Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Vinimark trade wine show at the CTICC

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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