“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 had spent the afternoon tasting white blends in Stellenbosch and filled us in on his findings. “I was very impressed with the Val de Vie (a 2:1 blend of Viognier and Clairette Blanche) while Adi Badenhorst’s 2007 white blend was the wine that gave me most pleasure.”

Jörg arrived in Cape Town from Rostock in 2002 and after several years as sommelier at Harald Bresselschmidt’s Aubergine restaurant in Gardens, now supports his wine habit importing the stuff, running tasting events (like the annual Riesling festival) and training courses for Cape Town oenophiles and wannabes. His recent Pinot Noir tasting attracted such luminaries as Remington Norman who wrote one of the best books on Burgundy to well healed punters keen on getting bladdered. Jörg handles them equally well.

I’d seen him in action the previous night at Ultima Tapa, a mysterious tapas bar on the wild side of Long Street that was venue for a Ramos Pinto tasting. Jörg has a totally different style to that prevalent at the usual big name tastings and I’m not sure he even owns a bowtie. Organization can sometimes be slightly chaotic but is carried out in sommelier mode – unobtrusively – leaving the presenter (in this case Ramos GM João de Almeida) to get on with his job. Next up is a wine appreciation course that signed up Paul Cluver IV as participant. “This will be the first wine course I’ve been on in ages” commented Paul.

Brad and Claire at the Ramos Pinto tasting

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