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The UCT Top 20 poll of SA wineries as reported in the Mail & Guardian today speaks way more to the competence and conflicts of interest of the judges than in does about SA wine quality. The poll was solicited on the digital equivalent of a UCT letter head: sent from an academic e-mail account with a UCT office telephone number by a member of the staff of that institution – that infamous barefoot agent provocateur Tim James. I refused to participate for various reasons. If bag had a sense of humour, I’d say today’s poll was Sunday’s list and the real one would be revealed later.
Down to some serious stuff at the Concours Mondial du Sauvignon last night – matching Sauvignon to some of the local delicacies of Aquitaine: fried pork fat, pigs ears and blood pudding. Oysters are a cinch and it’s hard to beat the sharp wines from Touraine in this department. But we were almost evicted from the Bordeaux Brasserie for claiming that an €18 Spaniard with a curly G sandblasted onto the bottle was a great all round match. Well at least we assume it was Spanish and Sauvignon Blanc because the only thing on the bottle was G – no vintage, no alcohol admission even. Perhaps Gerard Holden from Franschhoek has been visiting. It’s hard to argue in the basement of the Brasserie (below) as people throw bread at you from the balcony above before you make your point.
Paul Cluver, CEO of the eponymous wine producer, gave a presentation on Pinot Noir, the heartbreak grape, at Prowein this week. As part of the presentation, he asked three wine writers for their opinion and as is so often the case, the answers reveal as much about the wine writers as they answer the question.
WOSA, the embattled exporter’s association, seems to have taken recent criticism of its biodiversity marketing platform for SA wine from Johann Rupert and Michael Fridjhon to heart and come up with a new slogan “it’s not about making better wine, it’s about making wine better.” Below is Christoph Merchiers, marketing manager for the leading retailer of SA wines in Belgium, Rouseu Wijnen & Likeuren, with a WOSA employee, modelling the new slogan at ProWein.
Christoph Merchiers, a leading Belgian importer of SA wine at ProWein
WOSA, the wine industry’s embattled marketing quango, are like a Western Leopard Toad on the R45 from Malmesbury to Wellington in the path of a tractor-trailer full of Pinotage grapes. In January, the largest investor in SA wine, Johann Rupert rubbished WOSA’s much vaunted biodiversity focus. “Mense koop nie wyn as gevolg van biodiversiteit nie. Ons moet ’n eenvoudige, opregte, herhalende boodskap kry, en dit is nie biodiversiteit nie.” People don’t buy wine because of biodiversity. We need a simple, righteous, repeatable message and it isn’t biodiversity.
Endangered wine marketer
“You turn down being a taster but still crack an invite to the awards” was my greeting on Friday night from Ronell Wiid, one of the Classic judges at the Top Ten Chenin awards. Which is true, but it was my birthday and not stage fright that was my excuse to bow-out back in December. Looking at Classic’s Top Ten, I wish I’d been born the previous week as while believable, two things about the Classic selection worried: all the wines were wooded and none were from the Swartland. And the Paardeberg in particular, that fiery Mount Doom in Mordor (JRR Tolkien’s Black Land) that some would call the natural home of Chenin in SA.
The top table at Friday night's elegant affair
Do you need a license to make love? A diploma to become a dad? A certificate to call yourself a chef? Authority to become an artist? So why is the world of wine so obsessed with “qualifications?” Heck many of the Cape’s best winemakers like Arco Laarman (Glen Carlou) and Johan Kruger (Sterhuis) are self-taught and exactly what vinous qualifications do commentators like John Platter and Michael Fridjhon have?
Yet the battle for the big bucks of wine learners has been joined. In the red corner, former wine bar proprietor turned vinous wordsmith Cathy Marston is offering WSET courses which she tweets are the only qualifications with international recognition. In the white corner, the Cape Wine Academy offers various diplomas with the Cape Wine Master ticket, top of the pops.
Artist and winelover Luan Nel and CWA Principal Marilyn Cooper at the 2011 Soweto Wine Festival
Drinks Business magazine hit the ground running in January with the news that after centuries of serving fizz in cups based on the left breast of Queen Marie Antoinette and latterly in narrow flutes, “the Champenois are starting to serve their sparklers in white wine glasses as the larger surface areas give more aromas, complexity and a creamier texture” according to stemware manufacturer Georg Riedel.
Although Marie’s embonpoint was abandoned precisely as the surface area was too large and the bubbly went flat too soon. “Flutes are too narrow and don’t allow the aroma and richness of the Champagne to shine as there isn’t enough air space,” Georg continued, noting that flutes are often mistakenly filled to the top, leaving the wine no room “to breathe” as enthusiastic waitrons seek to ensure another order.
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
Mixed signals from Vindaba, the wine tourism conference scheduled to run in parallel with Cape Wine 2012 next September. WOSA media apparatchik André Morgenthal is quoted by the Whale Cottage blog as claiming that Vindaba will be a “stand-alone self-funded event, which will not be funded by WOSA” from their R25 million honey pot. But quite why a producer would pay R20K for a 2x2m stand at Vindaba when they already pay for a stand at Cape Wine 2012 is moot as there will be “free flow access” between the two exhibitions. Certainly a Vindaba presentation doing the rounds paints a different picture of WOSA’s involvement:
