Imagine the dude hauling barrels around your nearest wine cellar was rocking out in a pair of these bad boys? Would certainly beat those rather naff Blundstone boots so ubiquitous with winemakers. The Nike Zoom Stefan Janoski ‘Vineyard.‘ The designer’s dad has a vineyard in California, he designed some shoes and this is the result. Wine-stained tan canvas Nike’s, limited edition of course. Probably damned pricey, but something quirky and cool.
Friday night’s WE ♥ REAL BEER festival was insane. Yes, there were loads of people. Too many. But there was tons of fun. And awesome beers. Hilarious moments. Sticky flip-flops. Broken glasses. Lager-stained t-shirts. A standard assortment of madness, really. Though if you weren’t launched, I reckon you wouldn’t enjoy it.
Needless to say I had a great time.
Something new this time was the choice of beer glass. Instead of the previous and typical conical pint glass, we got big tankards, with thick glass handles. Similar to the kind of thing you’d get at a medieval tavern. They presented a whole bunch of different ways to hold, which, if you’re a philosophical deep-thinking highly intellectual contemplative academic beer drinker like me, you can use to get a hold on the drinker…
The Standard. Four fingers inside, thumb securing on top. Preferred method by professionals. Reveals responsibility and signs of maturity. A doer, not a talker. Trustworthy. Level-headed when sober. Likes craft beer. Hates bullshit.
The Hang-Ten. Made popular by Ohlssons-drinking surfers in the 70′s. Easy-going drinker. Mellow. Enjoys a bit of reggae. Glass half-full kinda person. Chilled, but vicious if you try steal a sip. Likes music festivals. Hates politics.
The Hard-Man. Pinky finger floating under handle shows independence. And a challenge. A take-it-or-leave-it kinda drinker. Strong worded. Stronger armed. “I only need four fingers to hold this beer. I could fuck you up with just my pinky.” Likes Bruce Springsteen. Hates Amelie.
The Text. Someone that likes to connect. Communicates well. Extroverted. Claw technique offers unparalleled flexibility to hold beer and cellphone while speed-typing an SMS, Facebook post or twitter message. “So much awesomeness at @weloverealbeer #drunk #wahoooeey!” Likes Blackberry’s. Hates signal loss.
The Nugget. Double hand technique offers maximum tankard security. Holds onto their beer like it’s the last nugget of gold on earth. Problems with trust. Introverted. Doesn’t like strangers or crowds. Very wise though. And understanding. Likes security villages. Hates the mall.
The Thumb Master. Thumb-over the rim of the glass technique for added control when drinking. Drinker plays a lot of Master of The Thumbs. Can be found at Vida, thumb on table, waiting for someone to notice and do same. Playful. Enjoys a good romantic comedy. Likes drinking games. Hates white wine.
The Spread. Open-plan finger technique gives sense of ‘playing it cool.’ Laughs a lot. But can be serious. Enjoys the good things. But everything in order. Spontaneous. Uses the word ‘kiff’ a lot. Likes the beach. Hates angry people.
The Smash. Seldom seen technique more commonly seen in Northern Ireland and dodgy pubs outside Boksburg. Broken glass not highly efficient for beer drinking, but allows the drinker to show toughness to comrades. Someone with inner and outer strength. Enjoys a few pints. And then some. Not shy of a battle. Likes concrete bar counters. Hates bouncers.
The Waiter. Scoop technique allows beer to rest in palm of hand, like a tray. High-risk method. Danger of spillage 8/10. Someone that lives on the edge. Adventurous. Wild. Unpredictable. But very loyal. Likes roadtrips. Hates cubicles.
The Catapult. Swings the glass over clenched fist into face, beer ending in mouth (hopefully). Extremely risky. Liable to spill on clothing. Someone that is either very creative, or launched off their face. Impressive skills. Results uncertain. But always willing to give it a shot. Likes parties. Hates closing time.
The Clench. Another rarely seen technique, clenching the glass between the teeth to allow the hands to be completely free. Useful when having to carry large amounts of beer. Or when extremely lazy. Or wasted. A little bit crazy. Prone to letting out wolf howls randomly. Likes a good time. Hates haters.
You know you’re excited. Your mouth is salivating at the thought of tasty brews. Your knees are getting weak. You’re very, very thirsty. You need beer. Lots of it. And it’s coming. Yup, someone must have touched wood, tossed a dwarf or kissed their lucky stone because there’s another installment of the ridiculously popular craft beer festival and it’s only a week away. WE ♥ REAL BEER craft beer festival version 3.0 is on next Friday, 30th September. Put that in your diary. Do it now.
