Last night we hosted a talk and tasting on Shiraz and all its facets. La Motte Cellarmaster and Chairman of the SA Shiraz Association, Edmund Terblanche explained various styles of Shiraz at the hand of a tasting while South African authority when it comes to food and wine matching, Katinka van Niekerk, guided guests through a Shiraz and food pairing.

Edmund started with a discussion on the history and background of Shiraz and how it ended up in France, South Africa and Australia.

Explaining the different styles, guests started the tasting with the 2005 Domaine des Martinelles Croze Hermitage, an Old World style French wine with little new oak, a lower alcohol, less pronounced fruit and an elegant character. While this style of wine might be unfamiliar to the South Africa palate, it has the gentle easiness, finesse and freshness of a typical Old World style wine.

Then followed a total opposite style of wine, the New World 2005 Torbreck Run Big from the Barossa Valley with its distinct minty character. This style is opulent with masses of up-front fruit.

The South African example from the same vintage was the 2005 La Motte Shiraz, offering a bit of both worlds. As Edmund explained, the South African wine is a bit like where South Africa lies on the map – somewhere between Australia and Europe. Being a New World wine, the La Motte Shiraz has the sunny fruit but the style tends to be more Old Wordly and less upfront than the Torbreck.

To explain that the varietal differences are not only based on country of origin, Edmund then presented a tasting of 2013 Shiraz wines from different site-specific vineyards representing four different climatic regions in South Africa – Franschhoek, Paarl, Walker Bay and Elim.

And to conclude this interesting comparison, Edmund showed that while origin and terroir play an important role in determining the style of wine, winemaking methods are also important. He explained this at the hand of a tasting of two 2013 Shiraz wines – one matured in new oak with the tannins and oak very prominent at this stage of the wine’s development and one in older barrels which is at the moment more accessible.