Tulbagh Wine Cellar’s new team, Hugo Lambrechts (viticulturist) and Naudé Bruwer (production manager), examine bunches of grapes from the different regions, which this year will be harvested and fermented separately.

I have decided to give the Tulbagh wine region a punt. Beautiful area, great wines and any place that has survived an earthquake has a story to tell. So, thanks to ML Communications for a lekker release.

Tulbagh Winery has this year appointed a new production manager and a fulltime viticulturist, namely Naudé Bruwer and Hugo Lambrechts, with a new strategy for the cellar in mind. There are seven distinctly different wine growing areas on which their members farm and they intend to vinify each area’s wines separately, with an emphasis on creating top quality wines.

The seven areas are Tulbagh, Halfmanshof, Riebeek, Porterville, Piketberg, Dwarskersbos and Berg River. Each cultivar from every region will be harvested separately, individually fermented and the final product will be kept in separate tanks for evaluation. Previously all cultivars from the same region were harvested together and the best wine was not necessarily bottled, but sold in bulk.

This new production team was created in order to professionally coordinate with the wine farmer-members for picking grapes at the correct ripeness and selecting the best cultivar from each region. Production manager, Naudé Bruwer, was a winemaker at the Boland Cellar until the end of last year and had a hand in many of that cellar’s international and domestic awards over the past few years. Hugo Lambrechts, previously winemaker at Porterville Cellar, is now the fulltime viticulturist.

“With the 2010 harvest and the new team, quality is being refined and the first step is to prepare the regional wines individually. Each wine out of every region will then be carefully tasted to select the best of the tanks for blending in Tulbagh Winery’s bottled range,” Naudé explained.

Besides Naudé Bruwer and Hugo Lambrechts, the wines are also tasted by two other Tulbagh Winery winemakers, Johnny King and Jurgen Gouws, as well as two independent wine-producing experts. The final tank selection is thus not left to just one person.

“Each region has its own terroir, differ quite considerably and each offers something different. At Dwarskersbos, for instance, there are vineyards which are a mere 800m from the sea, while in other areas there are different soil types against mountain slopes, some of which face in various directions and so are affected differently by wind and sun.” said Hugo.

“It looks as though the shiraz is going to provide an outstanding harvest. This variety was least affected by downy mildew this year and even when fermentation was first started you could already pick up the lovely ripe aromas and deep red colour. Uneven ripening of the sauvignon blanc crop, on the other hand, made the decision about when to pick difficult – even within the same vineyard. The wines, none the less, show lovely tropical fruit, asparagus, citrus and fig aromas, while tropical fruit is predominant in the chenin blanc wines. We will, however, only be able to evaluate the wines in finer detail come April,” said Naudé

Mike Ratcliffe as Robert Downey.

AMERICAN magazine Wine Spectator has been having a bit of late by comparing wines to actors. All this with coming Sunday’s Oscar awards in mind. The magazine’s tasting panel has selected ten wines, across five categories, each of which suitably ‘personifies’ the nominee, and, by implication, the role he or she plays in the movie.

 Stellenbosch’s Warwick Wine Estate was in the limelight on the red carpet this week after receiving an impressive 90 points by Wine Spectator, says a media release. “In addition to this affirmation, Wine Spectator has nominated Warwick’s Sauvignon Blanc, Professor Black 2009, for Best Supporting Actor.  

 “Spotlighted for his supporting role as François Pienaar in the apartheid-rugby-allegory film, Invictus, is the handsome, charismatic and refined Matt Damon. Wine Spectator decided that a bright South African star – Pienaar, immortalized by Damon – commanded a bright wine with the same stellar constitution. The crisp, tropicality and liveliness – coupled with a long floral finish – of Professor Black, made this luscious wine the obvious choice for the Best Supporting Actor role.”