What’s it about? Same great venue. Same awesome breweries. But with some great new beers. Jack Black has a new pale ale out. The Brewers & Union boys have their Versus Goliath. Darling has their Bonecrusher Weiss. And there’s more – real artisan ciders from Eversons, Gone Fishing and Terra Madre. I’ve had the privilege of tasting the latter just once, and am really looking forward to more. There’s also music from the Dixie Swingers and rumour has it that there’ll be a home-brewing demonstration too.
Timing has also been cut back to the original 4pm – 11pm, which means 7 hours of pure unadulterated beer indulgence.
Get your tickets here at webtickets.co.za or at the door (best buy in advance and avoid the queue). Cost is R50 and includes a WE ♥ REAL BEER pint glass that you can keep by your bedside as a memento forever.
It was bound to happen, with all the hype around beer being just as good a pairing with food these days. Tokara host a beer vs. wine dinner this Tuesday night, using the best of wine from Tokara and craft beer from Brewers & Union. Naturally chef Richard Carstens has spent the last few weeks thinking up the perfect four-course menu as a platform for this standoff.
Now if you think this is going to just be a seriously indulgent night with way too much booze, you’re wrong. It’s going to be a seriously indulgent night with way too much amazing food and booze. Guests will be elegantly stuffing their faces and taking generous sips of beer, then repeating the process but with wine. Then long discussions will follow about the merits of each. Possibly. Perhaps more likely is that guests will just sit back and submit to a flavour festival like no other. Either way, it’s going to be awesome fun.
Tickets are R450 per person, which for a double-pairing and four-course meal by one of South Africa’s top chefs is pretty damned good, if you ask me. Since I have a deep love for beer, wine and anything edible, I’ll be there, trying to maintain some sort of decent decorum amongst the feeding frenzy. Or is that maintaining a feeding frenzy amongst the decent decorum? Let’s see what happens…
She said wine, he said beer! Tokara Restaurant, 6 September 2011. Bookings +27 (0) 21 885 2550 or email reservations@tokara.com. More info here.
Jörg Pfützner likes to get people drunk on very good wines. He did this very successfully for years as head sommelier at Aubergine restaurant. More recently he was responsible for the Constantia Fresh Festival, which in February saw people strolling on the lawns of Buitenverwachting sipping the very best Sauvignon Blanc from around South Africa while listening to reggae. This was a wine event that had a craft beer stand and included a burlesque dancing show. It made the usual wine festivals and shows look decidedly neolithic.
The riesling juggernaut (he’s renowned for his love for this grape varietal) is also known to throw lavish dinners. I attended one a few weeks back which some of the best foreign wines against some from the Elgin area. Held at his previous outpost of Aubergine, the evening involved ridiculously good food, a memorable speech on the concept of elegance and extravagant wines with expensive names like Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru, Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc and Chateau Valandraud. It also involved superb local wines and a huge German fellow who rolled a Dutch baseball bat on the Aubergine verandah that significantly changed the night for several guests, some still discussing the wines in a fuzzy tequila stupor at 3am. No names mentioned.
Latest from Jörg is The Big Bottle Festival, four indulgent events over three days in the luxurious confines of the Cellars-Hohenort Hotel in Constantia. Why should you care? Well, since it’s organised by Jörg, it’s undoubtedly going to be another prime example of organised hedonism. There are also some very fine fine-dining experiences with top chefs, the most accessible of which is the walk around tasting where Jörg’s chosen wine producers will pour from large-format bottles. Magnums (1.5L) of bubbly, Jeraboams (3L) of Shiraz and apparently a Melchior (18L) sent over from Portugal. Things generally end up fun at events where Jörg and standard-sized bottles are involved, so one can only imagine how this is going to end.
26th – 28th August, full details on their website, www.bigbottle.co.za.The walk-around tasting (with food from the top chefs included) on Saturday from 3pm – 9pm is where you probably want to be. Tickets R450pp.
