It’s not every day that us ordinary wine-lovers get to sample France’s top-selling Champagne, Italian Prosecco and the wine voted SA’s top luxury red all in the same place, alongside a host of best-selling wines at price points from budget through to breath-taking.
Wine merchants Vinimark took their annual trade fair for Eastern Cape and Garden Route retail and hospitality clients to Knysna earlier this week, showcasing new releases and popular favourites from the more than 50 brands represented by the company.With more than 300 wines to sample, bubbly seemed the logical place to start.
France’s number one selling Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Réserve is just lovely – a beautifully fresh nose, deeply biscuity with loads of fresh fruit and a dry finish. At around R500 retail, it’s a lot of (French) bang for your buck.Bollinger Special Cuvée, the favourite of Absolutely Fabulous’s Edina and Patsy, is indeed “ab fab” – super dry with tangy green fruit.Glamour comes standard with Armand de Brignac Brut Gold, with the embossed metal “Ace of Spades” logo on its gold bottle. The brand is owned by rapper Jay-Z and it’s the stuff of exclusive nightclubs, rock stars and sport stars – and, says Vinimark marketing manager Ginette de Fleuriot, sells like hot-cakes in Gauteng, where year-on-year sales are rising by 60%.While it’s celebrity status probably accounts for the eye-watering price tag of around R4,000 a bottle, it’s not all about the bling. The wine consistently earns top scores from judges and critics, including a world number one rating a few years ago.
Another rare treat was offered by Mike Ratcliffe, MD of Warwick and Vilafonté wineries, who opened a bottle of Vilafonté Series C 2016 for the first time at the show, the successor to the 2015 vintage that was voted SA’s best luxury red wine.“I couldn’t be more proud,” he said of the pre-release sample (the wine is due for release this October) of a wine that aims to be a South African benchmark and “stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the great wines of the world”.“Sublime” is all I can say. The wine is almost blue-black, fragrant and intensely flavourful, its impact lingering in the mouth. At over R1,000 a bottle, this is one to savour as one of life’s special joys, and to stash away as it ages.
The “entry level” Vilafonté is the 2015 Seriously Old Dirt, featuring merlot and malbec from the farm’s younger vineyards, opens into layers and layers of plummy and subtly spicy flavour – at R260 ex-cellar, it would make a superb top-end red on any wine list.
Leeuwenkuil’s new Reserve Red shown by cellarmaster Pieter Carstens at the show is another one that would make a versatile addition to a wine list, and offer great value at probably a shade over R100 retail. It’s “the best wine I can blend from the farm” says Carstens of the flavourful and savoury blend of the Rhone varieties Leeuwenkuil does so well with.The range of imported Valdo prosecco’s offered another treat – and they’ll no doubt be featuring on some summer wine lists for the festive season at the coast.