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Chalk and cheese, last week’s MCSA and this. The only agenda the two programs had in common was bulleting the oldest contestant, but at least there was no gratuitous cruelty tonight. But why is MasterChefSA so ageist?
Oh yes, and last week Thin Chef wore a Woolies big suit. Tonight, it was a Woolies big shirt. But slap the Woolies marketing department on the wrist with a koek- or koessuster for flighting their admittedly brilliant ad for those 35-day aged thick cut steaks twice in consecutive ad-breaks. But what glorious camera work – the steaks made everything cooked in the show look like takeaways. This ad is so yummy, its almost worth signing up for a Woolies shopper card. That and getting the 25% meat discount.
From a wine point of view, there was at least a teasing glimpse of Nederburg products but the whole winelands set and bucolic environment speaks to a brand at the top of its game. The underlining of Nederburg as the premium lifestyle wine option was reinforced by the announcement that a dozen of SA’s sexiest brands are lining up to participate in the annual Nederburg Auction in September for the first time.
Nederburg
For a flash when Trenton Oldfield, the Aussie LSE graduate with an MSc in “contemporary urbanism” emerged from the Thames on Sky News in a black wetsuit after disrupting the annual Oxbridge boat race, I thought it was ubiquitous UK wine blogger Jamie Goode, spotted surfing in the Cape last week – or northern France, as French tourism authorities may wish you to believe. But closer examination reveals that Trenton has more hair.
Wine Blogger (l) Class Warrior (r)
With WOSA, the exporters’ quango, planning to bring plane loads of luvvies to Cape Town for Cape Wine 2012 in September in green jets running on banana leaves and rooibos tea, it behoves Uncorked to pass on this tip to any unfortunates flying SAA: don’t read on the descent while seated in an emergency exit seat.
Sir David Tang gives helpful advice
There are two questions on everyone’s lips re. the Saturday auction of Quoin Rock. Where did Bobby Jordan get that photo? It looks like Wendy is giving Shoprite Whitey the evil eye. The one with Clare Mack at Wendy’s last auction, the Nederburg Auction (below) celebrating the bottle stickers for Clare’s 100 Women 100 Wines competition, an edgy feminist initiative right up Wendy’s weg, is far better.
Nederburg Neutrino. Now there’s a brand name for incoming Nederburg marketing guru Wencke Grobler to conjure with. For the week after the 37th Nederburg Auction shot out the lights, scientists in Italy trapped 15000 neutrinos fired at them from Geneva that had broken the speed limit. And boy were the flying – 6Km/second faster than the speed limit decreed by Albert Einstein, the über-traffic cop. Such a big number, he called it “c” in his memorable equation E=mc2 or E=mcc which the Cap Classique Association should appropriate as slogan.
Albert reacts to the Michelangelo results
Wine commentator Mr. Min comes down firmly on the side of the Nederburg Auction in the Battle of the Auctions underway at the minute. Nederburg last week (sorry to have missed Mr. Min on both days of Nederburg) and the Cape Winemakers Guild, this coming Saturday.
Writing on his Gape blog, Mr. Min notes “if Checkers [supermarkets] manages to flog the wine [they bought last week] to shopping housewives and the like smartly, the local wine industry should give them a heroic handshake. So much more significant, from a wine cultural point of view, than the other auction where yuppies shout up prices against one another, and glow in the power of their money, never mind what’s in the glass.”
A typical CWG Auction bidder as seen by Mr. Min
The most useful suggestion made by Nederburg Auction speaker David White on Saturday was for brands to hire social media managers to engage with the public. Some wineries were ahead of the curve and already employ tweeters – with mixed results. One Franschhoek producer engaged vicariously in a war of words on Twitter last week while another tweets so much, it’s hard to believe he gets any work done at all.
Yet on the South Africa Undiscovered homepage of The Telegraph, I could find evidence of only one wine social media manager who recommends “if you’re heading to Stellenbosch and want a fantastic wine tasting experience followed by the most ideallic [sic] setting for lunch try Vredenheim wine farm.. memorable! www.vredenheim.co.za”
Vredenheim surf the social media tsunami
Move over dueling banjos, SA has dueling wine auctions. And this year is shaping up into a mother of all struggles. Nederburg goes down in the middle of September (16-17th) while the CWG Auction takes place a fortnight later, on 1 October. So how do the Auctions stack up?
The Koue Bokkeveld is the new Ground Zero for quality Sauvignon Blanc as a tasting of Nederburg Sauvignons on offer at next month’s Nederburg Auction in Paarl confirms. Ceres is fast taking over from Durbanville as the primus inter pares appellation for the most popular single varietal white wine in SA as it introduces a broad spectrum minerality to the pineapple tropical fruit profile found in Durbanville.
The only cloud on the horizon is a lack of cloud. Recent unseasonally warm winter weather has Nederburg’s ad agency luvvies in a tizz as they wait, fur-lined anoraks at the ready, for a snow fall to snap black white winemaker Tariro Masayiti in a sub-arctic winter wonderland. Another problem is a name for the appellation as the wines are Western Cape at the minute, usually a synonym for the Paardeberg. The closest mountains are called the Witzenberg but alas, mother ship Distell already has a brand of that name.
The great and good of the SA spitterati and snifferati fraternity assembled at Nederburg in Paarl this morning to taste 51 of the 159 wines being offered at this year’s Nederburg Auction. Volumes on offer are down 15%, which one wag said was because Ray Edwards, Mr. Wine at Spar supermarkets, retires this month. Today being Madiba’s birthday, tasting leader Duimpie Bayly announced that our deliberations counted as 67 minutes of community service.
Nederburg Auction: hang out more flags
