Future Platter
Lunch today with the future of SA wine guides at Saigon Pho in Milpark and his name is Andy. Andy Hadfield. Thirty, prematurely grey in Diesel glasses and a disarming chuckle, Andy is the voice of a new generation of young consumers, sick and tired o...
IWSC = In Wellington, Stellenbosch and Cape Town
The news that the International Wine & Spirit Competition is to judge SA entries locally exploded like a bomb from a Libyan Air Force Mirage on the SA spittoon this morning. Come again? Surely the only reason SA producers pay the outrageous entr...
A new voice in the SA wine chorus
Somehow lost in the uproar and legal challenges swirling around the Top 100 SA Wine extravaganza came the arrival of a fruity new voice in the SA wine chorus last month. Robin von Holdt popped up faster than a Jonkershoek porchini as columnist for Fin...
Frightening February
The February numbers from SAWIS won’t make happy reading in the bucolic HQ of WOSA (Wines of SA, the exporters’ deep throat) in Oak City (Stellenbosch) as the collapse of SA wine exports gathers pace. The 12, 9, 3 and 1 month wine export decreases...
More than the whole world in SA
If SA felt crowded last year, that’s probably because over 8 billion people, or more than the entire population of the planet, came on holiday here. Yet as Business Day reports today, only 309 000 came for the FIFA soccer World Cup.
No wonder SA wi...
Oral Oscars: Pros and Cons
As with most things in SA wine, the decision whether to enter the latest wine competition, Top 100 SA Wines, the Oral Oscars, has become a political hot potato. Some thoughts on whether to enter or sit this one out:
Ten reasons to enter Top 100 SA Wi...
Top 100 SA Wines, the bloodsucking continues
The unveiling yesterday of bottle stickers for successful entries in the controversial Top 100 SA Wines competition/retail opportunity/wine guide/consumer show/Beano comic bonanza/what-have-you would seem to place the award on the same level as a Verit...
Kruid du Kap
Bumped into John Hooper at Constantia Fresh yesterday and he told me about a new range of “green by design” wines called Unbelievable he’s making on the family wine farm Mount Vernon on the Simonsberg. They’re green in that they have no label ...
Constantia Fresh Finishes
“It’s too hot to blog, I’m in pieces” said the blogger at the picnic component of Constantia Fresh this afternoon. “Thank heavens we’re not in Stellenbosch or Paarl” said Groot Constantia GM Jean Naudé “it’s even hotter there.” A...
Pendock called a Wijngoeroe in De Telegraaf
I’m in the market for a good PR after being called “one of South Africa’s most feared wine writers” in De Telegraaf yesterday.
Lifestyle columnist Stan Huygens then gets personal, calls me a giant and embarks on a riff about my...
