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Casanova was not wrong. Recent research presented to the American Chemical Society confirms that oysters are rich in two rare amino acids that trigger a rise in human sex hormones in those who indulge, with spring being the season for maximum effect. So the 18th century Latin Lothario, whose breakfast consisted of four dozen oysters washed down with champagne, was on the right track.
It’s the stories behind the glass of wine that make it so interesting: cultural reliquary, style thermometer, whatever… Of course wine is not unqiue in having a past and a story to tell. Cigars are in the same story-telling league as first growth claret as Stephen McGinty’s Churchill’s Cigar (Pan Books, 2008) confirms.
Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky put the final nail in the coffin of the cigar as the ne plus ultra of smoking style. No wonder Mark Birley, founder of Annabel’s, London’s most fashionable nightclub, was told by the first class trolly dolly to extinguish his Cohiba as passengers in economy class were complaining. His reply was a first class classic: “I have not complained about the smell down there. Why should they complain about that up here?”
What better way to celebrate the end of the recession than with oysters and bubbly (both French and Méthode Cap Classique) at Belthazar at the Cape Town Waterfront yesterday. As mine host Jonathan Steyn insisted in his yoga gear “Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends” quoting the late British artist Francis Bacon, famous for paintings humans as slabs of meat, so a most appropriate quote for the Cape’s best steakhouse. And the recession really does seem to be lifting “September was our worst month in the past 18 and then someone switched on the tourists in October.”
Jono in Yoga togs
Pondering what a sale of Vergelegen by Anglo American would mean to SA wine, I came across a story I wrote on the disposal of Boschendal back in 2004, which for reasons long forgotten, never saw the light of day.
A lot of H2O has flown into the Skuifraamdam since then: Julius Malema has replaced Lungu Ncwana as the head of the ANC Youth League, Mike Spicer (who co-ordinated the sale) has departed 44 Main Street, as has his boss Tony Traher and of course Brett Kebble is no longer around.
Reading about some of the bizarre sharks this feeding frenzy attracted to the quiet Franschhoek Valley, I realized the Boschendal disposal encapsulates many features of the BEE/transformation processes in SA wine being played out in the boardroom of KWV and elsewhere.
First Prize
An e-mail interlocutor reports that someone called Peter alleges on the Grape vanity blog that the only people who read the blogs of wine writers are other wine writers, which judging by the multiple hits that Uncorked experiences on a daily basis, implies that wine writing is alive and well in SA. A related point is made by Ken Forrester who e-mails that SA is the only country in the world where winewriters write about each other, rather than wine. Which says something about SA wine and SA wine writers, but I’m not sure what!
To continue this proud tradition and for my many frenemies over at Grape, a scurrilous appendix to my open letter to Angela Lloyd which has assumed cult status among the many PR agencies that have experienced the rough side of Angela’s tongue.
The Grape communal blog is divided into eight panels like a Japanese Bento Box full of goodies. Panel #2 contains Haikus penned against the recent Helderberg fires (conventional photos being unavailable as someone nicked the panelist’s “fancy” cell-phone and camera) while Panel #4 reproduces Michael Fridjhon’s informative Business Day and Weekender columns cut and pasted from the Business Day website. A bit of an overkill as a simple link to the mother ship would suffice, like Kevin does over on www.winenews.co.za.
Vaughan Johnson of the eponymous wine shop on the Cape Town Waterfront is a true renaissance man. Not only does he sell wine and swap Champagne muselets (those gaily painted metal disks which fit between cork and wire cage of which he has over 700); he also is a great pamphleteer like his namesake Samuel Johnson. A History of the World has recently been joined by another slim volume: World’s Greatest.
