Pinotage for Valentine,
and other
thoughts and emotions
5 February 2008
Here’s a ghastly thought, and I can almost hear Andre van
Rensburg saying – well, they have to find something to do with the bloody
stuff, seeing it’s undrinkable…. Mont Destin, you see, is offering a
Valentine’s Day bath ‘for you and your partner’ in the middle of a vineyard
– in ‘a heady mix of Pinotage and warm water’.
It seems you’re not expected to drink the bathwater if you have a yen for
the stuff, as they also offer a bottle of ‘double gold award winning
Pinotage’ along with the towels, etc. (Surprising, perhaps, that Beyers
Truter hadn’t thought about this idea – perhaps it sounds a bit immoral for
him – but seeing he already makes just about everything from pinotage, from
jam to port, perhaps they could persuade him to produce some pinotage soap
and shampoo?)
Dear Cathy van
Zyl once shudderingly said that she wouldn’t even drink Amarula Cream if it
was poured all over Brad Pitt. I wonder if she’d bath with him in pinotage?
I myself would rather like a bath all by myself in Madeira – something like
an old vintage Bual, perhaps. I might never get out. But if you’re weird and
have R1500 to spare, get in touch with Mont Destin.
If, however, you have about 30 times that amount to treat
your beloved with and you’re in London, and you want to support some South
Africans abroad, you could have the special menu at the Vivat Bacchus
restaurant owned by
Neleen Strauss and Gerrie Knoetze. R14000 was the
price I saw quoted, presumably per person. Caviar, lobster, fancy ham from
Spain and beef from Australia, cheese and chocolate from Europe, are on
offer. Along with some very fancy wines – patriotically they’ve included a
chenin from the Cape (from Ken Forrester, who seems to manage to get in just
about everywhere that promises a bit of publicity) but I didn’t notice
pinotage. Perhaps that’s flowing in the hand-basins.
Hopeful...
Talking of the Scourge of Pinotage, I see we’ve reported
elsewhere on Vergelegen’s triumphs at Jancis’s wine tastings for for the
rich, famous, powerful and expense-accounted at the World Economic Forum.
She noted in her report the presence of the chief of Anglo American, Cynthia
Caroll, who assured her how dear Vergelegen was to her heart. I do hope that
this has been noted by the perniciously persistent perpetrator of the
prediction that she’s determined to sell the place. But who cares about
evidence for strange ideas?
Wrong...
When I’m wrong, I’m wrong and must admit it. And I was wrong
about Deetlefs Estate when I didn’t apply my normal principle of believing
the best about people. With reports of them not wanting to be mentioned in
Platter this year because the wines aren’t tasted blind, I’d put them down
as whingers being egged on in their whingeing by others advancing their own
questionable interests. I imagined that Deetlefs must think they deserved
better, and felt they would get it by blind tasting.
So I turned to the online records of Wine mag, to see
how they performed in the country’s most prominent set of blind tasting
line-ups. Well! If my arithmetic is right, out of 45 Deetlefs wines rated in
recent years, only 8 had rated three stars or above – about the same number
that had rated rock-bottom one star. Surely this must be one of the worst
blind-tasting track records of any producer?
So I have come to the conclusion that Deetlefs is embarrassed
at doing so well in Platter – in the 2007 edition they get four four-star
ratings, and nothing less than two stars. They appararently ache for the
simple justice of the low scores they get in blind tastings. In all
fairness, then, I shall disregard, for example, the four stars they got for
their Semillon in Platter, because it was achieved by Platter’s horribly
unfair system; Wine mag’s blind-tasting system gave the Deetlefs wine
two stars (and in a separate tasting gave it two-and-a half, which is
unusual consistency for Wine), so that must be what Deetlefs thinks
the wine is worth. So be it, and let hem be praised for their honesty, if
not for their wine.
(Note, it
must be said that various people connected with Grape are involved in the
production of Platter - though not me of course - but this is less a
declaration of interest than an apology for suggesting that perhaps they've
overrated Deetlefs wines in the past.)
Sad...
I know that I have many admirers, secret and otherwise, but
few were as open in their affection for me as was the late Raoul Beaumont of
Beaumont Wines. Even apart from that, as an integral part of one of the
nicest families in Cape wine, he will be much missed.
