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How cool it was to eat rare pan-fried hake, basil and tomato crushed potatoes, Parmesan velouté, mussel and saffron vinaigrette in the Pierneef à la Motte restaurant last night while listening to the secrets of Spain played on guitar by that George Clooney lookalike, James Grace. For this was no WINE magazine money-making opportunity with bizarre sponsor that pretty much defined the SA tasting scene for the last decade. No siree! This was the first event for Classic Wine magazine and publisher, Dominic Ntsele dropped more bombshells in his witty address than an Apache helicopter piloted by Prince Harry. Here he is being painted by Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef.
Debra Meiburg is no stranger to SA wine. For starters, she’s distant family of Hannes Myburgh of Meerlust fame, even if her Californian branch of the family obviously came second in the spelling bee. She’s been to SA seven times and even competes in the Cape Argus, although with a dodgy ankle and Klein Constantia now snapped up by two other Argus cyclists, let’s hope she’ll be a competitor for many future vintages as she’s a big fan of SA wine.
Debra and Neil do lunch
Off to a Port tasting at Graham’s in Vila Nova de Gaia this morning. “Just climb into a taxi and say ‘take me to Graham’s Port Lodge in Gaia’” said Raul. So of course we chose the only taxi driver in Porto who didn’t know where Graham’s was. The wines were super, with my rating of the Tawnies the 20 year old, followed by the 40 and then the 30yo. “Do you have an agent in South Africa?” Our tastemaster disappeared and reappeared with a file listing NMK Schulz, who went bang a couple of years ago. No wonder the SA selection of Graham’s products is less than optimal.
An incredible admission from Michael Fridjhon, owner of the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show in Business Day yesterday, that Spier, top performing winery at his show, would not make it to the Olympics. Just like the two top performers at competing tourney The St. James Top 100: Saronsberg and Cederberg. Incredible, as it undermines the whole raison d’être of wine shows. It’s like Sepp Blatter admitting the best team doesn’t win the World Cup.
Malcolm Gladwell’s tipping point has arrived between local and international wine competitions with the news that the Decanter World Wine Awards awarded 31 gold medals to SA wines this week while the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show could do no better than 25, on presumably more entries. Since the Decanter judges included more than one fifth of the world crop of Masters of Wine, the most reasonable conclusion would be that the “best” SA wines no longer enter Old Mutual.
OM judge Neal Martin in action
Happy 40th birthday for yesterday, Christian Eedes, former enfant terrible of SA wine writing, now graduated to adulte terrible. As a present, the debate you predicted on the lack of a gold medal for Chenin Blanc at the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show last week. Sorry it’s not wrapped!
That there was no Old Mutual golden Chenin is simple: only 48 wines were submitted – probably on account of the embarrassing negative correlation between the show owner and a high profile OM taster at the Chenin Challenge earlier this year, highlighted in postings passim. But if you’re looking for a gold medal Chenin, try the Oldenburg 2010 which won gold at the International Wine Challenge in London today – I know I did.
Oldenburg winemaker Simon Thompson, reprising the role of Eddie Murphy in The Golden Child
The whole tottering edifice of wine “qualifications” was challenged last month in the Amarula Affair when Distell’s legal team questioned the qualifications of SARS’s “expert witness” impresario Michael Fridjhon.
The Amarula Affair
The news that the country’s oldest wine estate Groot Constantia won the laurels at the Classic Wine Trophy Show comes as a bonus to CEO Jean Naudé who is increasingly turning his thoughts eastwards. As the March newsletter vouchsafes “Jean invited Chinese Consul General Hao Guanfeng and Mrs Kong Wei, Vice Consul General Song Lianjie, as well as Consul Mr Defu Xu to a traditional South African Braai at his home on the Estate. A wonderful evening was enjoyed by all. Groot Constantia has forged a strong business relationship with China; thousands of Chinese tourists visit the Estate every year.”
Jean in a striped shirt braais for assorted Chinese nobs
The news that the International Wine & Spirit Competition is to judge SA entries locally exploded like a bomb from a Libyan Air Force Mirage on the SA spittoon this morning. Come again? Surely the only reason SA producers pay the outrageous entrance fees and shipping costs for foreign competitions is to have their wines assessed by international palates and then hopefully bought by Tesco and Waitrose? Will the mythical international palates be flown to SA or will we have to suffer yet another local panel, already damned late last year by British Master of Wine Remington Norman who called SA tasting panels “one of the biggest challenges facing SA wine.”
As with most things in SA wine, the decision whether to enter the latest wine competition, Top 100 SA Wines, the Oral Oscars, has become a political hot potato. Some thoughts on whether to enter or sit this one out:
