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The press release yesterday from RamsayMedia announcing the cessation of printing of that “venerable publication” WINE magazine was a masterpiece of ambiguity – headed “wine closure” I thought it was another cork story. As a venerable columnist on that organ, it behooves me to list my top ten reasons for the bombshell. That I’m blogging them is suitably ironic.
As any boerekos boffin knows, a boerejongen is a raisin marinated in brandy. The Joseph Barry Cape Pot Still Ten Y.O. crowned Best Brandy in the World at London’s International Wine & Spirit Competition recently will do (as will any of the other eight SA brandewijns that have won the trophy since 1999) but Joseph Barry is most a propos, hailing from Barrydale in the Klein Karoo where the place to stay is the Lentelus B&B (motto: “if Florence is too far, Provence too French, visit real SA countryside, visit Lenetlus near Barrydale”). Mein hostess is Joubert matriarch Helena who has four boerejongens of her own.
Four Joubert jongens Schalk-Willem, Meyer, Cobus and Andries cover all the bases in the wine industry. Helena’s eldest two are winemakers: Schalk-Willem at Rupert & Rothschild in Franschhoek and Meyer on the family farm Joubert-Tradauw down the road where he makes 4000 cases of wine from 40ha of vineyards with the majority of fruit sold off to people like Riaan Marais at Southern Cape Vineyards for Joseph Barry brandy. Laat lammetjie (late lamb) Dries is a professional photographer with a portfolio of functions and bottles while Cobus markets the stuff for Morgenster in Somerset West and exciting new organic Stellenbosch producer Wedderwill whose offering of multiple vintages of Sauvignon Blanc answers the age old question “does SA Sauvignons age?” in the affirmative.
Dries
We’re labeling our Lemoenfontein white this week, so for our single marketing activity we thought we’d lunch at Bar Bar Black Sheep in Riebeek Kasteel and hope to bump into someone from “The Gouda Book Club, recognized by Moscow as the foremost credible body concerning the evaluation and assessment of fine wines between Porterville and Hermon” according to comrade Anton Espost (slogan in the ’97 elections “stem Espost en almal wen” (vote for Espost and put him on the gravy train).
Komrade Anton of the Gouda Book Klub
R&R translates to Rupert & Rothschild on the SA wine scene and while there may be some debate as to whether the farm is located in Franschhoek or Paarl, the quality of the flagship red, Baron Edmond, is not disputed.
In any case, the location of the farm is largely irrelevant as the overwhelming majority of the Baron’s grapes are bought-in: 40% from the Swartland, 40% from Stellenbosch (Helderberg and Simonsberg) and increasingly more from cool climate appellations Bo Langkloof, Tradauw and Elgin as cellar master Schalk-Willem Joubert struggles to bring down alcohols to a 13.5-14% sweet spot.
Schalk-Willem Joubert
A wine marketer from Paarl e-mailed his concerns that Toxic Tim was having an ethical go at my public persona this morning over on the Screaming Bento Box as I must surely be the prolific winewriter alluded to in the Shock! Horror! disclosure “we now, interestingly, also have a prolific winewriter who’s also a minor producer of wine and of grapes which are sold to other wineries, which seems to me a potential problem of ethics.” As Nick Cave said “Prolix! There’s nothing a pair of scissors can’t fix!”
The gods of synchronicity seem to have it in for Platter. The morning that Platter Associate Editor Tim James puts the boot into WINE magazine (or WNE as he economically prefers to call it) on his Plattering Blog, suggesting that “Distell-related wines, with their somewhat unsexy image, get a better chance in Platter!”), was the same morning the results for WINE’s Shiraz Challenge clatter into my inbox. Read More…