 No mention is being made however on rumours of another Hollywood production heading for South African shores, this time to film a script by Michael van Niekerk depicting the rise of the country’s wine industry post 1990. Using the Stellenbosch winelands as a backdrop, the story tells of five wineries’ vision and energy in using South Africa’s liberated status to launch the nations wines internationally. Strong personalities and a few dramatic events make, according to Van Niekerk’s publicist, for a terrific storyline. “No title has been finalise, but we might as well ride on Clint Eastwood’s recent success and call the movie InVino,” the publicist said.

WOSA, Shirley?

 Although casting has to be finalized, movie insiders reckon that Mike Ratcliffe, Warwick’s marketing dynamo and industry young-gun who is a character in InVino, is set to be played by either Robert Downey Jr or Ralph Fiennes. Steve Martin is a shoe-in to play colourful restaurateur turned winemaker Ken Forrester, while Shirley MacLaine is keen to take-on the role of Wosa whizz Su Birch.

 So who knows….perhaps the SA wine industry will make it all the way to the red carpet next year.

 Distribution seems to be the unknown force in the wine industry, and it would appear as if distributors would like keep it this way. These forces generally have the wine producers by the short and curlies, buying at a discount and then slapping on an average of 30% when selling to the retailer, who then still has to whack on a mark-up.

They move in mysterious way, as U2 sang, justifying their mark-ups with claims of superb connections in the trade and a lot of travel and hard-selling. All good and well, despite one wondering why so many distributors have gone belly-up recently if they were so shit-hot.

Recently, however, I have come across a situation which may just see distributors accused of uncompetitive practices. And once again we turn to the broad church of the internet.

A client briefed in a new website, which a bunch of tekkies in Observatory designed to perfection. We decided to go the whole hog and, following Paul Cluver and Waterford, added a shopping site. You know… customer clicks on wines, adds to shopping basket, pays cellar door prices by credit card and wine gets delivered. Boom. Convenience that we support.

Lo and behold if our distributor doesn’t give us a call to inform us that he will not be distributing his wine if we are going to be flogging it on the website. By taking orders and despatching the wine ourselves, he claims, we are entering the distribution game and taking business away from him.

Funny one this: cellar door prices (as sold on the web) are pretty much the same as retail prices. The distributor is still getting his discounted price. So where could the threat lie?

We still depend on distributors to bash down doors and use their contacts. That is what they are good at, and that is why we are willing to discount. But by trying to prevent wineries from using the web to drive sales themselves, distributors are entering dangerous territory that is not going to make them popular at all. Especially once the authorities are alerted to this, seeing they are so eager to pounce on dodgy practices in the agricultural sector.

Darian Morgan

PORTOFINO RESTAURANT

Harbour Edge, 10 Hospital Street, Green Point. Tel. 021-418-4500

I was to meet Calculus to talk about a war and a good suit, and he suggested a bar and restaurant at the end of town run by an Irishman with a great hair-cut. Balking, I asked whether said Irishman was the so called “rudest restaurateur” in Cape Town, whereupon Calculus nodded sagely and led me through the door.

Portofino is airy and white, and it looks clean and good, but with a modern homeliness. Walking in I almost tripped over a chocolate Labrador belonging to a well-known chef, but this went without incident: dogs like me, and I love them.

The wind was roaring outside, and we were pleased to be in a place promising sustenance and cold liquid containing good amounts of alcohol. Calculus provided, plonking a bottle of Henri Giraud Champagne into an ice-bucket. Besides that, he had brought a bottle of Chamonix Pinot Noir, while I had lugged a Kanonkop Paul Sauer 1995 as well as a De Wetshof Bateleur 2007.

But we drank Champagne. It was yeasty and biscuit and cold, with a lot of sparkle.

Cormac the Terrible waltzed over resembling a pop star from the 1980s. Cool and certain, and calm. He sipped the Champagne, and asked us what he was tasting. Brioche and grapefruit. Melon and chalk.

Cormac’s fringe flopped languidly as he agreed with our comments, and suggested we eat Parma ham with melon.

The tables looked inviting with their crisp linen, but Calculus suggested we eat at the bar. It looks cooler, like something out of a Peter Lorre movie. And the bar could accommodate all our booze.

