Hi 23C° Low 5C° | 
Pendock Uncorked
17 hours, 21 minutes ago
The Social
1 day, 15 hours ago
Minor Matters
2 days, 2 hours ago
The Frock Report
2 days, 13 hours agoView all Times LIVE Blogs
Pressing questions (press shown below) are being raised as to how the Swartland came to dominate yesterday’s UCT Top 20 SA wineries poll. First placed Boekenhoutskloof mackintosh-hillhouse-chair Marc Kent, second placed baby Jesus of SA wine Eben Sadie and charming Chris and beautiful Andrea Mullineux in tenth position are all leading lights in the annual Swartland Revolution. An event that poll organizer Tim James is involved with.
Not that any impropriety is implied. After all, that Marc was first past the post is to be expected, as Boekenhoutskloof is Winery of the Year in the 2012 Platter sighted wine guide. But even with ten 2011 Platter pundits voting plus editor Phil, the 2011 Platter Winery of the Year, Nederburg, could not make the Top 20. A fantastic result and quite frankly, unbelievable as Nederburg had three five star stunners in 2012 and a record breaking five in 2011. Nederburg cellarmaster and TV star Razvan Macici must be wondering what you have to do to get into the Top 20! Surely the last shred of credibility at Platter has been lost by this result. Or is the poll perhaps a fix?
The Vaslin Burcher (sic) press at Boekenhoutskloof
Nederburg, headline sponsor of the MasterChefSA circus, must be pretty disappointed with last night’s program, which was pretty much a drinks-free zone. But even worse than that, relentlessly middle class; not restaurant fodder at all.
A stroke of luck to have your braai episode air the same week the Wonderwerkgat in the Northern Cape was revealed as the world’s first restaurant; full marks for locating it at Forum Homini. But from the curiously cringeworthy and stilted delivery of the judges, one dressed in an absurdly large David Byrne Stop Making Sense Woolies Big Suit (great for pop stars, less so for chefs with cuffs trailing in the sauce) to hardman Pete Goffe-Wood’s best dish (“magnificent”) which looked like a braai-free dessert compote, this was silly soccer mom stuff.
Was it me or were those first ads for Robertson Spices and Hyundai longer than the food? But overall, the ads were great and the beautifully styled camera work on the Woolworths 34-day aged steaks (available only to Woolies card holders in seems?) did confirm that Blair Witch Project production techniques employed at the braai, have had their day.
The best acting in MasterChefSA is in the ads - Razvan Macici is the star
It was Anton Rupert who saved Tulbagh in 1969 after an earthquake destroyed the historic town in Het Land van Waveren, 90 minutes from Cape Town, when he paid for the reconstruction of historic Church Street. Now it looks like another history buff from Georgia called Charles Banks, will be an unlikely successor to Anton and place the town firmly on the international map.
Mulderbosch winemaker Adam Mason and Charles Banks
The news that Nederburg has made two special Masterchef wines for Woolies: an 90:10 red blend of Grenache and Carignan and a 60:40 blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay from the 2010 and 2011 vintages respectively, brings together two of the nicest guys in SA wine: Nederburg cellarmaster Razvan Macici and Woolies wine consultant Allan Mullins. Why did Nederburg do it? Getting four listings on Woolies facings for their Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot might have had something to do with it.
Today’s Cape Times offers Nederburg Baronne for R35 a bottle at branches of Picardi-Rebel. Yet in the Presidential Suite on the 16th floor of the Taj Hotel in Wale Street (Angela Merkel’s overnight bag still in the 270° glass bathroom) this evening two of the finest wines in SA were poured for a Cape Town media crew that included the new wine scribe for GQ magazine, Pieter Smedy and Thuli Gogela, the hot new indigenous food blogger.
Pieter Smedy and Razvan Macici
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
It was a dream dénouement for the Nederburg Auction yesterday when the Golden Boy of SA wine, Eben Sadie, toasted Nederburg and its winemaker Razvan Macici with Van Ryn 12 year old brandy. “Behind those white walls” opined the sage of the Swartland indicating Razvan’s historic cellar “are some of the most exciting wines in SA and this brandy is world class. South Africa makes some of the best brandies, Ports and Muscadels in the world. It’s the wines that need a little work.”
Juliet Cullinan and Eben Sadie
When did Christian Eedes cease being an enfant terrible of SA wine writing and join the establishment? Perhaps when Harry Haddon and his car were evicted at dawn from Kloovenburg for squatting during the Swartland Revolution. Or when David Cope released the Klein Constantia Sumo wrestler video that resulted in the farm being sold to a bouncing Czech cyclist. An industry like SA wine can support only so many enfants terrible at one time.
The final September edition of WINE magazine presents six future legends: august Adi Badenhorst, handsome Howard Booysen, ravishing Rosa Kruger, magnificent Miles Mossop, elegant Eben Sadie and dashing Duncan Savage except only Howie is a true future legend. The others arrived ages ago, as is clear from the stellar prices they demand for their drops and glamorous “farmer” Rosa supplies the viticultrual prowess that polishes the pinnacle of SA pricey wine.
David Sadie and Donovan Rall
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 celebrity perp walk at next month’s Nederburg Auction could be taken to the next level if Mothers2Mothers co-founder, gynecologist with salt and pepper hair Mitch Besser, brings his lady friend Scottish songstress Annie Lennox along to Paarl. The Aids NGO M2M was a beneficiary of the Nederburg Charity Auction in 2008 and 2009 and this year a 10 year vertical of Eben Sadie’s iconic Columella red blend will feature in the annual charity auction.
Annie for Nederburg?
