Top image: Anton Smal from Newstead Wines

Plettenberg Bay winery Newstead Wines has become the first producer outside of the traditional Western Cape winelands to be crowned overall winner of the Amorim Cap Classique Challenge, South Africa’s leading competition focussed exclusively on selecting the country’s top Cap Classique sparkling wines. In a ground-breaking announcement, Newstead MCC Blanc de Blancs 2015 not only took a Double Gold Medal and the Trophy for Best Blanc de Blancs, but was also named the Top Scoring Cap Classique at this year’s Amorim Challenge.

Top image: Cathy Marston

The winners of this year’s Amorim Cap Classique Challenge are to be announced on 30 September. Well-known wine writer and educator Cathy Marston, who has been judging this competition since 2013, gives her impressions of this year’s entries as well as Cap Classique in general. 

Cap Classique producers have until 22 July to submit their wines for this year’s Amorim Cap Classique Challenge, which takes place in a milestone year for its sponsors, international cork company Amorim. Founded in 1870 on the banks of the Douro River at Vila Nova de Gaia, Amorim this year celebrates its 150^th anniversary as a producer of cork stoppers, the natural product recognised as the essential partner to sparkling and other wines.

As we collectively navigate through this crisis, I wish to express my best wishes for the period ahead as well as to update you as far as our local operations are concerned.

South African wine farm, Spier, won the Amorim Biodiversity Award at the Drinks Business Green Awards 2019 at a ceremony at The Ivy in London on Wednesday.

The natural relationship between clay and wine extends beyond the water-retention abilities and agreeable pH levels that make clay soils conducive to viticulture. For close on 2 700 years clay has been used to make vessels for the fermentation and holding of wine. Since those first dubious drops of grape juice were poured into clay pots by the winemakers of ancient Greece, Georgia and Rome, the containers have hardly changed in shape and size. Amphorae, as they are known, are today not only eye-catching aesthetic complements to wineries the world over, but represent a modern vinous movement aimed at capturing the natural purity of fermenting and fermented wine.

Portuguese cork producer Amorim is to help spearhead the Stellenbosch wine region’s commitment to fighting climate change after Stellenbosch became the first wine region in the Southern Hemisphere to sign the Porto Protocol, a global initiative originating in Portugal aimed at reducing carbon emissions and fighting climate change in agriculture regions.

Top image: Danielle Jacobs from Boschendal doing a perfect sabrage.

William Kentridge, South Africa’s most important living artist, is currently having the most comprehensive exhibition of his work to date shown at Zeitz MOCAA, South Africa’s leading arts centre under the title Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings To Work.

Image Caption: Judging Cap Classique. From left, Sydney Mello, Heidi Duminy, Cathy Marston, Elunda Basson, Joaquim Sá (MD of Amorim SA) and Paul Gerber.