Champagne-Nectar of the Gods or just good marketing? Probably a little bit of both. I'm doing a Bubbly tasting this weekend and looking forward to it BIG TIME as I'm a great lover of Champagne and Sparkling wine for that matter but then of course it has to be made according to THE METHOD. Secondary Fermentation, disgorgement and of course the magic yeast cells in the bottle to start of with and let's not forget the remuage, that age old French Tradition of turning the bottles until they virtually stand upright to move the yeast cells to the neck of the bottle, now replaced by mechanical cages in the New World. http://www.champagne.fr/en_fini_video.html A video of this process is available on this link. The official Champagne website.

I don't think that a Method Cap Classique as they are called here in South Africa could ever quite have the complexity of a real French one unless they are aged and meticulously made with of course the right grapes. A lot of Sparkling wines are not always made from Chardonnay, Pinot meaner and Pinot Noir. I have had some marvelous examples from Vouvray made from Chenin with a touch of sugar for the not so dry palates.
South Africa has some good examples in the form of Graham Beck, Jacques Bruere and Simonsig- all former Cap Classique Champions. If you find yourself in Franschoek though the farm not to be missed is Haute Cabriere with some 5 different Cap Classiques and a traditional subrage done at every cellar tour.

As I always say, be adventurous and try something new, not only the well known brand names! and happy drinking.

What's in a glass? I was going through a book last night on the Riedel dynasty and wondered why we are so enamored by glasses. Any host/ess will tell you that a nice glass is essential but in wine it is not just the colour and shape of the glass that is important but also the thickness of the lip and the ability to swirl the wine and admire the legs.

Why does the size of the lip matter? Besides for the fact that no one want to drink good wine from a glass that reminds you of a cheap water glass, you also don't want to interfere with the way the splendid liquid enters your mouth and hits your tongue on impact. And who wants to drink out of a red glass even if it does match your theme? Keep those for the water, how can you admire a fine claret if you can't see it? How can you judge sweetness and alcohol if you cant's see the legs?

The one part were Riedel has gone against common belief is when they designed a tasting glass that actually has a space in the stem for your wine and creates a gentle stream when brought to your mouth, nice to watch! And good to taste from as well. The best way to get your favourite glass though is still to try all your own glasses and see which one does justice to your favourite bottle.

Cape blends-I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to taste an extensive range of Cape Blends. To demistify the subject, it needs to have a component of Pinotage in the blend (15%) to be called a Cape Blend but all else is up to the Winemaker, although most winemakers keep to a Bordeaux Blend with Pinotgae. My personal favourite has a dash of Shiraz which lends a touch of toffee to the taste which is LOVELY. My favourites of the evening, Meinert Synchroncity from Stellenbosch (strangely enough they were ALL from Stellenbosch) and the Nikela from Grangehurst the 2000 was fabulous. Both expensive wines, in SA RAND R140 for the Synchronicity and around R115 for the Nikela.

This is a very good way to try Pinotage for the first time as to my mind it is not always very good on it's own, except in premium brands like Diemersfontein, Kanonkop etc. Do give it a try, I will give you a couple of names, Simonsig Tiara, Clos Malverne Auret, Meinert Syncronicity, Grangehurts Nikela, Beyerskloof Synergy, Flagstone Strata but there is around 20 available so do explore.

Happy drinking.

Does Terroir or appellation sell? Never more than this time of the year do you sell brand names, no one wants to experiment when giving gifts. You want the person you are buying for to know the value you attach to his business or friendship. Meerlust Rubicon flies of the shelf or wine like Nederburg and Zonnebloem for the price conscious. Great gift from lesser known farms are bought for the family as they can be disappointed and it will have no real financial consequence for the buyer/giver.

Does Terroir play a role in the time of giving, maybe if you are not from South Africa and want to buy South African. Then you hear comments like " Do you have wine from Stellenbosch" because if you know very little you can hang onto Terroir rather than an individual farm as an indication of quality. What does Terroir tell those of us who are more knowledgeable about wines? It tells you what to expect from that particular Shiraz or Sauvignon Blanc, fruit or grass, jammy or spicy. No other indicator is as good at predicting what might be in the bottle. "Oh, this is Pomerol, well it will be smooth round and velvety" as oppose to the more herbaceous Graves or St Estephe. Despite the producer. And then you get the odd ones like good Pinot Noir from Wellington or elegant Shiraz from Paarl (instead of blockbusters), that confuses the whole concept of Terroir as it can't be placed as easily.

