Wines

There are few marketing exercises that have given me as much pleasure as launching Cloof’s Bordeaux-style blend Lynchpin to the British media … at a chateau in Bordeaux! Not only was the wine offered en primeur (a la Bordeaux), but I also put together a mini-conference entitled “Is the New World killing Bordeax” AND I [...]

While in Mumbai last week I was a guest at two Bertani wine dinners. Apart from the pleasure of watching other people doing work that I normally do, the wines were a real eye-opener. Amarone is not a new wine experience for me, but I don’t think I’ve had any for ten years. Also, I [...]

We have become regular visitors to Stanford, a village about 15 minutes’ drive beyond Hermanus. The main street, with its typically platteland (country) architecture, is dominated by the steepled Dutch Reformed Church – much like a French village, actually, except that the church is not Gothic. In the side streets one can find some pretty [...]

South Africa has 12 public holidays, which theoretically means we have an extra day off every month of the year. However, it doesn’t quite work out that way, because of a concentration of holidays around March and April. We’re also really good at watching the calendar, so when a holiday falls on a Thursday it’s [...]