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The news that John and Dottie are to retire their “tastings” wine column in the Wall Street Journal (after 12 years in the cellar and 579 outings) ricocheted around the blogosphere at 300 000 Km/sec on Boxing Day. While it is not yet clear if the WSJ is saving space, cash or looking for some new blood, if the latter, I would submit Jay McInerney’s A Hedonist in the Cellar (Vintage, 2007) as an impressive CV for a candidate deserving of SA support. And this vintage, African cellar cred is surely fashionable inside the beltway.
Online lifestyle magazine Salon.com calls Jay “the best wine writer in America” and on the evidence supplied by this smorgasbord of fifty-odd wine columns for House & Garden magazine, I’m inclined to agree. The author of the novel that nailed the hedonistic excesses of eighties Manhattan, Bright Lights, Big City has turned wine columnist.
Mike Dobrovic, maestro of Mulderbosch now moved to the Karoo, would typically start conversations with the clanger “I’m no longer infectious” when asked “how are you?” Alas, I still seem to be transmitting the virus which causes Sighted Assessment Anxiety (SAA, our national airline, already in intensive care) and it now seems to have jumped species, like swine flu, and infected the perfume rating industry. US sensory psychologist Avery Gilbert has dubbed this mutation The Pendock Paradox. Meanwhile US wino Steve Heimoff opens up a new old front in the debate about how blind are Wine Spectator assessments with news of a disturbing correlation between ad size and wine score in that organ.
Small Change and Mike Dobrovic
Mia, Arnold, Jörg, Kent… where are the sommeliers of seasons recently past? Winos agree that the Cape’s sommelier crisis has reached Hurricane Katrina strength as sommeliers discard their tastevins in droves and set themselves up as importers (Jörg Pfützner), sales executives (Mia Martennson and Arnold Voster), hotel managers (Kent Scheermeyer and Miguel Chan) and commentators (various). The recent edition of the Platter sighted wine guide is bristling with former sommeliers. The reason is simple: pay, or lack of it. As sommelier-turned-retailer Roland Peens notes “when I worked in London, a head sommelier was paid as much as a head chef. In SA, this is simply not the case.”
Mia Martennson and Alex Dale
Corporate giant killer Sybrand van der Spuy has a new Sauvignon Blanc. Called Splattered Toad, it is a shameless attempt to delay the “sold out” signs going up at his new Cape Point tasting room plus the launch of a campaign to convert generations Y and Z, Macbeth mavens and cartoon connoisseurs to the charms of Sauvignon Blanc, laughingly poo-pooed as “lacking complexity” in some anorak enclaves.
While that famous circle of wine tasters, the witches of Macbeth (Platter pundits of their day) go on about “eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog, adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing” Sybrand has gone the whole hog and named his new stunning 2009 vintage Sauvvie after “the endangered Leopard Toad (of which we have zillions on our farm) which unfortunately get ‘splattered’ by cars at night.”
Google/analytics is a tremendous program for fine tuning a blog rather than blindly following the advice of my editor at Travel & Food, Paul Ash, who advises “just tag ‘sex’ in a posting and watch the hits pile up.” The Editorial Trinity (Andrew, Hilary and Paul) at Travel & Food were lunching at the Troyeville Hotel today (and probably still are) and I was pleased to see at least one of their reds was a biodynamic wine made by Johan Reyneke.
Angela's box of tricks
Diners Club scandals continue to arrive thick and fast. It’s starting to sound like that old “knock, knock” joke: “knock, knock. Who’s there? Amos. Amos who? A mosquito. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Anne. Anne who? Another mosquito!”
This week’s scandal revolves around the super efficient Wade Bales, judge at the Diners Club Winemaker of the Year Competition and manager of the Diners Club Wine Society (which conveniently offers stock of Diners Club Winemaker of the Year winning wines). Wade was in town last week presenting an eponymous wine show at the Melrose Arch Piazza and thought he’d stay the weekend to handle the retail aspects of the inaugural Cap Classique festival which took place last night and is repeated tonight at The Venue in Melrose Arch. This was one Cape incursion too many for the King of Jozi liquor retail, Solly Kramer, who lent on MCC producers and secured the shop @ show activity for his Norman Goodfellows operation. Solly owns Jozi bubbles, being the purveyor of the cheapest Champagne in town, specially imported for Norman Goodfellows by JP Colmant of Tribaut fame.
The star of last week’s scandal, Clayton Reabow, was in sparkling form at the MCC show and is quite clearly not letting the scandal get under his skin.
Clayton and the sacred thread
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
After being blamed for the bad weather at last week’s launch of the Platter sighted wine guide that had anoraks huddled in Black Hole of Calcutta Conditions to pay homage to oxidative Shiraz, I made sure the weather at the Splash Café at the Vineyard Hotel was tip-top this afternoon for the launch of The People’s Guide. As Bob Dylan sang it “you don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows” (especially in Cape Town) but an honest blind assessment for under R100 of some of the most widely available SA cuvees might come in useful to consumers, a market TPG is unashamedly aimed at. It seems that consumers agree as WINE magazine has come back to us twice to ask for more copies of TPG for the subscription special they are running (subscribe to WINE and receive a free copy of TPG).
The People's Guide was launched this afternoon
“Ah! Platter” said Enrico, diminutive table twirling owner of Ristorante Posticino in Sea Point, spying my review copy of The Food & Wine Pairing Guide by Katinka van Niekerk and Brian Burke (Struik Lifestyle, 2009) yesterday. “No something much more useful” I replied. For how else would you know what to drink with pofadders (“braaied stuffed sheep’s intestines”) if you were a winemaker considering a shot at stardom in WOSA’s upcoming Braai Book? The answer: “Pinotage… [a cultivar] constantly sunbathing in the nude.” As opposed to Shiraz, “a slutty wine or ‘the best stripper in town.’” Descriptions you’d never find in po-faced Platter that once rejected my tasting note for a banana flavoured Pinotage as “suitable for KwaZulu-Natalians” with contempt.
Katinka with food
WOSA’s much anticipated braai book is slowly taking shape. I spent yesterday morning with biodynamic farmer Angus Macintosh and Spier cellar master Frans Smit checking out Angus’ Nguni cattle from a culinary point of view. The duo are unbeatable braai brothers: Angus hails from the Natal midlands and brought his own Zulu herders to look after the Bonsmaras and Ngunis.
Frans comes from Kakamas on the Groot Gariep and is a braaimeister second to none as he demonstrated with some nifty moves on a herd of lamb chops and biodynamic wors last night. While the selection process for inclusion in WOSA’s book are still duister, wannabe contributors should consider Spier’s stance on sustainability that sees Merino sheep corralled in Angus’ Stellenbosch vineyards and Boschveld chickens used for pest control.
Angus, Samson and Frans
