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.
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.
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.