We were all tuxed-up, man. For this was Veritas, South African’s premier part of the wine events schedule. So a tuxedo was donned for the most important show of the year.

The Top 10

Despite the calls to duty asking us to embrace Chenin Blanc as the National South African White Grape and the reactionary colourful spats generated by the Sauvignon Blanc fraternity, there is only one real South African white wine worth taking to an international gun-fight, and he be Chardonnay.

Discussing the new De Wetshof Thibault Bordeaux-style blend and raising an issue or two with regards to Merlot.

Successful WSET Level 2 graduates celebrate receiving their certificates and pins. L to R from back: Zola Williams, Angelo van Dyk, Barry Scholfield. Middle rows: Herman Jordaan, Harry Ravelomanantsoa, Chantelle Swanepoel, Celeste Munge, Esme Groenwald. Front rows: Richard Barnett, Grant Michels, Sune Eksteen (WSET Lecturer), Jude Mullins AIWS (International Business Development Director for WSET), Cathy Marston AIWS (WSET lecturer), Isobel Odendaal.

 Personally, I’d like to learn a lot more about wine. But the few wine courses I have attended here and in Burgundy have ended in tears, harassment, pain and expulsion – and that was before the tasting side of the programme started.

Uma Thurman shows that a Merlot tasting can get messy.

The Bride had just sliced the head off her second masked Yakuza gangster when it hit me: what had really just happened over the past few days? Here I was, sprawled on the futon watching Kill Bill Volume 1, lulled by a warm comatose feeling of exhaustion and satisfied post-hectic workweek euphoria.

What a week, I thought looking at the screen as The Bride, aka Uma Thurman, drove a nail through the head of a Japanese schoolgirl.

Beautiful Wellington.

To quote my late English teacher, Mister Struthers-Boshoff, “you is what you is, not what’s you thinks you are”. The folk of Wellington in the Western Cape might speak better English – these days – but the fact remains the same: Wellington has long deserved independence as a wine region from neighbour Paarl, to which it was linked via ward status until this year. Because the region knows what it is and knows it can stand on its own two legs.

Although Wellington’s push for independence – carefully actioned by the delicate force of former Springbok rugby player Schalk Burger – may have been egged-on by the general confusion and regional inactivity of Wine of Origin Paarl. As a united regional entity, Paarl is fast becoming about as relevant as a rare foie gras at a vegetarien love-in.

Brandy legend Pietman Retief

During a presentation I did at Educvin in Burgundy last year, one of the winemakers said it was every so often necessary to take oneΓÇÖs palate out of the comfort zone. ΓÇ£Electro-shockΓÇ¥ he called it. Put something in your mouth that shakes, rattles and burns your flavour sensors, re-awakening them for the next period of wine tasting.

I donΓÇÖt know if this was what Yves had in mind, but I am partial to a double brandy-and-Coke poured to the ratio of a third brandy and two thirds Coke. This hefty dose of spirited sweetness is met with alarm by my cultivated tasting tools, having them cry out in anguish before they are ΓÇô like their possessor ΓÇô lulled into a lovely alcoholic comatose state.

Corton-Charlemagne is the finest Chardonnay vineyard in the world. Here is a real cool ode to it. And the chick in the middle is Jeeva Tracker, who I did some punch-downs with in Aloxe-Corton.