Is Pretoria making a bid to become rainmaker at the Cape Winemakers’ Guild Auction? Certainly bidding on the charity wines at a recent warm-up auction held at Ristorante Ritrovo in Snor City shot out the lights, with R5000 paid to see the six pack of Pierre Wahl, winemaker/personal trainer/body double at Rijk’s in Tulbagh.

Gary Jordan's Whole Nine Yards

At a similar warm-up dinner at Jordan, Gary Jordan’s talk of his own nine inches (or nine millimeters as André van Rensburg contends and Gary himself seems to confirm above) failed to increase the R20, 000 offered for a communal red blend, although his Whole Nine Yards Chardonnay will certainly have its fans at Saturday’s CWG Auction. Lower in alcohol that the conventional Nine Yards, it has increased complexity and elegance. Gary is recently returned from Greece where he experienced no economic meltdown and spent his time hiding like a wood-sprite in a 3000 year old olive tree on Santorini.

A passionate lover of all things Greek (his superlative red blend Sophia is named after the Greek Goddess of Wisdom), stand by for a single vineyard Assyrtiko at some future CWG Auction. Although if Gazza really is endowed with a whole nine yards, quite how he managed to smuggle cuttings through customs in his underpants (the traditional way of importing root stock – no pun intended – into the Winelands) is unexplained.