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The situational variables at Vaughan Johnson’s Waterfront wine emporium have improved immeasurably since Millpark baker Vovo Telo opened their shop next door. Now wafts of freshly baked brioche float through the cellar to such an extent that it smells like a Champagne bar. VJ (below) is off to Burgundy tomorrow but before he left he was singing the praises of Lormarins Optima 2008, a Cabernet/Merlot blend he sells for R132 a bottle.
Friday started off with a breakfast at Webersburg straight out of a Vermeer painting. Mid-winter farmhouse kitchen with burnished copper, terracotta tiles and yellowwood. There were even maids, although they weren’t wearing bonnets or pearl earrings. The invitation to the 2010 La Motte Shiraz Experience put kick-off down for 8h30, but birthday boy Emile Joubert and I were a fashionably 40 minutes late, and we were among the earliest arrivals.
Breakfast with Vermeer
Winemaking consultant Giorgio Dalla Cia calls his technique at Webersburg “the Slowfood approach to making wine.” Which I would translate as a respect for tradition and a refusal to genuflect before the stylish gods fashion which has seen the wines of Webersburg’s Helderberg neighbours increase in price, alcohol, extract and amount of new wood with a concomitant reduction in time spent in bottle before release. Standing up against the hysterical harpies of hedonism takes a fair amount of courage. Something owner Fred Weber clearly has in abundance, even if he does wistfully note “we never win awards in competitions.”
Giorgio and Fred
“The future of SA wine is more Mediterranean than Bordeaux” announced Neil Ellis over slow cooked lamb with lemon, tomato and thyme. Today’s paschal lunch was cooked by Jef Schuur who knows a thing or three about Little Bo-Peep’s friends. In fact the salt marsh Texel lamb of his native Dutch Frisian islands is the kind of terroir-driven delicacy for which the French would declare a special appellation. Neil made his point by matching Jef’s lamb with his own 2007 Rodanos blend of Shiraz and Grenache. As delegates make their way back from the Grenache Workshop in France earlier this month, how delicious to drink the best SA Grenache blend with stellar food at Neil’s new winery at the foot of Hell’s Hoogte in Stellenbosch. “They invited me to the Workshop, but I sent them some wine and had a knee replacement operation.”
Neil Ellis in Messiah-mode
On the Fifth day of Christmas Postman Pat gave to me issue 26 of The World of Fine Wine magazine instead of the traditional five gold rings. An outfit called the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards has plopped its sticker “Best in the World” on the cover and as Emile asked “who are these people, Veritas of the publishing world?” referring to the SA National Wine Show that awards more medals than entries. But what a brilliant ruse of self-promotion, to give an award to a magazine that includes the by-lines of all the big berries in oenography. The one highest up the flagpole is Hugh Johnson, listed as “editorial advisor” with a photo by-line the spitting image of Michael Palin of Monty Python fame.
The last PR release before Christmas was a “newsflash” from Paul Cluver. “Jonathan Ray of Telegraph.co.uk reflects on innovations in the wine industry in the past 10 years in his column dated 9 December 2009. Commenting on the improvement of new world countries Argentina, Chile and South Africa, he describes Paul Cluver Wines amongst others as ‘toothsome’ in contrast to the ‘ubiquitous’ Arniston Bay and Kumala.
Responding from Europe, Paul Cluver says ‘We are proud to be among the list of wineries mentioned. It is a clear indication that in England Paul Cluver Wines is regarded as one of the leading growers from South Africa.’” The weather in Europe is so bad, I almost didn’t recognize Paul in the photo below.
Paul Cluver in Europe
