Jan
03
2013

Boere preparing to take on Bordeaux together with a representative from WIETA.
Heading off to Arcachon outside Bordeaux later this month, part of my visit will entail presenting a tasting of South African wines to some local journalists, rugby players and vignerons. As the first American on French soil during D-Day said: “There ain’t no free lunch.”
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Jun
09
2011
The prospect of tasting 14 Pinotage wines barely out of their nappies is about as daunting as engaging in a bit of face-sucking with a komodo dragon. At the best of times, three-month-old red wines are a tad tough on the mouth of any human not involved with the profession of tasting barrel samples before the day’s All Bran. And in its youth Pinotage can be an especially trying customer due to its penchant for infantile volatility and the wine’s love of clinging onto any trace of wood like baby-shit to a Pep Stores blanket.
Apr
06
2011

It began with an oyster.........
Strange as it may sound, there was a time in South Africa when chefs were, well, just chefs. Nameless, faceless men and women who gallantly slaved away in restaurant and hotel kitchens, feeding patrons to whom only the content of the plate mattered. The Châteaubriand (for two, of course) and Crayfish Thermidor could have been cooked by Hannibal Lecter or Marilyn Monroe, nobody would give a chicken liver.
A dining venue was judged on the food and the ambience and the mood created by the fulfilled feeling of being fed by others.
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