Does appellation matter? From a tourism point of view it matters a lot and for a chance to buy something similar if you can't find your favourite or the one you know. So yes, Terroir certainly has a place and appellation does make the wine world a little less confusing. You can read more on this subject at Adam Dial - Appellation America [a.dial@appellationamerica.com]

how to organise a winetasting-First you will need to divide your wines into flights of two to four, depending on the amount of glasses you have. Analyze your guests a little bit, how sofisticated are your guests when it comes to tasting wine? Are they wine snobs or everyday drinkers? Try and stick to known varieties and maybe put one unusual variety in to prick their interest. The internet is a fantastic source to search info for wineries and maps are usually provided. Remember to keep the food you are serving in mind as a strong curry will totally overpower your wines. If the wines are very old keep your food as simple as possible. Decanting very tannic wines and tasting all wines for corktaint is also a very good idea. Having a corked wine can be a bonus as you can teach your guests if they don't already know what a corked wines taste like.

Then, glasses. Do you need to rinse them after every wine. I do not believe in rinsing glasses as it is more harmful to a wine to have it mixed by water. If you have very strongly flavoured/high sugar/tannic wines, rinsing your glass and mouth might be a good idea. Oldest wine first and strong powerful wines last, sweet and fruitiest wines after that. Try to taste red before white as it's very beneficial to your palate. Sauvignon blanc is a great palate cleanser.

Make notes and keep them in a file for future reference.

Drink and enjoy.

how to organise a winetasting-First you will need to divide your wines into flights of two to four, depending on the amount of glasses you have. Analyze your guests a little bit, how sofisticated are your guests when it comes to tasting wine? Are they wine snobs or everyday drinkers? Try and stick to known varieties and maybe put one unusual variety in to prick their interest. The internet is a fantastic sourse to search info for wineries and maps are usually provided. Remember to keep the food you are serving in mind as a strong curry will totally overpower your wines. If the wines are very old keep your food as simple as possible. Decanting very tannic wines and tasting all wines for corktaint is also a very good idea. Having a corked wine can be a bonus as you can teach your guests if they don't already know what a corked wines taste like.

Then, glasses. Do you need to rinse them after every wine. I do not believe in rinsing glasses as it is more harmful to a wine to have it mixed by water. If you have very strongly flavoured/high sugar/tannic wines, rinsing your glass and mouth might be a good idea. Oldest wine first and strong powerful wines last, sweet and fruitiest wines after that. Try to taste red before white as it's very beneficial to your palate. Sauvignon blanc is a great palate cleanser.

Make notes and keep them in a file for future reference.

Drink and enjoy.

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.

Hi there

Life is looking bright and the 2005 vintage Sauvignon Blanc from SA are fabulous. Lots of fruit again for a change, not too austere and more palatable than last year if your inclined to finish the bottle on your own. 2004 S/Blanc were more food driven and hard to consume copious amounts off when alone.

Wine of the week-Tasted a really good red wine on Tuesday which even complimented the pickled fish if you can believe that! It's called Terrace Bay 2001 from Vergenoegd and made by John Faure also a Cape Winemakers Guild member. Retails at around R65 a bottle. Their Cabernet 2000 astounded me, it was so smooth and velvety it could have come from Pomerol! Try it you won't be sorry.

We are having a fine tasting tonight with some Alsace, Pomerol, Marlborough and CWG Auction wines and even an Ernie Els. Sorry you can't be there, our wine club still has space for around 4 people for any interested parties. Can't give you too much info on the wine as it's a blind tasting!

Upcoming wine events
1 October- Saturday A Chardonnay and Pinot Noir Exclusive at Makro Centurion from 10.30am-1.30pm
5 October-Wednesday BIG wine festival at Makro Centurion- Over 200 wines to be tasted.
6 October- Thursday A fabulous gourmet dinner with actress Illse Roos and her family wine farm Mooiplaas at the new country venue, Robert Broom Restaurant. Tickets are limited. Call 082 809 3454 to book.
26-28 October- Winex, JHB's biggest wine show with over 300 wine farms! Not to be missed, takes place in Sandton at the Convention Centre across from Sandton square, tickets through computicket.

Question? What is the oldest wine you have ever had? Red and White?
For me the oldest white is Gaston-Huet Vouvray 1924 and the oldest red was probably around 1970 or so. Both fantastic. Drinking older wines teaches you so much more about wine and the way it is a living product that evolves in the bottle. Try it, keep one or buy something old if you can find it.

I had the opportunity this weekend to taste some fabulous Pomerol and Vouvray wines. Also picked up the word 'fabulous', sounds so much better than 'nice' doesn't it?

The chance to taste Chateau Petrus 1986 and Le Fleur Petrus made me break the bank a little but it was worth it. The food at the Park Hyatt hotel were the function was held was overwhelming for my Afrikaans palate and Italian food lover. I am not sure that the Vouvray went with the basil dominated desert but it certainly went with the herbaceous red wines.

