Monthly Archives: April 2011

I’m a wee bit late in posting this, but hey – better late than never, right?

About a month ago I co-hosted deVine‘s South African tasting. I fully admit a partiality to this country’s wines, and here’s why:

1. They taste good.
2. They are cheap (or if you prefer, they are great QPRs)
3. See above.
4. Their names are really fun to pronounce.

And that’s about it, really. It’s not hard to like something with a fun name that’s cheap and tasty (insert sophomoric double entendre joke here).

if you've ever wondered what a deVine tasting looks like, voila - though it looks even better when there's wine in those glasses (and even more still when that wine is in your belly)

The first wine of the night was the 2010 Durbanville Hills Sauvignon Blanc. It had a distinctly lime-y quality on the nose, reminiscent of Aussie Sauvignon, along with some grapefruit and melon. It also had great acidity, thanks to the cool temperatures in the Durbanville region – it’s one of the chilliest places in South Africa’s wine growing areas.

It was a good reception wine, though as is the fate of so many unwitting reception tipples, it was rather easily forgotten. Happily, I was provided with a sample bottle of this same wine just a few days ago, and I noticed a serious streak of green pepper on the palate that I swear wasn’t there at the deVine tasting. (Though I also could have just missed it completely. It happens.) The pepper made it much more memorable, albeit potentially off-putting for those who prefer their wines not to be “stemmy” (the condemnation of a previous coworker). My verdict: salad wine.

This winery bears the name of its eponymous region, a small but rapidly developing area perched in the hillsides just outside Cape Town.

If you haven’t tried any South African Chenin Blanc, go buy a bottle now. Right now. This is the country’s flagship white, and while it may have become outpaced by Chardonnay (which isn’t always a bad thing – see below), it is a unique and extremely delicious wine. This grape probably ranks among my favourite white varieties, namely for the lovely aroma and mouthfeel of beeswax that it often bears. (Am I the only one who unashamedly enjoys sniffing beeswax candles?)

The 2010 Spier Chenin Blanc was a solid example of this grape. And for the eco-minded, you’ll be happy to note that Spier farms all their grapes biodynamically, in addition to implementing a host of other recycling and eco-conscious programs. They also buy most of their goods and services from local, black-owned companies – so this is a wine that’ll give you that do-good feeling while you drink it.

mmm beeswax

It is a seriously risky venture to try fermenting a wine naturally, using only the wild yeasts that happen to be chilling out on the grape skins and floating by the fermenting tank. Why, you ask? Well, let me first go on an historical aside: this happens to be the method by which wine was originally made. Actually, this is how wine was discovered: some 7000-ish years ago, Neolithic man – or woman, rather, since it’s highly likely the chicks figured it out first – picked wild grapes and stored them in pottery vessels, and after a few days the juice from the squashed berries started fermenting. As a perennially foolhardy curious species, the women drank it – and thus was born the first ever ladies’ night.

The problem with making wine this way is that you are at the mercy of nature. Sometimes the fermentation will stop and start randomly, and sometimes it will literally get “stuck” – which creates all sorts of weird aromas and flavours. Put simply, the more you leave to chance, the more of a gamble the finished product is, so the vast majority of modern winemakers inoculate their crushed juice with specific strains of yeast intended to bring out certain qualities in the final wine.

In light of this, Abrie Bruwer, winemaker at Springfield and mad genius behind the 2004 Springfield Wild Yeast Chardonnay, is clearly a gambling man. Now, I had this wine a year ago and it was all kinds of wonderful, but tragically it seems to have jumped off a cliff at some point in the last few months. It tasted, well, dead: limp and lifeless, with slightly oxidized fruit aromas and no spark or vivacity on the palate. It was still drinkable, but it was such a pale shadow of its former glorious self that I could only shed a tear and move on. I have no idea if the use of wild yeast had any impact on its sudden demise; this wine is seven years old, which is pretty geriatric for most New World whites. Nonetheless, I can recommend buying newer vintages in full confidence.

dead, but not forgotton

This is also known as the Nelson Mandela wine, because in 1993 Mandela chose Rust en Vrede‘s wines to be served at his Olso dinner where he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

This is a high honour, and indeed the 2008 Rust en Vrede Merlot is a pretty great wine: lots of warm plummy red fruits and a creamy mouthfeel, with some nice toasty French oak influence. I don’t know that it would be my first choice should I ever be awarded the Peace Prize, but I certainly wouldn’t turn down a glass.

