Girls' stuff and cool climates
25 July 2005

Apart from accusations to me of being misogynistic, my last little offering of thoughts did produce some results for Hannes Myburgh of Meerlust. Apparently he has already had a few obliging offers to ensure an appropriate heir. A rather disgruntled winemaker I know got rather miffed when hearing of this (I'd guess wasted) flow of nubility. He wanted me to make it clear that, though there are no Cape Dutch gables or vineyards available yet, he is also willing to entertain offers to extend his own bloodline – as long as they are accompanied by a short CV and a series of photographs. Personally I think he's nowhere near as good a catch as Handsome Hannes, but I'll pass on any messages, as long as they're decent.

Girls' stuff
If you like wine and would like to know more about it, but are a mere woman like me (oh dear, am I being problematical again?), there’s relief at hand. No longer will we have to broach the daunting complexities of Wine mag and the like! There’s now Wine Adventure, a new bimonthly wine magazine published just for us. It’s a US thing, so I suggest that you discuss a joint subscription next time you get together with some of the other girls for a natter over the fermentation tanks or wherever, in between buffing your nails and discussing the rival charms of Eben Sadie and Miles Mossop and how good they might be at pigeage, and generally having a good giggle over a glass of off-dry white.

But really we need appropriate wine words for women here in this country, so here are some suggestions for possible articles to appear on this website in future, to supply what the Wine Adventure editor calls the ‘kind of information women want about wine’:

•  50 wines to leave your lover – wines to seduce him by and wines to leave him by.

•  Wine and your star sign: what to drink if you’re a Scorpio or a Virgo; Taurans steer clear of overwooded blockbuster shiraz in August!

•  Wine and your hips – the 20 chardonnays with the lowest sugar levels.

•  Wine and colour: accentuate this year’s winter fashions with wines that match, not clash, in the glass.•  Wine-friendly cosmetics – which lipsticks and lip-glosses stay on your lips and not on your glass: a must for those on the cocktail party or cheese and wine circuit.

•  Winelands hunks: cool-climate wines are fine, but who pushes up the temperature between the barrels?

Cooler climate wines
You think Elgin is cool? Well, perhaps not as cool as Denmark, where viticultural guru Richard Smart recently went to give a seminar to the Danish Wine Growers’ Association – one of the more unlikely organisational names to come across in the wide world of wine, perhaps. A misummer’s day it was, in June. Rather rainy, perhaps, but the temperature went all the way up to 10 degrees Celcius. (Which does, I admit, give some point to Fleur du Cap’s boast about sun-ripened grapes at which I have sniggered gently in the past.) According to Swede Britt Karlsson, who was there and from whose regular newsletter I gleaned this fascinating story, they assured Rick  that it was not an entirely typical Danish summer day – but he apparently maintained ‘a somewhat sceptical attitude during the presentation’.