AI-powered visual wine guide debuts at 2024 Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild Auction Showcase events
Just as Nedbank innovates in digital banking, so is wine appreciation being made more accessible
Wine Tasting
Standard Bank Private and WineX partnership launch for SA’s most vibrant wine festival
WineX now attracts a wine-savvy crowd of up to 10 000 attendees in Gauteng and hosts regional shows across the country
Standard Bank Private and WineX present SA’s most vibrant wine festival
Visitors can enjoy three nights of wine tastings and interactions with award-winning winemakers
Here’s to Wine Wednesdays!
Head for northern Joburg and you may just discover an oenophilic experience reminiscent of a spell in Stellenbosch.
Vive la France it’s Bastille Day!
The Franschhoek Bastille Festival is back after a two-year hiatus. Celebrate all things French-inspired with great food and wine.
The best booze and chocolate pairings
On World Chocolate Day on 7 July, experience chocolate like never before, paired with your favourite adult drink
Idiom restaurant celebrates a decade of excellence with paired wine tasting
Tucked away in the hills of the Helderberg, the new Idiom restaurant and wine tasting centre feels like an escape to another world.
SA’s best wines on a Platter
The latest guide to South African wines might have some flaws, but it sets an international standard.
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Simple shiraz blends make for drinking comfort
Shiraz-based blends that are not too complicated but fresh and delicious are my own "house red".
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Incentive to rock ‘n riesling
Riesling: If you have never riesled, it is time to start.
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Old faithful settles into a new niche
Cinderella and workhorse were favourite clichés to describe the role of chenin blanc in the local wine industry of olden days.
Get into the spirit with the A-Z of festive drinks
A is for anticipation, B is for bottoms up — and T is for tanked. <b>Tim James</b> guides you through the best of the season.
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All’s fair in posh and plonk
Wine lovers in Jo’burg can choose between the Cape’s famous, fancy or fresh wines this weekend.
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Fruits of a purer vine
<b>Claire Hu</b> rounds up some of the best organic local wines.
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Adventurers are spoilt for choice
There are an awful lot of South African wines out there — about 7?000. It’s tempting to abandon adventurism and reach for another bottle of the same.
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Wild claims and outrageous price leave a bitter aftertaste
Too many producers regard wine journalists as badly paid PR people.
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Shilowa turns sumptuous Epicurean
It’s not every wine show that has a once-powerful politician pouring sips of wine for all and sundry.
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Lammershoek grows caution to the wind
Wine sales generally are bad, exports less lucrative than they should be — the industry is bleeding. Is this the best time for experiments?
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The case for parental guidance
Meerlust has just about everything going for it these days.
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Dynamism doesn’t end at Swartland
Which are the most exciting wine areas of the Cape? I increasingly hear murmurs of discontent of too much focus on the Swartland and on its wineries.
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Pinot’s troubled affair has its good moments
The "heartbreak grape" they call it — a cliché used by wine-growers who’ve tried and failed to get pinot noir to produce the wonders of Burgundy.
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Keeping sweet with the rich
The wine industry seems to be pandering to a conservative, rich market that likes flashy stuff.
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Golfers scrum down on unfamiliar terrain
Combining sport and winemaking is not new. But does it work?
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Experimental — and tasty — odds and ends
In those famous good old days, it was accepted that serious red wines shouldn’t, be drunk for five or 10 or 20 years from vintage.
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Malbec trades on Argentina’s success
Homeland remains heartland for most grape varieties. Possibly the only important exception is malbec.
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Charm obscures need for change
It’s perhaps dangerous to visit a wine farm such as Annandale — it’s all too easy to forget the urgent need for change in the SA wine industry.
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Ports go to the hearth of the matter
Put fire in your wintry belly! If ever there’s a time to indulge in rich, alcoholic, delicious fortified wines it is now.
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When innovation beats specialisation
Out of the great revolution in South African wine we’ve seen in the past few decades, something of a contradiction is emerging.
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Now is the winter of our content
<b>Tim James</b> writes about his role as a wine critic for <i>Platter’s</i>. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.
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Local industry laps up foreign spillover
Foreigners still arrive to share in the Cape winelands — not in a deluge but in a reassuringly constant trickle.
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Past greatness reveals the depth of local potential uncorked
Given the remarkable advances in South African wine in the past 15 years, it’s easy to assume that before then all was dross.
‘Winning’ wines are a matter of taste
The prestige of wine competitions is somewhat tarnished by the subjectivity — and fallibility — of the judges.
