Cape Town limbers up for Big Bottle Festival

With less than two weeks remaining before Jörg Pfützner unleashes his Big Bottle Festival on Friday 24th at the Cellars-Hohenort in Constantia, Cape Town hipsters have taken to using big bottles to train their biceps for pouring. Here is David Cope from Alphabetical training at Clarke’s on Bree Street yesterday.

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One up on big bottles is barrels and Jacques Wentzel has donated one full of Shiraz (or Syrah, as they call it in Franschhoek) for Alan Pick’s Wagu & Wine Auction which clashes with Big Bottle in the diary.

What a pity, as I’m the auctioneer. Still the cause is a good one – to send the final year of Elsenburg to France for a study tour. Vital if the industry is to move beyond parochial cellar palate syndrome and ditto for employment prospects for the students if the class of 2012 has the same success rate as vintage 2011 in finding full-time employment – zero.

But if they can’t make it as winemakers, perhaps Elsenburg can retrain as personal trainers for which throwing barrels or big bottles around provides a good CV.