kreef yesterday

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Sunbathing in the Nude

By Neil Pendock | 6 days, 10 hours ago

“Ah! Platter” said Enrico, diminutive table twirling owner of Ristorante Posticino in Sea Point, spying my review copy of The Food & Wine Pairing Guide by Katinka van Niekerk and Brian Burke (Struik Lifestyle, 2009) yesterday. “No something much more useful” I replied. For how else would you know what to drink with pofadders (“braaied stuffed sheep’s intestines”) if you were a winemaker considering a shot at stardom in WOSA’s upcoming Braai Book? The answer: “Pinotage… [a cultivar] constantly sunbathing in the nude.” As opposed to Shiraz, “a slutty wine or ‘the best stripper in town.’” Descriptions you’d never find in po-faced Platter that once rejected my tasting note for a banana flavoured Pinotage as “suitable for KwaZulu-Natalians” with contempt.

Katinka with food

Katinka with food

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Jolling with Jörg

By Neil Pendock | 6 days, 20 hours ago

“It’s all about pleasure” says Jörg Pfützner, sommelier turned entrepreneur at Rust en Vrede restaurant on Wednesday night, discussing criteria for assessing wine. “Does this wine give me pleasure or not?” But for him noticing someone order a bottle of wine that he had imported, as was the case with two lederhosen-clad Austrians at R&V that evening, is a source of further pleasure. “And if it was a first growth, then I’d completely flip.” The leather boys own a wine bar in Vienna and had engaged the service of Fiona McDonald, ex-editor of WINE magazine (a growing club), who now offers bespoke tours of the Winelands. Fiona had secured a midweek berth at totally full R&V and the trio were pushing the boat out. Stop Press: the damages were rumoured to be R7K (including R500 for food).

Jörg Pfützner, trying out for sommelier at the Last Supper

Jörg Pfützner, trying out for sommelier at the Last Supper

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