The first show at my Pendock Wine Gallery @ Taj opens on Thursday at 6pm and is called Pinotage: Naughty Boy of SA Wine. Our exhibitions all last for a month and consist of six wines which we regard as six works of art, sold as a collection. Naughty Boys is curated by the judges of the ABSA Top Ten Pinotage Competition who choose 20 wines blind from the 100+ submissions from which a Top Ten was announced this afternoon. So how fortunate that my Super Six ended up as Top Ten wines and proof that blind tastings work!

As blogger Drizzle and Dip remarked at lunch “why is it that the hottest guys made the top ten wines?” Hot guys were seriously needed at the Landtscap Function Venue in Switzerbosch this afternoon as the mercury plunged to alpine readings and snow glittered on the Simonsberg and Helderberg. Here are two of the hottest hunks: Jacques Wentzel from Black Elephant and William Wilkinson from Wildekrans. Both super sixers and top tenners.

On the subject of mountains, the first entries of wines for the Checkers Battle of die Berge Competition have already been lodged and Simonsberg poll position goes to Laibach while the early bird of the Helderberg is Somerbosch. Even if summer was not on the Stellenbosch menu today and Sunday is the first day of Spring.