Full list of exhibiting wines:
Beaumont, Botrivier
Buitenverwachting, Constantia
Stark Conde, Stellenbosch
Chamonix, Franschhoek
Cape Point Vineyards, Cape Point
L’Ormarins, Franschhoek
Creation, Hemel-en-Aarde
De Trafford, Stellenbosch
Groot Constantia, Constantia
The Hedonist, Swartland
Jordan, Stellenbosch
Klein Constantia, Constantia
Mullineux Wines, Swartland
Crystallum, Walker Bay
Newton Johnson, Hemel-en-Aarde
Hamilton Russel Vineyards, Hemel-en-Aarde
Raats Family Wines, Stellenbosch
Glenelly, Stellenbosch
Rustenberg, Stellenbosch
Waterford, Stellenbosch
Whalehaven, Walker Bay
Winery of Good Hope, Stellenbosch
Paul Cluver, Elgin
Constantia Glen, Constantia
Scali, Paarl
Villera, Stellenbosch
Waterkloof, Somerset West
Constantia Uitsig, Constantia
Iona, Elgin
Luddite, Botrivier
Shannon, ELgin
Chabivin Champagne & MCC House, Stellenbosch
Great Domaines Wine Importer, Johannesburg – Pol Roger
Wine Cellar – Le Mesnil Champagne
If you hadn’t yet noticed the appearance of @andUnionwine on The Twitter Global Network of Misinformation & Nonsense and haven’t spotted her at Cape Town’s Favourite & Only Beer Bar, let me be the one to inform you that &UNION has appointed someone in a more wine-focused role. She’s Gemma Smith, a devout wine-lover and recovering sommelier from the fine-dining scene who sports an English accent. And yes, she’s a woman – they finally hired a woman. Since I’m partial to smashing a prego/pulled pork/hot dog with a Berne/Dark Lager/Touro Blonde at &UNION on a regular basis, and do love my wine in indecent quantities, I cornered her to ask some blunt questions…
What exactly are you doing at &UNION?
I’m focusing on artisanal wines, finding the weird and the wonderful, then promoting them, and getting only the best onto the wine list.
So when do people taste these wines if they’re not on the wine list?
We’re doing winemakers evenings to promote them. Saturday nights where we’ll showcase wines that are either very boutique, one-offs or old vintages. That sort of thing.
What’s on the agenda?
There’s going to be lots, all with unforgettable wines, wines people don’t know about. We’ve got a great ‘golden oldie’ evening with winemaker Peter Finlayson from Bouchard Finlayson where we’re drinking vintage Chardonnay, going back to the early 1990′s.
And I’ve noticed you’ve started tastings on certain evenings during the week?
Yup, these are wines that I get to taste as either options for the featured winemaker evenings or potentially taking on the list. A good bottle of wine going to waste is a terrible thing, so we share it out with you guys, the plebs, people who know nothing about wine. (this last bit is directed at me, personally)
What sort of wines?
There are some gems, but I get sworn to secrecy on some, especially when there’s 200 or so bottles left and we don’t want someone else snapping them up.
How do you find these wines?
I spent three years as a sommelier so connected with loads of winemakers. Winemakers get bored easily – they’ve all got a barrel of sneaky something on the side. That’s what we want.
What’s the most interesting you’ve tasted so far?
A wine made from litchis, definitely the strangest wine. (I happened to taste it and found it sweet ‘n nasty!) The most interesting, probably the Elemental Bob wines. They’ve got a Barbera and Shiraz blend. Also a Barbera and Gewurztraminer blend called “The Turkish.” The winemaker, Craig Sheard, is here for our first winemaker evening actually.
So there are some cool vinous benefits to the customer?
Well, we’re doing 3 free tastings of wine per week., including the Saturday winemaker evenings. We’ll be introducing them to new wines they wouldn’t find, the wine list will expand with some more intriguing wines, listing around 40 wines eventually
Traditionally, the public is scared to ask about wine, which is wrong. But, that said, what is the worst thing you’re asked by people?
If you had to pick one wine to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?
If you had to pick one wine to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Okay, fine. German riesling. The JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese ’94.
What does “Wehlener Sonnenuhr” mean to the layman, aka almost everybody else but you in Cape Town?
It’s just the name of the wine. It’s the sundial at the vineyard the wine is named after. And ’94 is a year all South Aficans know pretty well.
What are drinking a lot of at the moment?
Beer actually!
Which of the beers you drinking the most of?
Berne probably.
What do you make of Versus Goliath?
A lunchtime wine – I mean lunchtime beer! People see it as smaller, but then they end up having two. Go figure. It’s the little brother. Everyone needs a little brother.
What are you eating mostly here?
A lot of soup. With bacon, of course.
What’s your middle name?
Elspithelia Horriblis*
I call you ‘The Beer Secretary,’ but what’s your official title?
I haven’t got one yet. I drink beer and wine for a living now, so I guess i’m just a beverage specialist.
Mmm, that title sounds like you need a lab coat.
Well, the initials are also ‘B.S.’
Ah, that makes more sense then.
Find out more about the upcoming wine evenings and other fun happenings at &UNION via their website www.andunion.com.
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* I might have changed this from the more acceptable and truthful ‘Anne’ for editorial interest reasons.
