Wednesday, December 06, 2017

Wine-of-the-Month Club Winemaker Awards 2017

Time for Wine of the Month Club to laud their suppliers. The event was held at Vista Marine restaurant which is behind the Aquarium in the V&A Waterfront. This year's event was a chance to taste some of their most popular wines and meet the winning winemakers
Emil den Dulk of De Toren, Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick and Johan Malan of Simonsig all won awards
The man who started this successful (now on line) wine club in 1986, innovator and owner of Wine-of-the-Month Club Colin Collard
with his sons Clifford and Giscard, directors of the company and daughter Natalie, the wine buyer for the club and the publisher of Good Taste magazine
Clifford Collard began the ceremony. They have 30 000 active members and many more casual buyers. A box of wine is delivered every month. How does the selection of the wines work? They invite a panel of ten independent expert wine judges every week. They ask them to taste 40 wines each week (that is 2000 a year!) and score all the wines blind in a neutral environment at their premises. Blind wine tasting ensures that no judge is influenced by a label, the beauty of a wine farm or warmth of the host. As a member, you can order a selection of wines on line or just let them send you a selected mystery mixed case of the wine styles and varietals you prefer. Check out their website https://www.wineofthemonth.co.za/
Caroline Rillema of Caroline’s Fine Wines won an award for her own Celestina white blend and Jane Ferreira Eedes was there to collect an award for Vondeling
Some hopeful faces. The panel retastes the top 20 of each category every year and finds the champions. They want to award quality
Kathy Leaver Miller, Account and Marketing Manager at Wine-of-the Month Club
Asif Hoosen, Head of Marketing, Product and Public Relations at sponsor Audi South Africa, said that they "are very interested in the top winemakers, they want to know their 'back' stories and to be part of their future"
More intent wine people, with a glass of Johan Malan's winning Simonsig MCC Brut. This has won this category many times
Giscard Collard began the Awards ceremony
One of the slides showing the demographic of their orders nationwide
and another with the top 10 suppliers to the club
Pierre Waal, of Rijks gets his certificate as runner up in the Chenin Blanc category for the Reserve 2011 Chenin. The other runner up was Carl van der Merwe for the De Morgenzon Reserve
Alvi's Drift was awarded the Trophy for the Chenin blanc category with his Albertus Viljoen Chenin blanc 2015 (a Platter 5 star wine), collected here by owner Alvi van der Merwe
The Trophy of Winemaker of the Year went to Gerhard Swart of Flagstone
Some prizes were also awarded, this is some Laborie MCC for winemaker Stephanie Wiid of Fairview
Then it was time for some food to pair with the winning wines
Spicy chicken drumsticks, superb prawns, and fresh oysters,
Those drumsticks
A tray of canapés
Filo pastry quiches
A wicked selection of sweets, chocolates, biscuits and meringues
and a table full of the winning wines to taste
The trophy winners with Colin Collard, only missing Karl Lambour of Tokara who had to leave early
The individual cultivar winners for the Audi South Africa Wine Awards 2017 are:

  • Chenin Blanc: Alvi’s Drift Wines - Albertus Viljoen Chenin blanc 2015
  • Dry White Blend: De Morgenzon-  Maestro White
  • Sauvignon Blanc: Brampton Wines
  • Chardonnay: Pulpit Rock Wines
  • Bordeaux Blend: Bellevue Wine Estate - Bellevue Tumara 2008
  • Cabernet Sauvignon: Wellington Wines 
  • Merlot: Bayede Royal Wines 
  • Pinotage: Flagstone Wines - Writer's Block Pinotage
  • Shiraz: Stony Brook Vineyards - Syrah reserve
  • MCC: Simonsig  - Kaapse Vonkel

Posted by MENU at 9:20 pm 0 comments

Hillcrest launches new Saartjie wine range

Arno Smith, the winemaker at Hillcrest Wine Estate in Durbanville, invited us and other media to come and taste his newly released wines named after his rather cute Jack Russell terrier, Saartjie. Each of the four wines was paired with some tapas style food and a great evening was enjoyed by all. The wines are now available for tasting and buying at the Hillcrest tasting room.
This is Saartjie, the winemaker’s 2 year old Jack Russell terrier who is his constant companion and his muse and a loved and valued member of the team
Winemaker and viticulturist Arno Smith. He was appointed general winemaking assistant to then winemaker Graeme (Curly) Reed and he made the Sauvignon Blanc and the Rosé, In 2016 he was appointed General Manager and Winemaker. This was his maiden vintage of the red wines
The farm is owned by senior partners in Haw and Ingles, a Cape based construction company specializing in road construction and rehabilitation. Besides wine, they also produce olives, olive oil and now a range of craft beers
Broadcaster Guy MacDonald gets some love
We began the tasting with the Saartjie 2017 Semillon. Made in old white wine barrels, it is in the oxidative style. They allow it to ferment naturally in the barrels and add French oak staves. They made 1 barrel in 2016 which is now sold out, and 1,000 bottles in 2017. Oxidative whiffs, with honeysuckle perfume and 'fine herbes'. Nice limes and cooked apple on the palate, rounded mutton fat texture, as you should find in Semillon, a pinch of Durbanville salt and the wood supports but doesn't show on the palate. A good, enjoyable wine, especially with food
The menu
The Semillon proved itself as a food wine as it went very well with the two dishes served to us: an unusual but good apple and camembert Strudel with figs...
... and cooked pears, gorgonzola and walnuts on a quite tough pastry biscuit.
Then we tasted the 2016 Malbec. Huge notes of expensive French oak on the nose with a little violet. It is a dark, almost black garnet in colour and has intense fruit on both the nose and palate. This is a 10 year wine. Dark berries , cherries, plums and chalky grippy tannins with more violets on the end and some good fruit acidity to help it last the distance. Our favourite wine of the evening and we will try to keep our bottle as long as possible. Lots of quality
This was served with Beetroot and goats cheese
and a rather sweet spicy butternut soup with a parmesan cracker
Then the 2016 Cabernet Franc Still very young this also has lots of incense French oak on the nose with some herbs, with red and black berries. Soft and sweet fruit on the palate with some salty liquorice. It ends with chalky tannins and supporting fruit acid, with a little wildness thrown in
We had this with morsels of good roast pork on top of carrot puree and topped with a very sweet spicy apple chutney ...
... and rather dry chicken koftas on humus, topped with a nice moist smoky paprika tomato relish
Then the 2016 Petit Verdot, which was very popular in the room. It has intense perfume, cassis, coffee mocha on the nose, soft and sweet on the palate with good fruit and a kick of acidity on the end to help it last. This will sell well, it is a good expression of the grape
Accompanied by some rare tuna chunks, seared on the bottom, topped with sesame and rolled cucumber ...
... and awesome rare roast beef slices on crisp rosti with good French mustard, the dish of the evening and so good with the wine
Desserts to tempt were date and coconut balls and extremely moreish dark chocolate Rocky Road chunks which went well with the good coffee -they should sell these in the shop. Lynne bought her annual 3 kilos bucket of black olives from the restaurant shop, a bargain at R220. We thoroughly enjoyed the evening, the wines, food and the company. Thank you Hillcrest
Posted by MENU at 12:27 pm 0 comments
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