.: The Cape Wine Academy celebrates 40 years

Thursday, October 10, 2019

The Cape Wine Academy celebrates 40 years

We were very happy to be invited to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Cape Wine Academy. You may not know that we met while we were studying at the Academy for our Diplomas in Wine in the mid 1990s. The celebration was held in a marquee on the lawn in front of the Red House restaurant at Nederburg in Paarl on a near perfect Spring day

The restaurant is housed in the Nederburg manor house, an historic Cape Dutch building, built in 1800

Tables laid for a large crowd

Greg de Bruyn CWM and Mary Lou Nash CWM

Each Cape Wine Master had brought along a special wine (or two) to be enjoyed with lunch

This was Mary Lou's offering of her Black Pearl 2004 Oro

We had so many choices to make from wonderful wines, and we managed to taste a few spectacular wines

The wines on the first table. They were all excellent, but our favourites were the Zonnebloems, the Raats Cabernet Francs

and the Vergelegen "V". We certainly enjoyed a glass of the Veuve Clicquot Champagne

The second table also had some very fine wines The 1993 KWV Pinotage showed how well this varietal can age

We loved the Le Riche Cabernet and the Muratie Ronnie Melck Shiraz.

The aged Lustau East India Solera Sherry was quite magnificent

and many others were also after a taste of the rare Zonnebloem 1983 Cabernet and 1984 Shiraz

Bennie Howard CWM, Phyllis Hands CWM, Shona Anderson, Group Human Resources Manager: Meridian Holdings and Academy Principal Harry Melck CWM. It was lovely to have Phyllis Hands attend as she was the first Principal of the Cape Wine Academy; she taught us in her last year there - our first year on the Diploma course

We sit down to lunch

We got to know dear Allan Mullins CWM when he lectured at the Cape Wine Academy and have been friends ever since

He is a man who can teach one an enormous lesson about wine and Champagne - and life!

Bennie Howard with the book The Grapevine, a complete bound collection of newsletters published in the 1970s and 1980s by the Cape Wine Academy and the Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery (predecessor of Distell). It was a major resource which was used as a learning tool by the Academy and SFW in the early days

Bennie chatting to Phyllis about her time as Principal. She was a journalist in wine before taking on the job. She said she was so grateful to the talented staff, viticulturists and winemakers who were so helpful to her. She and Dave Hughes wrote the first book on Cape Wine together with a budget of only R500. She said she worked very closely with WSET in the UK to set up the Academy. Sadly, Dave Hughes could not attend as he was in hospital having an operation

and Harry Melck CWM, the current Principal, told us about some of the exciting new changes happening at the Academy

Shona Anderson, Group Human Resources Manager at Meridian Holdings

Their strategy is 'to be Significant, to be Accessible and Inclusive'

They will shortly announce a partnership that will get people excited about wine at the starter level

Duimpie Bayly and Bennie Howard were two of the first three Cape Wine Masters when the programme was started. Duimpie gave a very amusing speech and said "I am the oldest person here today. How to get older? Drink wine every day". He says people put ISA behind his name as well as CWM. What does it mean? "If still alive". He says Bennie might have scored more points doing Cape Wine Master than he did, but he has more degrees than Bennie! Phyllis Hands reassured him that he scored only one or two points below Bennie