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Wednesday, September 10, 2014

IWSC wine competition results announced

Bright and early and just a little bleary eyed after our Chilli Festival the night before, we arrived at a new venue for us, the Shimmy Beach Club, which is right on the edge of the breakwater area in Cape Town harbour. We were promised and were given coffee and breakfast with a glass of one of the winning wines, the deliciously crisp and lean Graham Beck Blanc de Blancs 2009, a wine that is scooping lots of international awards, while we heard about this year’s awards

Bright and early and just a little bleary eyed after our Chilli Festival dinner the night before, we arrived at a new venue for us, the Shimmy Beach Club, which is right on the edge of the breakwater area in Cape Town harbour. We were promised and were given coffee and breakfast with a glass of one of the winning wines, the deliciously crisp and lean Graham Beck Blanc de Blancs 2009, a wine that is scooping lots of international awards, while we heard about this year’s awards

Shimmy with its man-made “beach” and cube pool, early on a chilly weekday morning

Inside the main restaurant

Our meeting was held upstairs, inside the Bunnahabhain Whisky Bar. Sadly, these bottles of Bunnahabhain are empty

Maryna Strachan of Wine Extra and IWSC Judge Dave Hughes get the room ready

Maryna pours us a glass of the 2009 Graham Beck Blanc de Blancs

She announces the winners of the Gold medals. The Trophies will only be announced in London at the Guildhall on the 23rd of November. If you'd like to see the link to all the medal winners, go to the IWSC web site www.iwsc.net/

Dave Hughes tells us how the awards work. This year 632 South African wines were entered. They are judged by a panel of local judges with some visiting overseas judges. All the judges must have a formal wine qualification. The same happens in each of the Southern Hemisphere wine countries whose producers enter. In this competition, all the medal winning wines are scientifically tested. All the gold medal winning wines will then go to the UK to be judged for the trophies. They use a 100 point scoring system. IWSC is a privately owned-for-profit company. Judging might not take place here next year. Judges asked to go to London to judge do not have their fares paid. They are all volunteers and only have their local UK travel costs paid while they are there

Taking lots of notes and asking lots of questions

The venerable David Hughes CWM

Mike Bampfield Duggan of Wine Concepts, Kalinka Lombard of Wine Style and Shante Hutton, Wine News editor of Wine.co.za listen attentively

The breakfast menu for the meeting

A huge double portion of eggs Benedict with smoked salmon was, sadly, very, very salty

Corn and thyme fritters with scrambled egg, small chipolata sausages and a sweet onion jam

The gold medal winning 2009 MCC Blanc de Blancs from Graham Beck

A young kelp gull takes to the air

It’s a busy harbour. This is the old prison boat Susan Kruger being used as a ferry to take tourists to Robben Island, passing a barge tug

The list of Gold Outstanding and Gold Medal winners is:

Gold Outstanding

Van Ryn's Distillers Reserve 12 Year Old - Distell Ltd

Oude Meester Souverein 18 Year Old - Distell Ltd

Van Ryn Collectors Reserve 20 Year Old - Distell Ltd

Richelieu 10 Year Old Vintage Brandy - Distell Ltd

Oude Meester Reserve 12 Year Old - Distell Ltd

Van Ryn's Fine Cask Reserve 15 Year Old - Distell Ltd

Jordan Cobblers Hill 2010 - Jordan Wine Estate

Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 - Jordan Wine Estate

KWV Grape Brandy 12 Year Old - KWV SA

KWV Grape Brandy 15 Year Old - KWV SA

KWV Grape Brandy 20 Year Old - KWV SA

Abraham Perold Tributum 2010 - KWV SA

Kika 2013 - Miles Mossop

Nederburg Winemaster's Reserve Noble Late Harvest 2012 - Nederburg Wines (Pty) Ltd

Nederburg Private Bin Edelkeur 2011 - Nederburg Wines (Pty) Ltd

Nederburg Private Bin Eminence 2010 - Nederburg Wines (Pty) Ltd

Gold

Lyngrove Platinum Shiraz 2011 - Baarsma (Pty) Ltd

Beau Belle Geneesbos 2012 - Beau Belle Farm (Pty) Ltd

The Bernard Series Small Barrel SMV 2012 - Bellingham

Beyerskloof Field Blend 2009 - Beyerskloof

Suider Terras Sauvignon Blanc 2013 - Bloemendal Estate

Boschkloof Syrah 2012 - Boschkloof Wines

Constantia Glen FIVE 2010 - Constantia Glen Winery (Pty) Ltd

DMZ Syrah 2012 - De Morgenzon

Delheim Edelspatz Noble Late Harvest 2013 - Delheim Wines

Diemersfontein Carpe Diem Pinotage 2012 - Diemersfontein Wines

Klipdrift - Distell Ltd

Three Ships Single Malt 10 Year Old - Distell Ltd

Amarula - Distell Ltd

Mainstay Island Fusion - Distell Ltd

Bain's Cape Mountain Whisky 5 Year Old - Distell Ltd

Driehoek Shiraz 2012 - Driehoek Wines

Graham Beck Blanc de Blancs 2009 - Graham Beck Wines

Graham Beck Pheasants' Run 2013 - Graham Beck Wines

Hartenberg The Eleanor 2012 - Hartenberg Estate

Hartenberg Shiraz 2010 - Hartenberg Estate

JC Le Roux Scintilla 2008 - JC Le Roux

Kleine Zalze Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 - Kleine Zalze Wines

