If pizza is the people’s food then Chenin Blanc is surely the people’s wine. So off to Burrata at the Old Biscuit Mill to pair Chenin and pizza for the Spier Secret Festival at the end of October. The aim is a simple one: to get Chenin into each pizzeria in SA. For heaven’s sake, let’s retire WOSA and use the R35 bar to get Chenin ‘fridges into each pizzeria in SA. Next year, use the cash to promote Bordeaux blends. And so forth and so on.  Focus on food, not fickle fashion.

Speaking of which, pizza is a so much better vehicle for marketing wine than the braai idea (or braii as Andre Morgenthal hilariously punted it in Canada) that WOSA wasted millions on.  As we discovered matching a truffle oil and prosciutto pizza with the rich 21 Gables Chenin 2010 from Spier at lunch today. With Jean Engelbrecht’s Donkiesbaai Steen 2011, a seafood pizza with or without chili aioli? shown below, with yellow aioli on one half and the other, naked.

We’re looking for pizzeria partners in all the major centres and had hoped to entice David Higgs (below, with Neil Grant) into making pizza at the Saxon. But alas, his new restaurant opens at the end of October so he’ll be prisoner of the kitchen in Sandton.

Interested restaurateurs are invited to make contact to climb onto the pizza and Chenin Blanc bandwagon.  Entrance free.