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On Wednesday, WOSA communications director and braaimeister (or braii as Canadians GoodFoodRevolution call it) André Morgenthal presented a tasting of “South Africa’s Exceptional Red Blends” to the 34th annual conference of the American Association of Wine Educators. André is better at this than Jancis Robinson, based on audience feedback after they both presented to the educators last year. The tasting was held in the Sphinx Room of the conference venue, the Hamilton Crowne Plaza Hotel in Washington DC.
Dave Hughes is South Africa’s most experienced wine tasters and one of the many points he made at the pre-action tasting of Nederburg Auction wines earlier this month was how badly served the UK wine drinking public are by the cosy cabal of supermarket wine buyers currently in situ. “Wine educators are a much better bet,” commented Dave, than a mob of MWs, one of whom was recently dropped from Interpol’s wanted list, according to Decanter.
After the amazingly smooth running of the FIFA soccer World Cup, perhaps more UK buyers will make the trip south. The Nederburg Auction would be a good place to start. My thoughts on the pre-auction tasting in yesterday’s Sunday Times.
Dave Hughes leads the Nederburg Auction tasting
The South African highlight of the World Cup final on Sunday night came during the interval when the dulcet tones of Nederburg Cellar Master, emanating from the barrel chest of Romanian Razvan Macici, permeated the airwaves like a glass of his incomparable Nederburg Edelkeur 2005.
This was indeed a quintessential SA moment as the star of the ad, Razvan’s dog Vladimir, was missing, having been stolen from the Paarl estate last year. In a tournament filled with Coke, Sepp Blatter and Budweiser, Razvan kept it real for SA even if the Mail & Guardian reported that the only reason Nederburg became Fifa Wine of the Tournament was because someone at parent Distell misread the number of zeros on the contract.
An actionable accusation as the deal was a royalty one I’m reliably told, but making the point that Sepp and friends were the main beneficiaries of the extravaganza. A point reinforced quite forcefully as Sepp towed a bewildered Jacob Zuma around behind the hideous golden dildo he presented to the Spanish goalkeeper. President reduced to local colour and theatre prop.
The theme of this year’s auction, 36th in a glittering series, is “a celebration of then and now.” A theme neatly reflected in the choice of 48 wines showcased for the various branches of the SA dead-tree wine media yesterday.
Dave Hughes leads the Nederburg Auction media tasting
“That Jane MacQuitty and me are like this,” I said to my crossed fingers after reading her column in The Times on Saturday, we’re on the same wavelength. “Most medal-winning wines are not worth the accolade,” said Jane. A point I made in the Sunday Times yesterday in my story Seven Memories.
Nederburg may be SA’s largest premium lifestyle brand, but it’s also the most nimble. Nimble Nederburg. Cellarmaster Razvan Macici presented a clutch of new releases last night to a blather of bloggers at Sidedish in Rose Street in the heart of the Bo Kaap.
Dinner was curated by Andrea Foulkes and kicked off with a zingy and zaftig 2010 Sauvignon Blanc – the official white of the World Cup and the first Nederburg to be closed with a screw cap. But unlikely to be the last after one of the bottles of Ingenuity White 2008 matched with a smoked snoek and bacalhau fishcake turned up corked. “We only made 4000, so losing one is serious. If anyone returns a corked Ingenuity, I’ll replace it with two bottles. The 2009 blend has been made up and I wanted to go screw cap but couldn’t find the right bottle.”
Razvan at Sidedish last night
It seems I’m destined never to finish Eric Newby’s comedic masterpiece masquerading as a travelogue, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, published over 50 years ago. Copy #1, ordered from Abebooks, was left in the economy class seat pocket of an Emirates flight to Singapore while its replacement from Kalahari.net was left in Phil’s taxi this morning to Jo’burg airport. Which is a pity, as I’d wanted to quote the section on the vineyards of Kafiristan which backs up Saxenburg winemaker Nico van der Merwe and his anecdote about Wellington viticulturalist Christo Wiese (as opposed to Clifton retail mogul Christo Wiese) selling grape vines to Afghanistan.
I was flying Capeside for a vertical tasting of Fleur du Cap Noble Late Harvest wines at Coopmanhuijs Boutique Hotel in the middle of Stellenbosch, presented by FDC white winemaker Pieter Badenhorst. Pieter believes in the ageability of his product to such an extent, he collects the stuff as a 21st birthday present for his son, who was born in 2007. Good luck Pieter Jnr. as the way social control of behavior goes, NLH will likely be illegal by the time you get the key to the door. Not because alcohol consumption will have gone the way of social smoking (although there is an outside chance of that), but because it will probably be illegal to make wine with a residual sugar level of 250 g/l, which is the case with your pa’s 2008 vintage.
Vertical FDC NLH
“How’s your brother?” enquired Phinias Simango, waiter at Bombay Brasserie in the new (opened this month) Taj Hotel in Wale Street, Cape Town of Tariro Masayiti, white winemaker at Nederburg. The occasion was a wine and Indian Cuisine lunchtime pairing. Executive chef Shyam Sunder Longani and wife Harpreet Kaur (BB chef) had put together a contemporary (as opposed to fusion) tour-de-force of dishes to match Nederburg cellar master Razvan Macici’s range of award winning wines.
Phineas and Tariro
Now that the worst kept secret in the Winelands – the identity of new winemakers elected to the CWG – is out, Uncorked is unfettered to make some (mostly positive) observations. If only to refute claims that wine hacks are constipated with the annual Auction, an event shaping up into the highest profile retail jamboree of the calendar.
CWG Auction
Uncorked came in for a bit of stick after our coverage of the Cape Winemakers Guild Auction in October. One of the senior members e-mailed “I am sure you are completely lost because you are focusing on only one event regarding the CWG” namely the Auction. Well seeing as though hacks don’t get invited to Guild tastings – a pity as the recent varietal tasting of Malbec would have made a good story for consumers – and they mostly get CWG press releases on Auction matters, it’s really no surprise that the Auction dominates media coverage. The recent election of new members to the Guild is a case in point.
Gottfried Mocke
SA Art luvvies have already booked their tickets to the Big Apple for the March premier of William Kentridge’s staging of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1930 opera The Nose, based on the short story of the same name by Gogol. William explains “The Nose is also about the terrors of hierarchy” which was certainly the case in the infamous Nose Tasting of 2007.
