The Wine Week Ahead

“Beware the Ides of March” said the soothsayer to the Caesar. In our case, it’s “beware minty Merlots” as three dozen will be available for tasting in the foyer of the Taj Hotel between 5-7pm on Monday. For this is the second of our Good Value Guru Soirées. If you’re studying at the Cape Wine Academy or are a WSET student, we know you’re short of wonga (those free tasting samples cost plentsch), so entrance is half price at R50 and this includes snacks. Or kitty litter as we call them in the trade.

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The humorous photo above was vouchsafed by a connection in Carajas, convinced that the notorious Whale Cottage blogger was in town recently to advise on cleaning of guest houses for this year’s Brazilian World Cup. The cottage is a self-appointed tourism judge and his comments made from inside his glass Palace of Pubes in Camps Bay are invariably hilarious. Like his take on the gala dinner for World Design Capital 2014 from a moral high ground below sea level:

This is one of the hardest blogposts I have written, with a moral dilemma of being an invited guest at what one expected to be a social highlight for the year. The Gala Dinner for Cape Town hosting World Design Capital 2014 turned out to be an embarrassment in poor organisation and food! 

On the subject of judges, the French team have arrived to judge Christophe Durand’s Taj Classic Wine Trophy Show. A bit like the Wine Lizard’s Old Mutual Trophy Show but without the dodgy bankster connection and the Carmen Curler bolla. Unlike Old Mutual, entries closed with natural cork are welcome.

I’m MC’ing the Classic awards dinner on Friday and am considering lashing out on a bowtie which seems to be the qualification you need to be appointed as a visiting professor at UCT Business School. But come to think of it, I’ll pass on a UCT post as academic qualifications for wine are a non sequitur, as Caesar might have said if he’d bewared the ides.

Vinous paparazzi may want to note that Richard Rowe, the man who saved KWV wine, will be opening his exhibition Richard’s Rockstars at our Wine Gallery @ Taj on Thursday at 6pm. Two of Richard’s unexpected rockstars are

1974 KWV Swartland Pinotage
2012 Côtes du Rhône – Château Saint Cosme

which should impress Olivier Poels,editor and managing partner of La Revue du VIN de France. It’s all a bit like Tom Jones and Sir Cliff Richard fronting for Morrissey.

Disclosure: the author was a curator for World Design Capital 2014.