Besides the melon, one could start with a prawn, watermelon and goat’s cheese salad. Bruschetta. Capraccio or melanzana parmagiana. Then there is the famous antipasto platter with squid, vegetables and Parma ham.

Calculus poured the last of the Champagne, went through the battle plan one more time and ordered the Parma ham and melon. Ditto.

Upon deciding what to drink next, I asked Cormac whether he served Guinness on tap. I got a look that would make an ice maiden turn into Jameson. “Where do you think you are?” he asked.

I felt like answering by repeating the line from the classic movie The Hangover, the one that goes: “On the corner of fuck-off and get a map.” But I saw the glint of humour in Cormac’s eye, and let it pass. Besides – Calculus was in the mood for war, so this was not a good time for a bit of IRA from another corner.

The Chamonix Pinot Noir was corked, with enough mouldy sack to make your contact lenses fall out. So we drank the Paul Sauer 19995. It was a fine wine, ripe and complete and full of nuances tricky to pin down. But in excellent condition.

The Parma ham came, and we ate it with the melon, and I loved those salty cured flavours hitting the sweetness of the melon. It was a civilised starter, in a civilised place.

I mentioned the good suit, and before we started the discussion, Cormac asked us what we would like for a main course. Pasta and risotto. Tasty-sounding meat dishes such as chicken thigh wrapped in Parma ham. A veal parcel. Honey and mustard porked fillet.

Calculus called for the prawn risotto while the spaghetti Carbonara had my name on it.

It was very pleasant at the bar. Soft music and interesting people whispering next to the coffee machine. Just then , we opened the De Wetshof Bateleur Chardonnay as the Paul Sauer was empty.

The food came just as Calculus had the last say about that damned bad suit, and we hunched over our bowls like Sicilian peasants protecting their first-born. My pasta was creamy and eggy with tasty lashings of Parmesan. Crispy bacon made for good salt in my mouth, which made the Chardonay tast very pleasant and excellent.

I like the place, and could see Calculus likes it too. It is a well-lit, accommodating restaurant with an agreeable air of formality and convention offset with a homely feeling of ease and comfort. Like a woman dressed in Chanel and Gucci, but not wearing any underwear.

Calcalus contemplated ordering some or other decadent chocolate dessert, but with battle now only a few days away, he relented. I joined him for an espresso as we finished off the last of the Chardonnay and walked out into the wind and the night lights, hoping the Irishman was looking forward to seeing us again.

JP Bruwer

The Outeniqua Mountains on the Garden Route.

After spending millions on international fact-finding trips and marketing jollies, the Cape winelands have failed to secure a base-camp for one of the 32 teams participating in World Cup 2010. As mentioned in a previous post, hosting an international team and its horde of followers and national media brings myriad short and long term benefits to a town or region – if it didn’t the Cape winelands would not have spent such a lot of time and money attempting to secure said team, would they?

Tourism bodies around the Cape have been pretty mum about these international teams’ decision to shun the region and see favourites Spain heading to the charming town of Potchefstroom and England heading for Rustenburg. Over 30 days of international TV coverage will propel these towns, as well as others selected as base-camps, into the limelight, something the South African wine industry would surely have appreciated.

So Stellenbosch, Paarl, Franschhoek and Constantia will not share in base-camp limelight. One wine region which is, however, going to benefit hugely is the Langkloof wine region. “Lang” what? Well, this is the area north of the Outeniqua mountains on the Garden Route where grapes are grown and wine is made, albeit on a smaller scale than the Cape. And this region will see three teams set up base-camps between 11 June and 11 July, namely France, Denmark and Japan.

This means over 100 000 international visitors alone, not to mention the whole of France, Denmark and Japan being exposed to the towns of George and Knysna for the duration of the tournament thanks to the glories of television, not to mention the social media tidal wave.

One or two throw-away sentences about the region’s wines, and this means more PR and exposure than a Wosa-sponsored Jumbo of golf-playing wine hacks.

The slight problem is that the Langkloof is not awash with wineries. The most prolific is Goose Wines, a  venture in which local golf icon Retief Goosen has a share, and one which makes some pretty nifty wines from grapes grown on South Africa’s coldest wine  farm.

