Back
in the Ballroom at the CTICC for the third time in a week, this huge trade
tasting is overwhelming in its depth, variety and scope of the wines available
to taste. There is no way you can consciously even contemplate tasting all of
the wines, we usually manage a wine or two at about a third to half of the
farms. And it is a very social evening as they also invite some of their
customers and we know many of them.
We started with a tasting of the two French
Champagnes from Nicolas Feuillatte from Épernay, poured by Vinimark Director Ginette
de Fleuriot
Tomato and mozzarella canapés
Krone were showcasing an assemblage of three very
old vintages (2004, 2005 and 2006) called the Phoenix. The wines spent a
minimum of 10 years on the lees. Not to our taste at all but perhaps yours?
Smoked salmon on soft pancakes
Johan Reyneke had some great wines to show, most
especially the Biodynamic Cornerstone 2013 which is a blockbuster full on red
blend with layers of red fruit to delight
The two Downes brothers, Stuart and James with
their Shannon wines. Lynne loved the green fig leaf Sanctuary Peak 2015
Sauvignon Blanc so layered and full on a typical nose. The 2015 Semillon is
spicy and grassy, with lean minerality. Semillon mutton fat and clean tangerine
. Rockview Pinot Noir 2015 is pretty and perfumed, very French soft and gentle
red fruit with cough sweet spice notes on the end. These wines will sell out
very fast.
Small quiches
Stephanus Eksteen, Checkers wine buyer, was finding the evening
interesting and asked lots of questions about the wines
Charles Withington of Darling wines, Ida van
Tonder and Gemma Botha chat about the wines
Nora Sperling Thiel of Delheim with Raymond Noppe.
Their 2014 Chenin Blanc is chewy with full on fruit, a great wine for pairing
with food
Happy faces on a happy De Morgenzon farm's table. We write often about how good these wines are. The DMZ 2015
Sauvignon Blanc is, Lynne wrote: "Serrriuus". The DMZ Chenin is clean
and elegant, another full on fruit layered wine and the DMZ Maestro 2014 is a
great white blend with some wood and good fruit. No wonder these are appearing
on more and more restaurant wine lists.
David Finlayson did it again with his Edgebaston
wines. The new vintage of the Berry Box 2015 white (2015 had 63% Sauvignon
Blanc, 34% Semillon, 3% Viognier )is still a bit bottle shocked but has clean
fruits with oyster shale notes and roundness in the glass from the viognier.
His 2014 Chardonnay sparkles with full golden fruit, has nice length and depth
and keeps on talking to you. Another good food wine.
John sampled the Dalla Cia Grappa. The Single Cultivar is exceptionally smooth. The golden liquid on the right is the 10 year barrel matured grappa, which is reminiscent of an Armagnac
J C Martin was kept busy on the Creation stand,
speaking here to visitors from France. Their Sauvignon Blanc is a good example
of what the Hemel and Aarde Valley does with this grape Passion fruit with a
spicy end and a good prickle in the centre. Lynne wears a Giorgio Armani
perfume called Aqua de Gio and she found it's lovely clean floral notes on the 2016 Viognier and peaches and cream on the palate. Wow.
Three happy winemakers: Corlea Fourie of Bosman,
Etienne Louw of Altydgedacht and Bertus Fourie. Corlea's Optenhorst 2015 Chenin Blanc with
wood supporting the rich golden fruit is superb and the very Burgundian style
Chardonnay 2015 from the Upper Hemel and Aarde is tight, clean, crisp with
flinty minerality. Lynne has written Want Some in her notes. The Adama White
2015 is intriguing with layers of different aromas, flavours and textures that
keep talking
As expected the Ollo white blend excited and
delighted but the interesting wine was their Muskarade 2016. Rose petals on the
nose and palate but dry with full flavours of hanepoot from the Muscat grapes.
A wine to pair with spicy food.
We took a taxi home, we had a driver from the
Congo and we were surprised how much more fluent we were in French ! That was
why we took a taxi. It was all those good wines talking
© John & Lynne
Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016
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