We’re labeling our Lemoenfontein white this week, so for our single marketing activity we thought we’d lunch at Bar Bar Black Sheep in Riebeek Kasteel and hope to bump into someone from “The Gouda Book Club, recognized by Moscow as the foremost credible body concerning the evaluation and assessment of fine wines between Porterville and Hermon” according to comrade Anton Espost (slogan in the ’97 elections “stem Espost en almal wen” (vote for Espost and put him on the gravy train).

Komrade Anton of the Gouda Book Klub

We were fortunate indeed to bump into chairman Anton himself at his Wine Kollective structure and after listening quietly to his complaints about our antics on the Paardeberg that he struggles to observe through his high powered telescope trained on us from his lair on Kasteelberg (we blamed it on the unseasonably cold weather of late) we poured him half a glass of Lemoenfontein 2008.

We had hoped to name our Chenin/Bukettraube blend Hyacinth in honour of Keeping Up Appearances character Hyacinth Bucket played by Patricia Routledge, but Pat turned us down. “I don’t do endorsements” even though we offered to give any profits to a foetal alcohol charity. So we’ll stick with Lemoenfontein, inspite of Dumipe Bayly recommending we spell it Le Moenfontein.

“It’s beautiful” advised Anton, quoting Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds from I’m Your Midnight Man. “This is the kind of wine I’d like to see in a blind tasting with Eben and Adi” he continued. With the same attractive oxidative style which made Eben producer of the year for a sighted wine guide, we’re confident of critical success in blind tourneys, especially when you remember that our wine was made at the same time and in the same place by blonde Brobdignagian bombshell and December Winelands pin-upDonovan Rall who knocked down a Platter five star surprise stunner for his own 2008 Chenin blend.

My friends still pelt me with courgette flowers, “freshly picked, battered and deep fried served with a squeeze of lemon juice, olive oil and parmesan cheese” for spurning the generous offer from Platter publisher Andrew “Big Mac” McDowell to have the wine rated sighted for the 2010 edition of the guide. I told them to stick to their pan fried baby Patagonicas “cooked off with rich tomato, oregano and chilli sauce, served with home baked bread” and let me get on with my Toulouse sausage “flambéed with brandy and cooked off with beef stock.” Why is it, asked People’s Guide co-author Aníbal Coutinho “that every dish in SA is made with copious quantities of black pepper?”

We even left a bit of Lemoenfontein in the bottle for that other Platter pretty boy, Chris Mullineux, who is busy building a winery for himself from some bits of wood and a piece of string in a barn opposite BBBS. “My partner used to run a hardware store there” explained comrade Anton “but decided to cash in and go fishing. Chris will do everything to his wines there except ferment them.” Fermentation is rumoured to take place at Quoin Rock, Dave King’s Stellenbosch cellar that helped put May de Lencquesaing (of Ch. Pichon Lalande fame) on the map.

Chris is the third leg of the Swartland ACE stool (Adi, Chris and Eben) of dynamic young winemakers currently sharpening the pointed end of SA wine. In spite of high alcohols and higher prices, the trio are setting the agenda for this sleepy appellation that supplies grapes to some of the smartest cuvées in the Cape. But could current financial realities at last be having an effect on fashionable wine? Chris is rumoured to be releasing a less expensive (but no less delicious) brand under the Kloof Street label as well as the house wine for Bartholomeu’s Klip in Hermon.

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