I know nothing about wine! The comment I get most often when you tell people what you do. 'Not to worry', I would say, as the people who know the least are the best customers. Wine sales are not driven by connoisseurs but by the man on the street who drinks to get plastered or to socialize. The mini-expert is the customer you don't want as they tend to be opinionated, difficult to sell to and only buy wines that have won awards. What's in an award? Every Chairman of every tasting panel would like you to believe that their gold medalist is truly worthy. Yet many award winning wines have been turned down in different, experienced tasting panels. It's hard not to be subjective when tasting wines. I would always turn down a wine in which I pick up excessive added acid and another person would score a very fruit driven wine higher and ignore elegance and finesse. So who's right and who's wrong? You just have to judge for yourself. Only through trial and error do you learn and by attending every possible tasting that you can. Most retail stores will have Saturday morning tastings where you can taste free of charge and be under no obligation so buy. In South Africa your best bet is a Makro, Bootleggers and Liquor City.

The only way you learn is to taste taste taste, not to have preconceived ideas and ask lots of questions. All questions are welcome. You can reach me till the end of the year on maudl@makro.co.za

Drink and enjoy, don't drink to get drunk (practise in your garden how to spit properly!)

The complexity of Chenin Blanc. Many a wine drinker in South Africa are still confused about the concept"Top Chenin" although I must say that the hard work the Chenin Blanc Association has been doing does show some response in that more customers tend to buy Chenin and not automatically assume they are sweet cheap wines like they used to be in days gone by. Off course most SA Chenin still shows marked residual sugar of as high as 16g/l. If you take the natural acidity off the wine into account and if it's had some lease treatment or wood fermentation then you can't go wrong. Even if none of that fabulous stuff has been done to the wine, the natural acidity and sugar almost always seem to be in good balance. It's off course makes it a fantastic wine to have with spicy foods like Thai Green Curry. Try Rudera Rudera and Rudera Robusto or Flagstone Strata Glass Carriage and the Mulderbosch Steen of Hout (Chenin on Wood) for wooded elegance and longevity.

Then there are the everyday drinking Chenins that sell for very little, around R20-R30 a bottle and are made for quaffing around a barbecue on a hot summer's day nicely chilled. If you have never tried sparkling Chenin's, I have come across a Vouvray Tete Cuvee at a very reasonable price. Should be fabulous with sushi. Try Simonsig and Knorhoek for good value and off course Du Toitskloof, winner of best value farm in SA.

Question of the week? What is your favourite everyday drinking wine and is it due to price only or other reasons.

May your weekend be filled with fabulous wine.

Taste-what would we do without our tastebuds? Well if you taste wine it's not what you would do without your tastebuds but what would you do without your nose? With 9000 possible smells and only four key tastes, which is more important? Well both off course, you won't be able to taste properly if you have no sense of sweet, salt, bitter or sour. I read in an article on taste the other day that you can't taste saltiness in wine, I would like to disagree with this as I do think that leezy wines have a distinct salty aftertaste especially when slightly warm. One winemaker says he can taste the sea in some wines for me it's more the kind of aftertaste you get from oysters which I would describe as salty. A few good examples are Bouchard Finlayson Sans Barrique which is one of my favourite unwooded Chardonnays or Ken Forrester Petit Chenin and Flagstone Strata Chenin.

Had some really good Grangehurst wines last night at Casalinga restaurant in Muldersdrift. It was a unique experience as all the wines were magnums and from different vintages. My favourite was a Grangehurst Pinotage 1998 with a 8% cabernet content, fabulous flavours, smooth and velvety. My partner's favourite was the Cab/Merlot. Grangehurst was until recently the only winery to have received three five star ratings in the South African Wine Magazine. It's a small boutique winery between Stellenbosch and Somerset West and wines are not released until before having spent up to 20 months in barrel and a few more in the bottle. Current vintage is the 2000. Give it a try.

What is the flavour you most persistently smell in wines?

Merlot-what's in a grape to make it taste the way it does? A question commonly asked by those who do not attend frequent wine tastings. Who knows? The experts tell us that it's because of the natural flavour components in fruit and veg that also appear in the flavour profile of wine. So you can taste blackberries even though no berries or berry extract was added.

This brings us to merlot. What's in a merlot. So many people used to say they like drinking merlot because it's softer yet lots of merlot's are heavily oaked and can be dried out and tannic. My favourite merlot is one by Martin Meinert simply called Meinert Merlot and has no new wood. Very smooth and elegant. Not that I am against new wood but delicate fruit flavours should not be masked by oak but rather enhanced by it.

Then off course there is Pomerol, no one can deny that these fabulous wines do not benefit the use of wood and maturation. Smoother you can't get but then I've never had a Pomerol that has been bottled recently or a tank sample, whereas many South African Merlot's are tasted and released this way.

Food-So what would you have with merlot? I would go for a fruity dish like a beef stew with no blackpepper or Cock Au Vin maybe. Any good matches from your side?

Question of the week? What is your favourite merlot? Country and area?

Wine events- Wine X is around the corner. Johannesburg's biggest wine show with over 300 farms and many more wines. Not to be missed. Book at Computicket. Takes place at the Sandton Convention Centre 25-29 October.

Tokara- is finally releasing there wines to the industry at a function held at the Westcliff Hotel. Not open to the public but you can now look forward to seeing the wines in retail stores soon.