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It’s a slow day sitting on the spittoon, so what follows is offered with a pinch of salt.
Dawid de Villiers and Mathilda Slabbert are two lecturers in the English Department at the University of Stellenbosch, surely an oxymoron these days as ivory towers reorganize themselves into schools. Let’s hope they both have tenure, for if the Chancellor, Dr. Johann Rupert, reads their recent biography of National Treasure David Kramer, they might be looking for alternative employment if his reaction to Wallpaper* magazine’s low opinion of Afrikaans is any guide.
SA winemakers are reeling at their Christmas present from UK Prime Minister David Cameron – plans to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks at under 40p a unit in the UK. At the minute, wine is taxed at 19p a unit in Blighty plus 20% VAT and a precipitous increase in tax will hit SA producers especially hard for two reasons: SA dominates the lower price points on the UK supermarket shelf and blessed with abundant sun, produces wines with above average alcohol content. This double whammy could be the last nail in the coffin of SA wine exports to its largest traditional market.
Dave Cameron, a bigger threat to SA wine than phylloxera
Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy or Sean Combs, fans of the US hip-hopper may not know what to call him and now they don’t even know what to order in a club. Talk about confused brand and hair extensions. Back in 2005 Diddy was telling people not to send him Cristal Champagne (imported into SA by wine impresario Michael Fridjhon) in a refusal of freebees a winehack like Mr. Min would never be convicted of.
“I don’t drink Cristal anymore. I haven’t drank it in four years. You could out that out there so the people stop sending it to me. It’s another myth, like the one that I wear white fur coats all day. I like authentic smooth Russian vodka and quality tequilas. I’m trying to learn about fine wines. As you get a little more mature, you realise that the wine game is ultra sexy; the wine experience is definitely one of the sexiest experiences going.”
Ciroc, not Cristal for P. Diddy
The old joke that Elgin wines taste of apples, even the white ones, has backfired on the appellation. The region’s most famous product, Appeltiser, a brand owned by SA Breweries, has been running a competition in the UK with 151 first prizes of “dinner for two at Tiffany’s 5th Avenue store followed by a personal shopping experience and a £1,000 Tiffany’s gift card.” Linking fizzy apple juice to the Big Apple and its most elegant jewellery store is a marketing no brainer. But it would have been nice for the apple pickers to have asked Mr. Tiffany first.
Dominic Ntsele, the eminence behind the Classic FM radio station, has come up with a novel circulation boosting strategy for his glossy new magazine Classic Wine. Hire everyone likely to buy the publication as writers and you start with an impressive circulation list. If I’d have had R60 handy this morning, he’d have sold me a copy too. But alas I had only R40 for the Weekend Financial Times (available in Johannesburg the day before it reaches Cape Town) and Exclusives didn’t have any copies. Or perhaps there is no Christmas weekend edition of the Pink One?
Thank heavens it was not shrink wrapped like the old WINE magazine, so I could indulge in a bit of browsing. I’d already read huge tracts sent to me by featured producers in PDF attachments to their e-mails. So is it a winner?
The length of stories and their tight focus (2000 words on a single Sauvignon Blanc?) will rule most casual readers hors de combat, leaving the field to anoraques and the trade. Yet the ads are not wine specific and look more like the expensive lifestyle kind you find in Wanted or GQ.
The two month pause between editions will rule out the reader repartee you find in weekly magazines like The Spectator and New Statesman. But I suspect the real reason for the magazine is as a platform for its tasting panels, with a wine club part of the brand extension of Classic FM. This is essentially the Colin Collard Wine of the Month model which provides the industry with the excellent Good Taste magazine.
The spittoon is foaming over the identity of the author of The SA Pinotage Guide “a new publication on Pinotage, its pioneers and history, intrinsics of the grape, the major producers and Pinotage personalities.” It’s not Peter May, author of PINOTAGE: Behind the Legends of South Africa’s Own Wine and since food is not mentioned in the title or blurb, its unlikely to be Guido Francque, the Belgian chef with a bee in his bonnet for the culitivar. Commissioned by the Pinotage Association, the book will be released in mid-January at Diemersfontein, an estate which changed the direction of Pinotage forever with its coffee/mocha variant. Peter will be in SA at the time, so let’s hope someone remembers to invite him!
Donkiesbaai Steen fermentor "Space Ball"
A busy week for Johnnie Black as it emerged as the drink of choice of that hell raising brainbox Christopher Hitchens, who died last week of oesophageal cancer. The New Statesman advises readers to “pour yourself a glass of Johnnie Walker Black Label and read all 5,264 words” of his last interview, vouchsafed to an even more famous atheist (if that is possible) Professor Richard Dawkins. Not pour yourself a stiff drink or even a whisky, but the very brand itself is specified. How does Diageo do it? Although the bottle in the picture below looks suspiciously like Johnnie Red, supplying the lie to his claim to evangelical CNN blogger Larry Alex Taunton “You have me drinking Johnnie Walker Red Label. That’s the cheap stuff. I only drink Black Label.” Oops!
The news that HCI recently bought another 688 shares in KWV at R8.50 each – which triggered a mandatory offer to shareholders to buy everyone out at that price – comes as no surprise. The price is a far cry from the R11.80 HCI paid to Jannie Mouton’s Zeder for the initial investment earlier this year but well above the R7 the security was trading for in September.
Farmers must be kicking themselves for not grabbing the offer from Pioneer Foods with both hands, but can congratulate themselves on remaining proud owners of one of Irma Stern’s best paintings. The current offer values 100 shares at roughly the retail price of four bottles of the flagship Roodeberg named after its inventor, Dr. Charles Niehaus. A 2010 blend of Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, Charlie is richly fruited and densely intense. But even more importantly, brings the KWV icon red kicking and screaming into the New World of accessible wine styles upon which the very future of the company depends.
Charlie Niehaus, a new old face of KWV quality
“One good thing about this recession” said architect Robert Silke last night, enjoying his annual month long builders’ holiday, “is that it opens up great buildings, like this one, at realistic rentals. In the boom, this would have been a Pam Golding office” indicating the Wildean fin de siècle interior of the Alexander Bar on the corner of Strand and Loop Street, Cape Town.
Alexander Bar
Is Johnnie Walker swimming against the eco tide by discontinuing its Green Label whisky? Heck, only today The Telegraph was going on about how the Queen was finally going green, converting Windsor Castle to run on hydroelectricity. Although I did love the nutty claim “the Queen was unable to install the turbines herself as it is on a stretch of the Thames owned by the Environment Agency.” Did they think she is an engineer or SuperGranny?
