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Saturday, August 9, 2014

MICHAEL GREEN’S WINE NOTES #276



When I entered the Vinimark Wine Worx wine trade fair at the Coastlands Hotel on the Durban Berea the first person I encountered was a charming young lady with a name tag that said it all:  Tukwini Mandela.

She turned out to be a granddaughter of the great man, and our brief conversation suggested that she had inherited much of Nelson Mandela’s legendary personality. She is a co-founder of the Stellenbosch-based wine business House of Mandela, owned by members of the family, and she was presenting her wines with a courtesy and modesty quite unusual in someone with so famous a name.

The Mandela products were among about 200 wines from 43 cellars offered for tasting by Vinimark, South Africa’s largest independent wholesale wine marketing company. The tasting included some of the really big names on the Cape wine scene and some that were relatively unknown.

I sampled two of the Mandela wines, a very good bone dry bubbly, Methode Cap Classique Brut, and an equally impressive Thembu Collection Sauvignon Blanc 2013.  Retail prices per bottle would, I estimate, be about R180 and R60 respectively (the prices given in the tasting catalogue were sale prices to the trade).

This annual Vinimark show presents an embarrassment of riches for the tasters. It is best to be selective and careful. I tried some names new to me, and I renewed acquaintance with some old favourites.

Edgbaston is known to most people as a cricket ground in Birmingham, the second biggest Test match venue (after Lords) in England. At this tasting. the name popped up with an e, Edgebaston, as a wine farm in the Stellenbosch area owned by David Finlayson, a member of a distinguished Cape wine farming family. I tried two of its products, both very good:  Edgebaston Chardonnay 2013, lemony, creamy, about R85, and The Berry Box White 2014, a blend of sauvignon blanc, semillon, viognier, off-dry, full of flavour, about R63.

Another name new to me was Creation Wines, a cellar established at Hermanus a dozen years ago by Swiss-born Jean-Claude Martin and his wife Carolyn. They were represented by five wines that included a flinty, dry Creation Sauvignon Blanc 2014, about R95, and a smoky, silky Creation Pinot Noir 2013, outstanding, as it should be at a retail price of about R175. The Creation Wines are not cheap but they are all of high quality.

On more familiar ground the Boekenhoutskloof Winery at Franschhoek was represented by its popular Porcupine Ridge and The Wolftrap wines. The Porcupine Ridge Sauvignon Blanc is a big seller, and deservedly so. The 2014 vintage is crisp and fresh, with flavours of gooseberry, and it and retails at about R48 a bottle.

There are many celebrated names among the wines marketed by Vinimark. It was a rewarding experience to sip the Neil Ellis Cabernet/Merlot 2012 from Stellenbosch, an aromatic, fruity and elegant red that sells at about R100 a bottle.

And another of the top wines on the show was the 2011 vintage of the famous Trilogy from the Warwick estate at Stellenbosch, a Bordeaux-blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot, with tastes of cherries and chocolate, an exceptional wine at a retail price of about R260 a bottle.

Other well-known producers represented at the tasting included Darling Cellars, Glen Carlou, Groot Constantia, Landskroon, Lanzerac, Muratie, Robertson Winery and Villiera. – Michael Green