Thunder rolls as I hit Bloemfontein. Raining big fat dollops of splashing water. The sky is grey, the earth wet and the city smells like an oxygen tent inhabited by Sophia Loren.

First stop on my jaunt to Mangaung for the ANCΓÇÖs National Conference is Casa Van Zyl. Said Casa is inhabited by Jan, my second cousin, and his lovely Dorette. In wine circles they are possibly better known for being the parents of the Coco Chanel of South African wine-writing, one Jeanri-Tine van Zyl.

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Penelope Cruz shows Burgundy bottles, but likes Cabernet.

I was looking at the prostitute and thinking about a wine from Stellenbosch. Okay, the aforementioned was not a real slut. It was just Penelope Cruz playing one. One called Anna in Woody Allen’s masterly new movie To Rome with Love. Halfway through watching Cruz-Anna’s pouting…bending…seducing…stroking and my mouth was dry as a Keimoes pot-plant, my rampant heartbeat disturbing the chick with the hearing-aid sitting next to me.

A skilled, classic acting technique with Pinteresque comic timing tends to do this to us artists.

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Like the rich, the French are different. In what way? Well, going into detail cannot be done before proper broadband comes to South Africa as the reasoning is bound to be expansive.

Wine, for example, is one area in which the French are different from other nations.

Still the greatest wine country on earth. Has been and always will be. Blah.Blah. Agreed.

In the spirit of Bastille Day celebrations, thus, IΓÇÖd like to take a look at five South African winemakers who to my mind have ΓÇô knowingly or otherwise ΓÇô been infected with French genes of vinous brilliance. Doubting Thomases can taste it in their wines.

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Stellenbosch is, and always will be, the greatest red wine producing region in South Africa. Why? Same reason that Hawaii has great pipeline, Germans make good cars and Chelsea will win the Champions League: because God intended it that way.

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If God was a wine lover, the Grabouw-Elgin area would be his kind of place. In a country blessed with arguably the most splendid wine-land scenery anywhere on earth, this region of valleys, mountains, rocks, orchards and lakes must count among South AfricaΓÇÖs finest. It is also producing some pants-wetting gorgeous wines, with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling having thrust Elgin into the fore.

Oak Valley also produces a passable Bordeaux-blend, and Shannon has caused a few rattling Zimmerframes and pacer-recharging with its bulky Merlot. And then there are the brisk, refined bubblies produced by the late Ross Gower, wines whose legacy is fortunately still with us.

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To: David Higgs, david@rustenvrede.com

CC: www.winegoggle.co.za

Dear David

Excuse me for saying so, but I was not supposed to really enjoy last weekΓÇÖs media lunch at Rust en Vrede. Being part of the team responsible for the event I was busy ΓÇô like yourself ΓÇô busy with a lot of backroom grinding. Organizing, translating fact-sheets, planning the flow of the event with Coenie, Kobie and Jean, arranging photographs, burning CDs, arranging with the esteemed members of the SA wine writing fraternity, and so forth.

This was, when hosting the crème de la crème of SA’s wine media at Rust and Vrede, a pleasure, but one is sure kept on your toes to ensure it will be alright on the night.

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