Morné Jonker, partner in Goose Wines, has already made inroads into 2010 preparations and The Goose is going to be wetting many throats setting up camp in the Garden Route come winter.

Especially exciting is that the three countries camping out here – France, Denmark and Japan – are all wine-loving nations. The experience of the Langkloof wines is sure to provide a high level of emotional take-out, meaning that when the visitors return to their countries of origin they will seek out the wines they enjoyed during their stay. Good for Langkloof, but also for South Africa.

Throw in a couple of hundred million goggling TV viewers seeing the region’s natural beauty and discovering the Garden Route as a wine region, and things are going to go ballistic.

The problem is that Goose Wines is a pretty small set-up and will not be able to carry the cudgel in this huge marketing opportunity for the local wine industry. If I were party to a wine brand in the Cape Winelands, I’d ask why my local tourism bodies stuffed-up by not securing a base-camp. And then I’d look east towards the Garden Route. A piece of that action is to be had.

Morné Jonker and Retief Goosen.

One of the South African wine industry’s most iconic symbols, the KWV La Concorde head-office on Paarl’s main road, is to be vacated by KWV staff within the next few months. According to a wine industry insider, KWV staff will move to the vast buildings the company owns closer to the railway line.

“La Concorde will cease to house the KWV’s activities,” the source said. “However, this will not come as a surprise to anyone who has visited La Concorde over the past few months – inside it is as deserted as the Overlook Hotel in the movie, The Shining.”

La Concorde’s impressive facade has become synonymous with the South African wine industry as it was for decades seen on the label of the country’s (then) most prolific exporter, namely the KWV. Erected in 1958, La Concorde is also seen as an aesthetically pleasing face of the Cape wine industry, and it would be a great pity if the building is lost to the wine world.

Rumours of converting La Concorde into a hotel have been bandied about, but developers maintain that converting the office space to rooms and recreation centres would be too costly.

“Come on, man, I ’ve never seen a horse win a race without a jockey!” enthused Duimpie Bayly, owner of more South African wine industry positions than you’d find in the first 35 pages of the Kama Sutra.

Duimpie was responding to Dominique Hebrard, former owner of Bordeaux icon Cheval Blanc, who was discussing his involvement with Cape winery Constantia Glen by accentuating the role of terroir and vineyard. “All this stuff about wine being made in the vineyard is bullshit – you need ’n bloody good winemaker as well.”

This forthright interaction is what happens when things get going at the Wine Swines, arguably South Africa’s most established wine club. Hoffie Hoffman (what else?), a former technical head at Distillers Corporation, joined the Swines in 1968, giving one an idea of the kind of history attached to this organisation.

Duimpie’s ascerbic reaction to Dominique’s philosophy, I think, began when Duimpie introduced himself to the Frenchman earlier on by asking Dominique to translate “Small Thumb” (Duimpie) into French. The reply was something sounding like “petit poes”, which obviously ruffled a few Bayly feathers, despite those who may have differed with Dominique by deploying “grand” instead.

In any event, Monsieur Hebrard was adament that he was not bringing a French flair to Constantia Glen, but rather here to assist the winery to make South African wines to the best of the site’s ability.

This making is in the obviously very capable hands of Karl Lambour, a fellow swine who offered to host last Friday’s tasting to coincide with the visit of Dominique.

We kicked off with a tasting of three vintages of The Constantia Saddle, Constantia Glen’s three-variety Bordeaux blend. First up was the 2007, which is currently on the market, followed by the unlabelled 2008 and 2009.

So why are we not talking about just another red blend here?

First of all, South Africa’s oldest winemaking region has been really impressive in its red wine offerings over the past six, seven years. Groot Constantia Shiraz and Pinotage, Eagle’s Nest Shiraz, Buitenverwachting Cabernet Franc and Klein Constantia Marlbrook consistently rock-up in my annual top 20 list. I love the pure, bright and more-ish fleshy flavours of Constantia red wines. No heat, fynbos or mint, and wood is used judiciously in most cases – a fact proven even in the young wines.