The food was fusion deluxe and had me so confused that someone had to help me decipher the menu :-) Although all around me the Le Fleur Petrus was declared the favourite I have never experienced a nose on wine like the Petrus, totally out of this world with fruit flavours not common to red wine as I know it. The balance and elegance of all the Pomerol's were amazing even the more fruit dominated ones were fantastic. I will give you a full update of what was tasted and my tasting notes next week or maybe tomorrow if I get a chance.

A few of them did remind me of some SA wines though and thus my wine of the week has to be;
Cederberg Cabernet Sauvignon-fruit driven yet fantastically elegant from the SA West Coast
De Toren Fusion V- A blend of Bordeaux varieties fused to perfection, smooth and elegant. Voted one of the best red blends in the world.

Event of the week- must be the inaugural Soweto wine festival, the first of it's kind in the Townships of SA.

Happy drinking and remember life's too short to drink bad wine!

How much wine do you consume? Are you the reason why beer is the best selling drink in most New World countries? Don't you know it's good for you to drink wine?

I read an insert on the Decanter.com website recently which states that wine has now become bigger than spirits in the UK due to the spending power and emancipation of women (thought we were 'emancipated' a while ago already-my mistake) but way to go UK! Maybe it's because you can have a fairly decent glass of wine in any bar in the UK whereas in South Africa- a wine producing country- this is still an unknown phenomenon, not to even speak about wine bars, non-existent virtually. Maybe that's why our wines barely get mentioned in international wine books especially when pairing them with food, surprise, we also eat in SA and our food is damn good.

Someone asked me again today how to learn about food and wine combining, such a difficult subject and like wine itself you will only learn through experience but can start by buying a good book on the subject. Browse through the Amazon.com selection and see what you like, read the reviews it might save you some money in the long run. Try something in the Mitchell Beasley series to start. Then start at home by smelling all foods and combining them with wines that have similar flavours and are similar in body, heavy food with a heavy wine.

Food Match of the Week-Try Pinotage with Bobotie, if you don't know what Bobotie is please drop me a line and I will give you the recipe. Fantastic mince dish from Cape Malay origin.

Wine of the week-Teddy hall Chenin Blanc selling for around R32 you can find info on his website, www.teddyhall.com.

Wine Function of the week-Cape Wine makers Guild Pre-Auction tasting, if in Johannesburg don't miss this one, best wines in the country. Check out their website on www.capewinemakersguild.com

Please leave me questions and comments, at least it will look as if someone is reading this blog!

Happiness in wine

Maud

After a recent olive oil course, were we had to 'nose' the oils as you will do with wine and recognize faults like oxidation and rancidity I realized again how interlinked the world of food and wine is. When you have a cold you cannot taste your food and certainly not wine and all it's aromas.

Lesson no 1 then, learn to smell again. I always tell my students to sniff and smell everything they come into contact with. The smell of the earth after a bout of rain (Pinot Noir) the smell off an apple (riesling), guava( South African Chenin) and many more everyday smells occur in wine.

So if you want to taste wine the best place to start is your kitchen. If you don't venture it there it's time to start! Then learn how to identify these flavors in your wine. Think and sniff deeply, you will recognize it and will bring the two together eventually.

Start with single varieties with prominent flavours like Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon blanc and Shiraz.

Draw up a flavour profile as recommended in wine books (Jancis Robinson's-How to taste wine) and off you go. Remember that everyone's sense of smell is unique and don't worry if you don't smell what the experts smell you will eventually start to smell a wine according to it's flavour profile and be able to name the variety, now wouldn't that be exciting!

Wine recommendation off the week-Knife's Edge Pinot Noir from Wellington South Africa. Never thought that a hot climate area could produce such a fine Pinot Noir, well done Graham Knox and team. Beware this is a big wine so decanting is recommended.

Restaurant functions- If you find yourselves in Johannesburg during August and September you can look forward to the following events;

• Cellar Rats Spring Festival held in Magaliesburg every year takes place Sunday 28 August. Child friendly and lots of wine to taste. Drivers go in for free.
• Robert Broom Restaurant in Krugersdorp is hosting Rijk Melck from Muratie Monday 29 August. Booking essential. Call +27 83 272 8533
• The annual Cape Wine Makers Guild Pre-Auction tasting takes place at the Nedbank atrium in Sandton, best wines in SA don't miss out. Bookings through computicket.
• Meerendal is hosting a spit braai with their elegant wines at Makro Centurion on 8 September. Bookings essential. Call +27 82 809 3454
• Post House will be doing their delectable ink black wines and amazing Chenin Blanc in Krugerdorp (venue to be confirmed) with winemaker Nick Gerber 21 September. call +27 82 809 3454
• The International Wine club will meet Saturday 17 September to taste New World icons in Randburg limited space call+27 82 809 3454

PS Fresh olive oil should smell like freshly cut grass.