Wine Of The Month December 2011

A.A. Badenhorst Family Wines White Blend 2008

A.A. Badenhorst Family Wines are produced on Kalmoesfontein Farm in the Swartland Appellation in the Western Cape.

Adi Badenhorst, owner and winemaker, moved on from making wine for years at Rustenberg to pursue this really exciting project in the Swartland.

The A.A. Badenhorst Family Wines range has a Red and White Blend, both exquisite but I will be concentrating on the White Blend 2008 as it is my wine of the month December 2011.

The white blend consists of Chenin Blanc, Roussanne, Grenache Blanc, Viognier, Verdehlo, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. I think this blend is predominantly Chenin Blanc whereas the 2007 white blend was Roussanne dominated.

The wine was matured for 13 months in casks and after being racked and blended it spent a further 6 months on the lees, giving the wine its uncanny complexity and individuality.

This is an interesting blend with complex aromas of perfume, blossoms, spice, honey and fantastic fruit depth of citrus fruits, fresh apple, melon and characters of drupe fruits such as peach - Almost like a fruit salad. The nose follows through onto the palate with firm minerality and good acidity. The rich fruit flavours are dominant and the finish is long and lingering.

It is a well balanced, layered and complex wine. It has a similar style to that of wines produced in the Rhone Valley in France.

This is truly a superb, unique white blend that I liked immensely. A.A. Badenhorst Family Wines is a fairly new venture and one for the future for sure!

My Rating: 18/20

Visit their website www.aabadenhorst.com for further information.

Glenelly - Grand Vin de Glenelly Chardonnay 2010: My Wine Of The Month November 2011

My wine of the month is the wooded Chardonnay from Glenelly Wine Estate, Grand Vin de Glenelly Chardonnay 2010.

Pulsating aromas of citrus, lime, nuttiness and vanilla. It follows through onto the palate with minerality characteristics in addition.  It has a good balance with an elegant richness and complexity. The adequate acidity keeps the wine crisp and fresh. The finish is long and lingering. To put it into terms that one unfamiliar to wine can relate to; the wine has citrus fruit flavours with a creamy/buttery vanilla quality to it.

The wine was wild/naturally fermented and left on the lees for a period of 7 months which gives it its richness, complexity and creaminess. It spent a total of 10 months in new French oak barrels which in turn gives the wine its oaky vanillin characteristics. The wine is good to drink now but can also be stored for up to 6 years.

It recently received a score of 92 points by Robert Parker.
Source: https://www.erobertparker.com

Conclusion: A fantastic, elegant wine that most will enjoy, I highly recommend this Chardonnay.
My rating: 18/20

Glenelly Wine Estate - French touch in Stellenbosch

This is one of my favourite wine farms at the moment.
It is a fairly new farm based in the Idas Valley in Stellenbosch, owned by a French lady, May de Lencquesaing.
I think she is 87 years of age now and bought the farm in 2003.
She sold her Chateaux in France for a ridiculous sum of money and decided to tackle the South African wine industry in all her glory and experience.
The cellar is literally built in the hillside by blowing up a hole in the rock face. A beautiful, very modern cellar which is still able to represent elegance and sophistication along with it.

It is not only an elegant and appealing brand, the wine in the bottle is not bad either!
French 'flavour' infused with South African wine gives this wine an elegant, smooth and delicate touch to the classic South African wine styles. Their slogan is "South African wine with a French touch" after all.

Glenelly wines consists of two ranges as well as their flagship wine. The Glass Collecton (named after her world reknowned collection of glass pieces and art) is the lower range of good quality and value for money wines. The Glass Collection Merlot is hugely underrated in my opionon and one of my favourite Merlot's in the country at present. Then there is the Grand Vin range consisting of only a Bordeaux styled red blend with shiraz, and an absolutely fabulous Chardonnay so elegant and untainted that it is my wine of the month. Finally, there is their flagship wine, the Lady May, named after the owner herself. It is a straight Cabernet Sauvignon, and altough still a bit young, has excellent balance and smoothness compared to other young Cabs, and is more comparable to that of an older and more mature Cab.

The Lady May 2009 just recently received 5 stars in the new Platter Wine Guide 2012.

So if you have not visited the estate, I highly recommend you do so.
Go to the website, http://www.glenellyestate.com/, for more information.

From The Beginning...

My parents have been big wine drinkers for a while now, 'big wine drinkers' in the sense that they will most certainly have a glass or two with almost every dinner serving.

Myself, being a young South African male, would rather have a beer!
That has recently all changed.

But back to how my love for wine began... I had just finished my degree in marketing, and finding a job that I would fit in to was seemingly getting harder. I even resorted to working for my dad in a software company for a short stint, and as some people know, my worst thing in life would be to sit at a desk, eight to five every day!!

My mother is a well-renowned journalist writing articles for various newspapers, magazines and the like. She writes about various topics, but her niche is on food and wine.
So thanks to her connections, I managed to get an interview with a wine sales and distribution company.
Thank goodness the interview went well without any problems and I managed to get the job.

Not knowing much at all about wine, bar the very basics that anyone who ever tasted wine would know... That there is red wine and white wine. Maybe I knew a few varietals but that was it.

I would be concentrating on the marketing and communicational aspects of the company.
But during my first few weeks on the job, I suddenly became fascinated about wine, where it comes from, the process it takes to make it and how to drink it. There's more to wine than just swallowing it to get pissed, which i do on occasion I must admit. The mass procedure of getting the wine into the bottle intrigued me.

By going to the various tastings and events that are held in Gauteng, and there are a lot, I familiarised myself with South African wines as much as I could and I began to know most of the varietals that this country has to offer, like Pinotage, a varietel unique to South Africa.

I also started doing wine courses through Cape Wine Academy, and these have broadened my knowledge about wines significantly. I have completed the South African Course, which is on the basics of wine, and the Wines Of The World Course, which gives you a good base on what wines are made across the world and how they differ to our wines. I am about to write the Certificate Course, which goes into far more depth on South African wine, the wine regions as well as how it is made, amongst a whole lot more.

My fascination for wine is continuing to grow, and I hope to do the Diploma and then maybe one day become a Wine Connoisseur/Sommelier in the not so distant future. Then thinking way ahead, even a Cape Wine Academy Master, and there a only a few of them! But I'm not getting too ahead of myself.

To finish off my first blog, here is a quote about wine that a quite enjoy:

"Compromises are for relationships, not wine." Sir Robert Scott Caywood