Having just got back from a great wine trip to South Africa and been excited by the fact that South African wines seem to have their own style and “terroir”, or sense of origin, I’m really looking forward to the arrival in early April of the wines I selected from four different estates.
In the meantime [...]

How does a South African Wine Estate make money?
The simple and most common answer is that it doesn’t! In almost every case, of the 20 or more wine Estates we visited only one of them did not have an obvious source of additional income to allow them to subsidise the wine. Here are some we [...]

Last night, here in Wilderness, a beach resort on the Garden Route and on the southernmost tip of Africa we ordered a picnic basket from “The Two Ladies” Restaurant, run strangely enough by two ladies. The plan was to sit on the beach and watch the sun go down in this beautiful part of the [...]

We came back from South Africa with such positive feelings for that country that we are seriously considering going back again next year if our sales of the South African wines we have selected allow us to.

Trying to keep to the subject of wine, what were the headline issues?
Wines and climate
The question of Chenin Blanc [...]

It was not planned, but it was meant to be. Colin, our generous host in Hermanus, had wanted to show us a winery he liked, and brought one of their whites out of the ‘fridge to taste. I recognised the label and name as the same I had seen on the shelf of a small [...]

A three hour detour thanks to rubbish SatNav meant we arrived at Zoetendal at 1pm not 11 am as agreed. Still, the very nice lady at the remote chicken farm 200kms away from where we should have been was very helpful. One of her daughters is studying in Canterbury and hoping to get UK citizenship, [...]

Marcel de Rueck’s Crow’s Nest Estate has an uninterrupted view of Table Mountain a mere 20kms away as the crow flies. He produces only red wines and absolutely no Pinotage;  “I’m patriotic, but not that patriotic!”. Marcel is a lean, weathered, passionate man who makes wines to his personal taste, has a healthy contempt for [...]

Today we are heading south a bit to Freedom Hill, as we turn off the main road and up the track through the vineyards to the winery (and, yes, restaurant) the first thing we see is a troop of baboons helping themselves to a mid-morning snack of nearly ripe grapes (Pinotage and Syrah are the [...]

We can see two more estates before we leave Stellenbosch so at 08.30 we are at Slaley Wine Estate, just past Monterosso. Slaley is owned by Lindsay Hunting, great-nephew of Sir Percy Hunting a shipping family for hundreds of years. Golfers will be familiar with Slaley Hall.
Lindsay is a larger than life character and vinous [...]

An early morning meeting with the very helpful Su Birch at the Wines of South Africa offices here has resulted in a rush of emails from wine producers happy to receive us and show their wines, so the diary is now full for the rest of the week….it’s a tough life!
Ginny Povall at Botanica Wines [...]