What better way to celebrate the end of the recession than with oysters and bubbly (both French and Méthode Cap Classique) at Belthazar at the Cape Town Waterfront yesterday. As mine host Jonathan Steyn insisted in his yoga gear “Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends” quoting the late British artist Francis Bacon, famous for paintings humans as slabs of meat, so a most appropriate quote for the Cape’s best steakhouse. And the recession really does seem to be lifting “September was our worst month in the past 18 and then someone switched on the tourists in October.”

Jono in Yoga togs

I can’t enlarge on the sham friends bit as Riesling Revivalist Jörg Pfützner closed down the conversation about the bitchy and ungallant dissing of WINE magazine’s new publishing editor on the Grape communal blog with a comparison of local wine writers to children fighting with plastic swords at a kiddies birthday party. So the current rash of bad temper in the bibulous blogosphere is probably just further celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Asterix and Obelix. In the same way that last year’s epidemic was just a well choreographed publicity storm for the launch of Sour Grapes (Tafelberg, 2008). With Michael Olivier, Aníbal Coutinho and I planning to launch The People’s Guide in Cape Town on the 19th, Johannesburg on the 23rd and Durban the day after, no doubt there will be further bimbo eruptions.

As expected, the bubblies were brilliant and the MCC’s really did not have to take a back seat to French fizz. But what a collection of MCC’s: a Rataffia-style JC le Roux Pinot Noir 1989 tasting like Krug in drag; Pieter Ferreira’s Cuvée Clive 2003 still remarkably tight and taut and my favourite of the locals, a recently disgorged (as in yesterday, by Johan Malan) Simonsig ’99 with intense flavours of honey, pollen and as seamless as a windsock at Base4. Which is where property developer (London, Spain and now Plettenberg Bay) Mike operates his helicopter. Mike is a Champagne Charlie, getting his training flying first class and attempting to recoup the ticket price in Dom Pérignon consumed (which requires a bottle an hour, according to Jono).

Jono and Mike

The storm gathering over Woodstock and Kenilworth blew in Waterkloof owner Paul Boutinot and its been raining in Cape Town ever since. Paul’s comments on the Philipponnat Clos des Goisses 2000 (very nice, except for the whiff of singed hair I thought) and Winston Churchill ’96 were spot on, although the Duval-Leroy La Femme ’96 was not to his taste. I thought it smelt like Simba’s finest salt and vinegar chips – or crisps, as they call them in the UK, where Paul lives most of the year.

Paul Boutinot

The Pol Roger (bought from Wayne Visser’s Great Domaines operation in Johannesburg) came from Jono’s own cellar “this is the best wine I’ve ever had in my life” although for my buds, the richer Henri Giraud Fût de Chène ’99 came top, beating the Salon ’97 by a short head – but that could have been because it was the last (15th) wine. Imported by Inke Gouws, the bubbliest importer with the classiest mousse, Inke secured me as a customer for life when she said “you look like the King of France.” Talk about beer goggles!

Jono ended off the tasting with another quote, this time from Winston Churchill. “A magnum of Champagne is the correct amount for two gentlemen at lunch, when one is not drinking.” And he’s not wrong.

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