A press release for “Constantia Fresh – one of the first South African wine festivals to feature Sauvignon Blanc of the Constantia Valley and other participating regional and international producers for a two day lifestyle festival celebrating the distinctiveness and freshness of the ‘wild white’ grape, Sauvignon Blanc and its compatibility with food.” Wriggle out your Moleskin diaries and pencil in Friday 26 and Saturday 27th February as the show is being organized by the fantastically punctuated former sommelier Jörg Pfützner and his gorgeous, pouting wife Claire Lockey, shown below with Buitenverwachting winemaker Brad Paton.

Brad and Claire at a Ramos Pinto tasting

In addition to producers from the Loire and New Zealand, the event will feature “Constantia Uitsig, Klein Constantia, Groot Constantia, Steenberg, Eagle’s Nest and Buitenverwachting.” Hang on a seccie, shurely shome mishtake as Eagle’s Nest don’t even make Sauvignon Blanc while Constantia Glen do, and they’re AWOL. In fact in some circles, Karl Lambour’s CG is seen as the apogee of a steely, studied school of Sauvignon.

Couple of other turn-ups for the cellar-book: Jörg ran a similar event this year but the cultivar was Riesling. Has he now bowed to the inevitable and admitted that while Riesling is anorak acme (even for this burly manifestation) when it comes to bums on seats and hands on wallets, you can’t beat Sauvignon Blanc. Especially when the comet vintage of 2009 is available for pouring.

Another turn-up is that the Constantia Valley is demonstrating a new-found cohesion and dynamism as evidenced by Groot Constantia throwing a historical hissy fit recently. Heck, it looked for a while like Durbanville would make all the running with SA’s most popular white cultivar. So let’s see how many of those lasagne-chomping, Chardonnay-glugging, self-proclaimed sighted pundits will dismount their soapboxes to join Jörg and Claire for a roll in the hay. I know I will.

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