Two South African teams will be competing for world honours on Saturday.

While the Springboks take on Wales in the Rugby World Cup quarter final, Team South Africa is in France where they will be participating in the World Blind Wine Tasting Challenge where they will compete against 19 other countries.

The South African national team comprises captain Ralph Reynolds, a sommelier at Karibu Restaurant in the V&A Waterfront; Joseph T. Dhafana from La Colombe in Cape Town; Anita Streicher Nel who works at Morgenhof wine estate and Veronica Plaatjies from Restaurant Mosaic outside Pretoria. Earlier this year Plaatjies was the winner of the three year Restaurant Mosaic Sommelier Protégé Bursary and was selected from a search held nationwide in conjunction with the South African Wine Tasting Championships.
They were accompanied by Team South Africa manager Jean-Vincent Ridon.

“While we are hoping to do well in the challenge, it is not all about winning. It demonstrates that wine is a common language around the world,” he said adding that South Africa would be competing against teams from countries such as France, Brazil, Canada and Japan with the US entering for the first time.