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Wine lover Samantha Venter shares her finds with Weekend Post readers each week in Vine Time
There’s a hidden gem in the Garden Route, over on the Karoo side of the Outeniqua mountains above George.
The story of 500 A Vine Time wine columns over the past 10 years involves at least two dozen wine shows and festivals, countless tastings and meetings with wine producers and industry leaders, numerous food-and-wine pairing experiences…
Villiera was one of the pioneers of Cap Classique in SA, with their highly rated Tradition Brut a firm favourite for celebrations of all kinds, but there’s much more to explore about this Stellenbosch estate, including their range of…
It is one of the conundrums of the wine industry that a trophy cabinet laden with medals, critics’ high scores and stars signalling quality often puts the winning wines out of reach of affordability for the ordinary wine lover.
It’s that time of year again — time for sunshine and seaside sipping in the “barefoot capital” of Kenton-on-Sea, a last hurrah of a long weekend before winter starts nipping at the (shoeless) heels.
It’s a long way from Pietermaritzburg to Stellenbosch (about 1,500km by road), especially when you add a side-trip to California, on the west coast of the US. But it’s all part of the journey for Delheim’s new head winemaker, Nongcebo…
Sometimes a story comes along that Is not only genuinely heart-warming but also demonstrates how talk of concepts like empowerment and transformation can translate into a practical result that really does change lives for the better.
He surprised his friends and family, as well as his future bride, by announcing their engagement just two weeks after meeting her. Later, after they were wed, he named a vineyard in her honour with a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of the…
Terroir must be one of the most overused, misunderstood, contested and yet also highly influential, terms in the world of wine.
You know “the new normal” is becoming closer to “actually normal” when you can indulge once again in a luxurious food-and-wine experience in person and in a real place.
The subject of which wines can put SA firmly on the world stage as a wine-producing country to be taken seriously is ever contentious, but the main contenders are our home-grown cultivar Pinotage, and Chenin Blanc which has graduated from…
IN THE FAMILY: The Four Cousins of Van Loveren – farmer Neil Retief, From 500 cases of wine a year to 1.4-million — it’s taken the Retief family of Robertson three generations and 40 years, along with an innovative spirit and instinctive…
With all the jostling on the shelves of new brands, new wines, new winemakers, it’s hardly surprising that old favourites and venerable names may be overlooked.
Whatever happened to Stellenzicht?Back in 1997, John Platter wrote that Stellenzicht Syrah “might become the priciest, most prized modern Cape wine”, and called it “one of SA’s newest and most convincing cult wines”.
What makes a five-star wine?Despite some critics arguing that Platter’s hands out its five-star ratings a little too liberally these days, opening a 5* wine is still, for most of us, neither a daily nor an ordinary experience.
