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
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