The woman with the floppy hat and yellow facial sunscreen looked at me as if IΓÇÖd asked her to perform the Gangnam Style in her second-hand underwear. ΓÇ£DonΓÇÖt make such a noise,ΓÇ¥ she whispered. ΓÇ£We think weΓÇÖve got a LevaillantΓÇÖs Cisticola.ΓÇ¥

I peered over at the other members in her group. Most had the same floppy-hats and were donning binoculars of different sizes, coloured black or military green. ╬ô├ç┬úYou might have a Levaillant╬ô├ç├ûs Cisticola, but I╬ô├ç├ûve got a date with a cold bottle of sparkling wine,╬ô├ç┬Ñ I said, flooring the CitroΓö£┬╜n and sending a few Cisticolas, Furry Bummed Cisterians and Blue Hardened Tits – or whatever it is that bird-watchers find intriguing – flapping into the mountains above Plaisir de Merle.

Continue Reading »

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.

Continue Reading »

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.

Continue Reading »

Chatting to a Pinot Noir maker a while back, the dude flicked the hair from his eyes and said that Jan Boland Coetzee was probably the best Pinot exponent in South Africa. ΓÇ£But unlucky for him, heΓÇÖs farming in the wrong region.ΓÇ¥

Continue Reading »

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.

Continue Reading »

Despite the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley having made the Heartbreak Grape its own itΓÇÖs worth remembering that South AfricaΓÇÖs first Pinot Noir was planted on the slopes of StellenboschΓÇÖs Simonsberg in 1927, the location being Muratie Estate. Erstwhile Muratie proprietor, artist and bon vivant George Canitz was a buddy of Prof. Abraham Perold, the viticultural guru who ΓÇ£inventedΓÇ¥ the Pinotage grape, and it was Perold who indulged CanitzΓÇÖs wish to produce a ΓÇ£BurgundyΓÇ¥ in Stellenbosch.

Prof Perold was an eager beaver to help out, although it has come to the fore that the ProfessorΓÇÖs relationship with Muratie was based on more than a bit of experimental viticulture and a jovial drinking buddy in Canitz. Perold had a serious case of the hots for CanitzΓÇÖs daughter, Annemie, and this air of romance no-doubt assisted the relevant parties to go about the task of creating Pinot Noir with heartfelt passion and possibly more than a few rootstocks were planted.

Continue Reading »