That's "Rust-en-Vrede" - not "Rusty Red." C'mon people, put some effort into it.

Beware, little lambs: that bird adorning the label of the 2007 Lammershoek Pinotage is not a friendly little songbird. In Afrikaans, “lammer” means “lamb” and “shoek” means “corner” – this “lamb’s corner” wine is so named for the forests surrounding the winery and vineyards, in which lambs would hide from the black eagles (“lammgervangers”) that would nab them if they strayed into the open.

This is a pretty classic South African Pinotage, with that characteristic metallic twang underpinning a lot of wild black and red fruit and smoked sausage flavours. Incidentally, lamb chops would probably make a killer (nyuk nyuk) pairing with this wine.

Just how big would those bloody eagles have to be in order to effortlessly carry away a whole lamb? Geez, watch out for your youngest when you visit.

This next wine holds a dear place in my heart, not because it is delicious (though it is), but also because it has the best name ever. The 2007 Allesverloren Cabernet Sauvignon is just my style of Cab – bold and tannic, yet still elegant and toasty. (It also reinforces my belief that American oak mostly sucks. Bring on the French, please.)

In Afrikaans, “allesverloren” means “all is lost.” Seriously, how epic is that? Pretty epic, let me tell you. As you may have guessed, the wine estate has a pretty tragic backstory, which you can read about on their website here.

and the award for Most Epic Wine Name goes to...

Last, but certainly not least, was a hefty Syrah from Boekenhoutskloof. (And since I’m doling out spontaneous and random wine awards, this wins the award for Most Fun to Pronounce wine name. Gotta love those elongated vowels.) A boekenhout is a type of tree (beech, to be precise) that has been used to make furniture for centuries – hence the chairs on the label.

The 2007 Boekenhoutskloof Syrah is an inky, well-structured wine with lots of oak influence and dark fruits. It could age another few years for sure; if you’re impatient then decant it for a couple hours before serving. The winery also gets props from me because they posted one of my tasting notes on their website – and it’s one of my flash fiction notes, to boot! (Or should I say, to boek!) They also have a comic book on their website. Awesome.

long name, longer finish

And that, my friends, is South Africa in a nutshell.

Very light in body, great acidity, only a suggestion of tannin, and dancing fresh strawberry, wet slate, forest floor and damp green growing things.

The rake traces inverted passwords in the dirt

Like the texture of a leaf in the sun, underlit:

Membranous.

In the shatters that bar its surface;

the weight of slumped deadfall;

in the outside, ephemeral:

Cumulus.

When it comes to cocktails, my favourite drinks fall along the sour axis, though I also enjoy a good dose of bitter as well. (And you can decide for yourself what it means that I prefer sour and bitter over, say, sweet and savoury.)

Recently a good friend tipped me off about Fentimans Ginger Beer. I can see why: this is good stuff.

Fentimans good, Canada Dry bad

One sip sent spicy ginger tickling up my nose while a lovely heat rose across the back of my palate. There’s just enough sweetness to balance the spice. I’m definitely picking up some of this for the summer.

I keep Campari around for making my beloved Jasmine cocktails, but today I was struck with an idea: what if I mixed Campari with ginger beer? So I poured about an ounce and a half of Campari over ice and topped the rest up with the Fentimans, and this was the result:

Yes, that's snow in the background. Yes, it snowed almost a foot today. Yes, it is the middle of April. Yes, I'm bitter about it. Yes, I'm going to lock myself indoors and drink Ginparis until mid-May. No, you can't stop me.

It’s a rather pretty pink beverage (I fancy it’s the colour of spring blossoms, though I’ve become deeply suspicious over the existence of such seemingly mythical things), and one that perfectly marries Campari’s stout bitterness with the spice and sweetness of the ginger beer.

There may be another name for this creation, but henceforth I shall refer to it as the Ginpari.