WOSA Sommelier Scandal – the other Croc drops

They say bad news comes in threes and SA wine will be wishing when it comes to WOSA, three disasters will be enough for a week. For last night the itinerary for the case (12 bottles) of international sommeliers read:

Free evening – dinner in Stellenbosch
Dinner at various restaurants – DeCameron, Oppie Dorp, Wild Peacock
Accommodation: Oude Werf (Stellenbosch)

The Dorp Street dozies probably found a shortage of hosts for their illustrious guests for everyone was at the Taj in Cape Town, celebrating the launch of The World of First Growths with stunning wines from Hamilton Russell, Lothian, Glenelly, Vergelegen, G., Diemersdal etc. This is real First Growth stuff and not the embarrassing jokes of Tim Atkin who blew the last tawdry shreds of his credibility blogging a Classed Growth laundry list of his SA winemaking fans, earlier this year. The most ridiculous piece of presumption since his last one – Top 100 SA Wines.

Still at least he got some mediocre snaps of the St. James bathing huts out of that jolly. So WOSA succeeds in having the International Somms miss the CWG Auction, Veritas and now the launch of one of the most important initiatives in Fine Wine in SA. Heck, the Taj even has its own French sommelier: the tantalizing Tatiana Marcetteau. A colleague to the International Somms.

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Above, TWOFG strongman Rene Dehn wields an outsize bottle of G. 2012. Is this the most expensive bottle of SA wine? Of course why show it to foreign sommeliers, including:

Christina Krenn from Tantris Restaurant in Germany
Joachim Bauwens from Restaurant Bacchus in Belgium
Jasper van den Hoogen from The Grand in the Netherlands
Heidi Irene Hansen from Norske Selskab in Oslo
Beatrice from Becher Eriks Vinbar in Gondolen Sweden
Antti Uusitalo from Savoy Restaurant in Finland
Christian Zhang from Yacht Club on the Bund in China (Beijing) SIC!!!
Anna Sviridenko from Stroganoff Steak House in Russia
Will Predhomme from Oliver & Bonacini’s in Canada
Morgan Harris from Corkbuzz in the USA
Terry Kandylis from The Ledbury in the UK
Jordi Chan from The Wine Gallery in Hong Kong

My own International Somm of the minute is Joakim Hansi Blackadder who was necking Burgundy with the brus at Ottima Cibo yesterday. He brought his own pussy along and so didn’t bad temperdly agitate for the tasting to speed up, like evil Dr. No, typing languidly into his iPad of Doom.

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The WOSA Wonders probably wonder why a foreign sommelier would be interested in SA First Growths at all. Heck, these party planners are so dof, they think the Shanghai Bund is in Beijing. Strange, as WOSA heavyweight Andre Morgenthal no doubt had to take a few for the team, selecting which Michelin Three Star joints to include.

But I do hope Jordi Chan has a chance to stop by our own humble Wine Gallery in the Taj Hotel. Perhaps this will be the beginning of a chain? On Monday we sold 13 cases of Naughty Boy Pinotage to Peru which is a lot more that WOSA ever managed to achieve in the whole of South America on R34 million a year.