A brace of wine lunches on Thursday and Friday had two things in common: the wines we potted (surely tasted? ed.) were all enumerated. 282 in the case of Elgin Ridge, the digits are the height in metres above mean sea level while 2, 3 and 5 in the case of Constantia Glen are the number of cultivars in the blends.

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Quite how you make a blend was the topic of conversation over delicious platters of charcuterie, cheese and salmon yesterday. There seem to be three models:

1) hire an expensive French consultant as they do at Morgenster with Pierre Lurton of Cheval Blanc fame, in the frame;
2) ask a mouthy online wine retailer to cross-check a French consultant as they do at Constantia Glen;
3) hold a countrywide series of blending lunches and ask the folks you expect to buy the result to choose their favourite blend, which is what happens at De Toren.

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Which algorithm produces the best results? I’ve taken part in (3) and can report it is the most fun plus from a sales and marketing point of view, it has a lot going for it.