50 Shades of Amber

Forget about 50 shades of grey. It’s 50 shades of amber for proper seduction as we found out yesterday judging 62 dessert wines in the Quixotic annual quest to find the Diners Club Winemaker of the Year. Experienced Aussie international wine show judge, winemaker and reigning IWC White Winemaker of the Year Neil McGuigan (below) had no problem finding 8 of the 10 golds in the golden line-up.

20121003-074516.jpg

“Do you chaps win all the trophies for best stickies in the world?” he asked after the tasting. Coming the week after Razvan Macici’s 2007 Nederburg Edelkeur battled to reach R85 a half bottle at the Nederburg Auction, quality was clearly not a primary concern for those bidding. For as Christian Eedes, South Africa’s version of Robert Parker, noted “I scored it 20/20 and will be first in the queue at Ultraliquors.”

Yet another reason for one of the Big Five supermarket chains to snap up Ultra? For Mark Norrish, the Ultra wine buyer, clearly knows the difference between wine and toilet rolls. Two FMCGs that are easily confused as “the most powerful wine buyer in the world, Costco’s lead wine buyer Annette Alvarez-Petersadmits.