Sunday, July 24, 2011

Wine Magazine's Brenn-o-Kem Shiraz Challenge Awards

Wednesday, July 20th 2011
Wine magazine's Shiraz Awards lunch, which had elements of a wake, was at Catharina's on Steenberg wine estate in Constantia. Garth Almazan's excellent food was paired with the winning wines. It was a beautiful, clear mid-winter day, the only sad note being the imminent closure of the magazine. Of the 165 wines tasted, only one wine received 4.5 Stars and was an outright winner. Eight faulty wines were not scored, which left 5.7% of the wines scoring 4 Stars, 8.3% scoring 3.5 Stars and 22.6% receiving 3 Stars. a five-person panel (Carrie Adams, Miguel Chan, Karl Lambour, Angela Lloyd and James Pietersen) tasted the wines blind and assessed them using the 20-point/5-Star scoring system. Carrie Adams, the co-ordinator of the judging panel, said that the overall quality of the wines was very good, but that there was too much brettanomyces infection in the submissions. The outright winner, Land's End Shiraz from Hidden Valley, made by Louis Nel, was well clear of the others. The Best Value Award winner was Obikwa 2010, which earned 2½ stars.
Steenberg manor house

Alan Ramsay, Stuart Lowe and Michael Olivier



































Norman McFarlane and Friends

Lynne with Cathryn Henderson

Judging co-ordinator Carrie Adams, dressed for a chilly Johannesburg

Dave Hidden with his Award-winning Land's End (Hidden Valley) Shiraz, made by Louis Nel.

Garth Almazan, Catharina’s Executive Chef

Higgo Jacobs, Sommelier

The lunch dishes:
fresh salmon cured in biltong spice, red wine jus, served with the Value wine winner, Obikwa Shiraz 2010.

Chargrilled springbok loin, served with the Award-winning Land's End Shiraz.

Chocolate trilogy

Cathryn Henderson, Publishing Editor

Celia Gilloway, Events Co-ordinator

Kate Clohessy, Events & competitions assistant

Lynne, Samm Bain, Wine National Sales Manager and Andrew Moth, Hotel & Restaurant Editor

Stuart Lowe, Managing Director

Brandon de Kock, Group Content Director

Allan Mullins CWM

Alan Mullins with Lauren Cohen

Angela Lloyd 

Kim Maxwell, Michael Bampfield-Duggan, Mel Minnaar, Michael Olivier, James Pietersen CWM 

James Pietersen, Karl Lambour, Nikki Werner, Kim Maxwell, Mike Bampfield-Duggan, Mel
Minnaar 


Garth Almazan and his team 



Norman McFarlane


































Kobus du Toit, Brenn-O-Kem CEO


Greg Landman






Kathy Marston, Garth Almazan and Dax Villanueva



Dax Villanueva (Relax with Dax)












Graham Howe


4 comments:

  1. I am very flattered that the beautiful and young Kate Clohessy is captioned as Jeanri-Tine van Zyl - but I regret that this is a case of mistaken identity. I haven't been that radiant since '07.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm sure you asked them to use Kate's photo so that you can continue with your undercover visits.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hehehe...JT you are ALWAYS radient. Maybe less so on Wednesday thanks to the aftermath of our private bubbly fest.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Apologies! Thus is what comes of working till 2 in the morning! I shall make the correction. But it's good to see that you look at the pictures!

    ReplyDelete