handtomouth

I am not alone in frequent comments on the alarming increase in alcoholic and over-extracted fruit bombs that masquerade as fine wines – much of these comments directed at South African examples since this is the turf. However, I recently tasted two foreign wines that made me realise that we are not alone, in fact we may still be relatively moderate in our output of these “extravins”.

First a Shafer Merlot 2002 from the Napa. What a nasty wine. Pretty much only about baked fruit and alcohol, the wine bursts into the mouth, does a flourish and disappears. Yet I gather it’s pretty well regarded? Can anyone shed some light?

Then a Rosemount GSM 2001 from the Barossa. I know this is seal-clubbing to some extent, but with extract like reduced fruit jam and the cloying effect of 18 months of American oak, you have to recognise that there is little room for the imagination here.

Perhaps there is comment to be made along the lines of palate acclimatisation, but I would love these wines to be defended as being optimally ripe and of desirable balance.

The evidence is there in the paucity of posts on eating with the hungry man that either he or I are too busy to do much eating together at this time. However, I did share a lunch with him yesterday in a manner of speaking. In a manner because it was at a wine seminar on marketing and this was the bolt-it-down lunch break, but more in a manner because the bolting and gabbing happened standing up. Yes, eating at standing height tables. It must be a conference thing, and I don’t have too much experience with these. However, after sitting for a few hours… The Hungry Man muttered to me that “it’s apparently faster” in passing.

PS The subject of e-marketing was given a whole speaker and an hour, but very poorly interpreted, maybe more later. It was both not a good intro to blogs, flicker, etc; nor in depth analysis. Pity. Most people were simply confused.

I’d like to explore some of the ideas and experiences that I had yesterday on a visit to the winery Quoin Rock in more detail later, but a few preliminary remarks since it was a stimulating day – in the sense that much is usually the same but with a different face in the winelands. Continue reading ‘Quoin Rock (initial)’

Paging through some old recipe books of my grandmothers, hand-written exercise books, and struck by the almost unwavering notation of desserts and little else. Tarts, cakes, sweets and biscuits, many of them variations on the same theme.

The recipes date from the late 1940s and into the 50s, and looking at the few main course recipes and their plain style (roast meat and plain cooked vegetables) I speculate that these were invariably cooked from memory or in the most straight-forward manner; while the desserts, with their measurements and weights, were the ones to notate.

Or was she simply a sweet-toothed granny?

Apropos of my piece on sauvignon blanc and food pairings, where I debated the merits of making SB work so hard, I participated in a menu paired solely to bubblies last Wednesday night. Since I had also helped with the wine and food matches, I was now partly responsible for the results. The wines were the bubblies of Graham Beck with the food from the Showroom kitchen. And though the evening was again a success, it should be seen in the “experimental” category as regards its certain propriety. Continue reading ‘More wine & food repairing’

The Durbanville Hills producers have stumbled into an annual event, the Season of Sauvignon. It culminated in this last weekend’s program of music, food and wine at the wine farms, plus the launch of a nine bottle box of sauvignons.

I attended a press dinner on this last Friday night, and found that the acronym that the season uses was quite appropriate – nine courses of food paired to the nine sauvignon blancs, and no warning of the TA attack I was in for. Continue reading ‘White dining in Durbanville’

On Saturday 7 October, the Cape Winemakers’ Guild holds their annual auction at the Lord Charles Hotel in Somerset West. You can get more info and pre-register for the auction at their website – the auction is open to the public.

Since its inception, the Guild has vowed to stand for excellence in winemaking. Their constitution is strict about it too: any member that does not have a wine selected for the auction in three consecutive years has to forfeit his membership. It also stands loud and proud on their website that the Guild exercises “rigorous screening” of the wines put forward, where “technical excellence, premium quality and maturation potential” is demanded of the offerings. The wines also have to be different to that which the maker usually releases.

I’ve been suspicious of these claims to technical excellence in the past, with some of the wines showing questionable cellar hygiene (which makes me question their technical screening process) or excessive wood character (which makes me wonder about the message they want to send out), but happily this year’s crop of wines contain a few superb bottles and very few suspect examples. Continue reading ‘Winemaker’s Guild’

As is the case with names from SA’s yesteryears, it is often with surprise that I drink a really good bottle. There’s no doubt that these names can make good wines, or reason they can’t, it’s just that the surge in new, sexier labels has put them largely in the shadows, especially on the shelves. So it was with the La Motte Chardonnay 2004 that I enjoyed with a roast chicken and polenta lunch. A good balance of oak and freshness make this a fine drink, and one that stays interesting over the whole bottle.

A bottle that started murky and too clumsy for me, but then pulled itself into fine shape was the 2001 Graham Beck “The Ridge” Syrah. With bold fruits and wood, they clearly make this wine to age, and after five years it can still wait a while longer. One of those times that I was glad to have resisted opening on release, the wine was finessed enough to have a few people guessing it was cooler climate shiraz.

Speaking of cooler climates, a quick taste-off of a number of sauvignons yesterday with some winemakers showed that it really is hard to pick the warmer climes from the cooler ones in the bottle. A Doolhof 2006 (from “warm” Wellington) was picked as a cool region, simply making the point that generalisation is dangerous, for pockets that subvert the norm exist – and modern methods of winemaking/choice of yeast/barrel can shape the wines’ character so powerfully.

A provocative question: Until all wineries really are reflecting site, it is almost foolish to talk regionality?

Like a ship in the night, like a Marie Celeste on the seas of Bree Street, Mishcuisine floats bright lit and glowing an ethereal green. And after a number of attempts, all thwarted by very wordly disincentives (closed now for lunch, no power in the building, the credit card machine doesn’t work) we entered the realm last night.

A group of four, or number down from six even before we walked through the inconspicuous door, we sat – the only table in the restaurant, both down and upstairs. Neatly laid tables all around, all set and lit. Upstairs bold art and more welcoming tables. And no people.
Continue reading ‘Strange relationships’

I am still trying pretty damn hard to become a regular coffee drinker, able assisted by a coffee-head brother and a great spot called Origin. It still has a profoundly aggressive effect on me though, shakes, some uneasiness. To counter this, I came across the recent report that coffee has been proven to be a seriously good vehicle for antioxidants – and it combats cirrhosis of the liver! And it not just minor in its effect: Coffee has more antioxidants than typical servings of most fruit juices. The senior author of the studies, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, says: “We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both of Norway and the USA”.

As for the shakes, it seems that the caffeine has nothing to do with these health benefits, so decaf works just as well, if only it tasted just as good.

A passing thought on the quality of certain foods and eating experiences – they don’t “seem” to do more than fill the tri-diem gap in the belly, they definitely do more. And furthermore, a good meal carries an energy that the average lacklustre plate lacks. All food should contain energy and it does, in the form of kilojoules – but what about the other atoms that feed us, as well as the pleasures of good food that feed life? I am beginning to think that the average plate seems to demand energy instead of replacing it. This is both because the energy of digesting what is poor food is the same as any food, except without the benefit of nutrition, so there’s a deficit; and because the experience and time spent was devoid of pleasure.

All this after lunch at Mariana’s in Stanford, where the plates, the people and the time made the stomach and the soul happy.