KWV The Mentors Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2013 - KWV SA

KWV The Mentors Noble Late Harvest 2012 - KWV SA

Le Bonheur Prima 2009 - Le Bonheur Estate

Nederburg Private Bin Eminence 2009 - Nederburg Wines (Pty) Ltd

Nederburg Private Bin Edelkeur 2009 - Nederburg Wines (Pty) Ltd

Neethlingshof The Six Flowers 2013 - Neethlingshof Estate

Oldenburg Vineyards Chenin Blanc 2013 - Oldenburg Vineyards

Stellenzicht Rhapsody 2007 - Stellenzicht Vineyards

Vergelegen Estate Red 2003 - Vergelegen Wines (Pty) Ltd

Warwick Estate Trilogy 2007 - Warwick Wine Estate

Wildekrans Chenin Blanc Barrel Select Reserve 2013 - Wildekrans Wine Estate

Wildekrans Shiraz Barrel Select Reserve 2012 - Wildekrans Wine Estate

You can see the other awards by drilling through all 6110 winners at http://www.iwsc.net/search2014/wine

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The Bombay Brasserie Chilli Festival at The Taj

We are great curry fans and we like curries of all types, meat, chicken and vegetarian. So we were excited to be invited to The Taj Hotel for the Chilli Festival currently being run in the Bombay Brasserie. They sent a car for us, which meant that John could really enjoy the wine and beer paired with the food and not worry about driving home. This small but perfectly decorated restaurant seats, on average, only 40 people, and has lots of well trained staff of character and good manners. We had a wonderful time

Mountaineering up our steep street to ‘mount’ the huge Range Rover sent by the Taj to fetch us. Royal treatment indeed

The glamorous Bombay Brasserie

A choice of cocktails

or some interesting Craft beers which do match curry very well

We decided to taste and share a Robson’s Durban Pale Ale as our aperitif. It was excellent

First a Tazza platter of crisp Indian nibbles, poppadoms and crackers and crudités served with a tomato dipping sauce

Then an Amuse. This is a Chaat, a popular street food in India - a dumpling filled with finely ground lentils and covered in sweet yoghurt and a mango chutney

The Chilli Festival menu

And the Vegetarian options. Many are the same. We each ordered one version and shared the dishes that were different on each menu.

Seeing the rather extensive menu, and you do get all the courses, we were relieved that the soup is, thankfully, a small portion in a cup. It has a tomato and lentil base with tempered spices and pink peppercorns which add a lovely flavour. We were served small wine samples in ISO glasses and with the soup came the Sterhuis Astra white blend 2009

We meet Harpreet Longani, the Executive sous chef, who is married to the Executive chef. They have been at Bombay Brasserie since it opened in Cape Town and both are from the Punjab

The restaurant has some lovely touches, like the decorations on the back of the comfortable chairs, the huge glass chandeliers and the marvellous Indian mirrors

Restaurant manager Stephen Petersen

The starter platters. On the right is the vegetarian option: Tikka paneer tossed in warm Jwala chilli powder, a salsa of corn, pineapple and Degi chilli, topped with popped sago and spicy fried broccoli. On the left a prawn coated in yellow chilli, a moist and tender piece of fried butterfish with birds eye chilli and a spicy chicken ‘ stick’ kebab. This was served with a rather oxidised Nederburg Viognier 2004 which had a sweet perfumed peach nose, but was more like a dry sherry than a table wine

The non Vegetarian selection of starters

The Vegetarian platter of starters

Tatiana Marcetteau, Sommelier at The Taj, talking to us about the wine pairings

What steaming delight is heading our way?

It's a beautiful refreshing palate cleanser of lemon and lime sorbet on a bed of dry ice.

Main course is a selection of three curries, pilau rice and a butter nan. The vegetarian options were a delicious and very warm mushroom and water chestnut curry, a soft and gentle yellow dhal spiced with patti chillies and Bhindi (ladies fingers) served with fenugreek leaves and Byodgi chilli.

The non vegetarian options were a mutton and lentil dalcha with Taddapolly chillies – taste resembled a good Rogan Josh, Chicken morsels in a creamy red pepper curry with Red peppers that were really smoky like Spanish smoked paprika and the Bhindi. The pulao rice had peppered dumplings and potato in it. The Naan was really delicious and so difficult to resist. We had this course with two wines: The Goose 2008 Expression red blend, which was very fruity and smooth and a Nederburg entry level Winemaster's Reserve 2012 white blend.

A special treat was served with dessert, the Double Gold Nederburg 2012 Noble Late Harvest, based on Chenin Blanc with a touch of Muscat de Frontignac

Dessert was a soft and squidgy fried pancake spiced with fennel and black pepper with a vanilla custard, a chilli kulfi ice cream and a fruity chilli ‘splash’. Two coffees and our chauffeur was waiting outside to take us home

A lovely evening, thank you all at the Taj

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New World Wines trade show at the Vineyard

Each of the Trade Wine tastings we go to has a different location and also a completely different character. It depends very much on the personality of the people involved, both organisers and winemakers, and on the wines, the warmth of the welcome and the venue. Monday night saw us happily enjoying all of the above at the Vineyard for this fun tasting of some very good wines.

Bev Murray Sales Manager, W Cape New World Wine Agency