Hats off to Rootstock for shining the spotlight on SA wine competitions, although their two speakers are both from the moneymaking side of the lucrative cottage industry. Which is a huge opportunity lost as both speakers have conflicts of interest in the matter under discussion. Or business as usual as they call it in SA wine.
Michael Fridjhon owns the Old Mutual Toasty Wine Show while Charles Hopkins is chairman of Veritas and moonlights as convener of the SBIG Snow White and the seven dwarfs Sauvignon Blanc competition panel, the annual source of much hilarity as they overlook all entries from Constantia and fixate on thiols versus pyrazines and so produce a selection totally useless to the SA consumer. The Toasty, Veritas and Snow White show place consumers way down their list of priorities.
They all charge hefty entrance fees of around R1000 a bottle and are nice little earners for the entrepreneurs involved. Sponsors are in place so it’s not clear why producers have to pay too, unless its to boost profits.
We pioneered a free to producers competition with RECM three years ago and focused on Best Value wines as this is how most people buy the stuff, apart from label drinkers and Platter poephols who need to see a label to have an opinion about a wine. This year RECM passed the sponsorship baton to WellsFaber and tastings start in March, after harvest. Of course our brave model was hijacked last year by Robin von Holdt who has a poor grasp of our best value concept and charges producers to play, missing the point completely.
Taj Hotel sommelier Pearl Oliver is panel chairperson and all the blind tasters are sommeliers:
Greg Mutambe from the 12 Apostles
Luvo Ntezo from the One and Only
Joseph Dafana from La Colombe and
Tinashe Nyamudoka from the Test Kitchen
A refreshing splash of colour and youth on the anemic and aging SA tasting scene with an added advantage to producers of potentially catching the eye of the people who buy wine for Cape Town’s best restaurants and hotels.
The summer and autumn tasting schedule is simple:
March 16 new whites
March 30 new reds
April 13 new bubblies
April 20 new roses
May 11 new fortifieds and dessert wines
May 25 new whites
June 8 new reds
June 22 bubblies
and tasting left overs will be made available for the public to taste. Who knows, they might even buy a bottle, which doesn’t happen often with most competitions.
To play, producers need only deliver two bottles of their new or current releases to the Pendock Wine Gallery at the Taj Hotel on St. George’s Mall and Wale Street in the Motor City – the new nickname for Cape Town after Elon Musk announced plans to open his first outlet in Africa.