So myself and Simon thought it would be a good idea to throw a little party, to celebrate our Alphabetical wine and also give us a great excuse to drink a whole lot of it with a bunch of good friends. Not really a wine launch, since we’ve been selling it for almost two months now, just a good party. We wanted to keep it very un-winey, no pretentious restaurant, fancy stemware or tinycanapés. Instead we themed it carnival, threw up a tent on a private farm in Constantia, served the wine in tumblers and tucked into hearty coq au vin, made of course with the wine itself by the good sister at Cookshop. We also had the Lada Bros play some awesome music and had plenty laughs with a super cool photo-board done for us by am.i.collective.
Everything went perfectly, except the weather. It wasn’t just the coldest day of the year so far, but also what seemed to be the first winter storm. While the Lada Bros jammed hard, rain attacked the tent from all sides and people hunkered down under the heaters. Naturally the wine helped warm things up and we still managed to have a great time.
Attached are a few pics from the day, as well as what may be a world first: video tasting notes of Alphabetical by wine writer Harry Haddon, under the influence of helium. Spliced with a few clips of the standard issue mayhem you’d expect at the very end of a wine party… do enjoy.
And the video…
*Thanks to Francois Botha and Andrew Brauteseth for some of the pics.
I get asked the ‘where to go for what’ question a helluva lot. Regular text messages like: “Restaurant recommendation please, bud. First date, somewhere cosy. Oh, drinks after? Thanks.” Phone calls where I end up discussing the merits of how important atmosphere is versus food. Emails from people saying they’re going to Paris and want to know where to eat. It’s cool to help out, and people generally seem happy with my suggestions.
Anyways, these days, you don’t need a black book, you just need a smartphone and The Google Machine. But I thought it’d be fun to throw down four or five spots I recommend a lot and for what. I ended up throwing down a few more. So here they are, 40 rather useful places to know about. Yes, there’s a lot that would overlap and plenty more to add, but this is just how I first thought of them…
Tasting at wine cellars can be a pretty dull affair. The best farms get it right with a mix of wine, non-regurgitated information and charm, making you feel welcome and relaxed. The worst wine tastings are horrendous. They make you feel awkward, especially when the student or whoever works behind the counter as a weekend job watches you taste the wine without saying anything, or maybe offers a few feeble descriptors on the wine (yawn!) and mentions all the medals it won (double yawn). Generally there is no music playing, so the ambiance in the dimly lit space (clearly an after-thought of the cellar) is zero and guests feel self-conscious talking about the wine while said person behind the counter listens in. If there is music, we’re probably talking pan pipes or something “moody.” Basically, cellar tastings can really suck – and I know wine, so can only imagine how much they suck for people trying to get into it.
Hence Almenkerk gets a big fat gold star for the awesome experience I had on the weekend. Let’s forget that the setting is gaggingly beautiful and the winery an architectural wet dream. Barely out the car and a friendly woman approached rapidly. I thought, “Shit, they’re closed,” but instead got: “Hi, I’m Natalie! Welcome, please do come inside.” We were the only people there on this quiet and very autumn Saturday, but this was the warmest welcome.
Belgians by birth but residents here for almost a decade, Natalie and her husband Joris run Almenkerk estate, involved in everything from vine to bottle, and then opening these to pour to visitors. The tasting room feels like you’re in the kitchen of a friend, and chatting and drinking wine (this wasn’t a small-sip tasting) with Natalie it felt exactly like that. No bullshit, no long-winded tales or proclaimed superiority, just a refreshingly open discussion about the farm, the wine business and their own story, complete with problems and good fortunes, no glossing over. Then a quick cellar tour (which unveiled some neat illustrations on the white board; see below) followed by some more chat and we’d spent almost an hour there.
They’re not into mass production and only have two wines released at the moment, a Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. The Sauv Blanc is exceptionally clean and light, the Chardonnay also subtle, but with a distinctive vanilla-coconut flavour that I really enjoyed. A Bordeaux style red and a Syrah are on the way too. There’s a large dining table you can book for a lunch on Saturday or in the week (Natalie will arrange catering), which with its views over the Elgin Valley is pretty hard to beat. Already earmarked that for my next special lunch with mates.
Amorim Cork decided to take a fresh approach to help raise some awareness around the upcoming MCC Challenge they sponsor, letting Graham Beck winemaker Pieter Ferreira loose to show off his cork-popping accuracy.
Checkout the video above, which I was involved in making together with the team at August. It took the whole day to get right, but what can I say, Pieter Ferreira is one helluva talented winemaker…
The 2011 event happens to be the 10th anniversary of MCC Challenge, hosted in conjunction with WINE magazine. Last year the winner was the Bon Courage ‘Jacques Bruére’ Blanc de Blancs 2007. Having drunk a few bottles last year, I can’t really argue with their selection.
Looking forward to seeing who gets top honours in 2011.
(To watch in YouTube without my annoying blog template in the way, click here.