Constantia Glen has made no bones about its lofty ambitions, which is good. I dig the “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” philosophy. There’s obviously a bit of tom behind the venture, everyone working there has clean crispy shirts, pricey haircuts and friendly white smiles, and Lambour is a winemaker of the convincingly opinionated variety.

Karl Lambour

Throw in a Bordeaux consultant whose family happened to own Cheval Blanc, and the expectations are lofty.

Well, it comes together in the wines. We are in talking-the-talk and walking-the-walk territory.

Constantia Glen’s 2007 The Constantia Saddle is a truly unctuous wine, and drinking it is like kissing one of Dominique’s (female) cellar-hands after she has returned from a trip to an exotic destination. A decadent glow of winey fruit has surprising whiffs of spice and perfume, Bordeaux-style beauty one tends to have forgotten about in a current Shiraz-Tanat-Carignan-Mourvèdre obsessed industry.

The make-up is Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. New wood for nine months. Then blended. Back into the barrel for two-and-something months.

Getting back to the vineyard, Karl explains how vines are opened up, leaving a few paltry leaves per vine to ensure shade-free ripeness, thus booting green, minty flavours back to where they came from.

I loved this wine, but the 2008 was even better. Here there was a bit of a perky peppery grip which made the finish longer, although it may even out with bottle-aging.

The other three wines were three vintages of the premium Constantia Glen Red Blend, with all five Bordeaux varieties now deployed. The 2007 is currently on the market – 32 % Merlot, 27 % Cabernet Sauvignon, 18 % Malbec, 11.5 % Cabernet Franc and 11.5 % Petit Verdot. And with the hefty addition of Malbec and Petit Verdot, one need not ask how this wine differs to the Saddle.

While “big” and “full” are tags hastily deployed to pile New World wines into one bag, there is still a very Old World respect for power.

Power having a religiously positive connotation, and in my French meanderings it is employed when great wines are described.

With its first red vintage only being the recent 2007, it is obviously not yet possoble to ascertain whether Constantia Glen’s Red Blend is going to show its current power in the long run. But at this stage, the red blend is showing signs of greatness.

The red fruit heart from the Merlot and Cabernet Franc spurts unadulterated clean, fresh flavours. Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Malbec brood like a hulking rugby front row, adding a beautiful strength.

It is a terrific wine, a harmony of grace and power – like a Steinway piano being pushed around by a bunch of female ice-hockey players.

The 2008 still showed a hint of rugged tannins, but everything else was there. But the 2009 is going to be the big one, with a greater accent on Petit Verdot and a brooding darkness in the colour.

History continues to be made in an historical wine region.

The hike in excise duties, as announced by the Minister of Finance, will cause the serious financial plight of many wine producers toreach breaking point. VinPro therefore expects that this will be a watershed year for producers who have been under severe financial pressure in recent years.

 Despite the fact that producers have done their utmost to endure over the past five years, the point has now been reached where producers simply cannot survive financially anymore. The recommended rate at which vineyards need to be replaced could also not be maintained over the past five years.

 This in an environment characterised by a decrease of up to 40% in grape prices, a 40% increase in production costs, a 69% increase in excise duties on both wine and spirits and, subsequently, an effective halving of net farming income.

 The primary wine producer earns 44 cents on average from a bottle of wine that sells for R24 in retail – from which he must cover his cost of living and interest. At the same time, the government earns R4,56 per bottle of wine from VAT and excise duties, following this increase.

 Although the increase of 8.1% on wine and 8.9% on spirits is in line with the government’s long-term targets for calculating the increases on alcoholic products, VinPro is disappointed that these adjustments are still above inflation and that the government does not show an understanding for the current situation of the wine producer. The ongoing excise increases impact negatively on the wine industry’ considerable contribution to the economy, as well as job creation. The industry contributes no less than R26,2 billion (2.2%) to the country’s GDP, according to the latest research.

 RELEASED BY THE VINPRO CHAIRMAN: ABRIE BOTHA