Pendock Uncorked
South Africa's leading independent drinks commentator...
URL
Last update
26 weeks 1 day agoSeptember 11, 2009
08:08
Synchronicity rules!
I’ve long suspected that Carl Jung and his concept of meaningful coincidence – synchronicty, the spirit world’s version of terroir – control SA wine at a deep and not fully understood level. How else do you explain the observation that at Cape Town Wine-X last night the floor was crawling with WINE magazine operatives, [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
September 10, 2009
11:29
Auction Opportunities and Footie Fever
“South Africa, we’re coming Tutu ya!” and “lay in De Beers” are the headlines in today’s Sun newspaper in the UK, covered every hour by Sky News, the only TV channel I watch after SABC stuffed up Survivor by shuffling episodes into the wrong order, much to the chagrin of Two Oceans who advertise widely [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
September 9, 2009
06:21
Great Whites
“You’re the most dangerous person in SA wine” chuckled GT Ferreira in the Whale Well of the SA National Museum last night “with your focus on value for money. Our 13 year financial plan has had to be extended to a 15 year one but we’re close to making money.” Which should be [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
September 8, 2009
11:42
Douglas and the Grape
A most bizarre interview with Douglas Generation X Coupland in the Guardian yesterday. First off, Canada’s most trendy writer looks like Baby Boomer Graham Howe. Could this be yet another persona of Graham who almost singlehandedly writes the travel and food copy in SA worth reading? Douglas suffers from synaesthesia, the overlapping [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
September 7, 2009
09:26
‘n Klap vir Kango
Kango is bookended by Kaapzicht and Kanonkop in the latest edition of the Platter sighted wine guide. Yet its reputation could not be more different for at least one Platter pundit, associate editor Tim James, who is waging an unseemly war against the Karoo producer using the razor sharp electrons of his Grape blog. [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
September 5, 2009
08:46
Eureka! as Archimedes said to Pieter de Waal
Among ancient Greek philosophers, it was Aristotle who liked the bottle and Archimedes who jumped out of his bath with the cry of Eureka! to run around town in the alltogether. Archie was excited by his novel solution to the problem of determining whether the new crown of King Hiero II was made of [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
September 3, 2009
17:05
Sunday Times Chef of the Year Competition
Spent the day on the 7th floor of Foodcorp’s Innovation Centre in Black River Park judging the food and wine component of the Sunday Times Chef of the Year Competition. I was blown away by how consistent judges were in rating (blind, of course!) the four course meals (plus amuse geule and palate cleanser) [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
September 2, 2009
12:51
Polite reflections on last week’s shock release of Platter’s five star stunners
The Platter Five Star Stunners are out and Tim James, apologist for and associate editor of the Platter sighted wine guide claims an “overwhelming reflection of terroir on the labels of Platter five-star wines is in itself perhaps the most impressive achievement of all.” Rubbish! – all it proves is that Platter pundits preferentially [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
September 1, 2009
09:00
Requiescat in Pace, Mnr. Vloos
Lunch with neuropsychologist-cum-Franschhoek wine producer Mark Solms and artist Joa Schönfeld at the Troyeville Hotel yesterday started off on a somber note with Mark mentioning that a founding member of the Delta Optel Band, Mnr. Vloos, departed to the big band in the sky two weeks ago. “On the positive side, the farm now [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 28, 2009
09:44
Pinotage Prodigies
“Do you work for Absa?” I asked Dave Marais as I slipped into the seat next to his at yesterday’s ABSA Top 10 Pinotage awards lunch held at the all-singing, all-dancing Val de Vie golf and polo estate between Paarl and Franschhoek. “No, but I do bank with them and this is the [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 26, 2009
10:48
Francis Bacon at Belthazar
Bumping into Victor Strugo, the galloping gastronome of the Saturday Star, in the Diners Club Lounge at Cape Town International last night, our conversation naturally started with what we’d had for lunch. “Foie gras pizza at Balducci’s” was my reply which evoked a rejoinder from Victor “well I can see you’re taking this recession [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 25, 2009
09:41
Boomplantdag op Lemoenfontein
The race is on among Swartland Young Turks to be next with a Platter five star rating in their own colours after Eben Sadie’s Sequillo struck it lucky last year. Donovan Rall, who made our Lemoenfontein white blend, is in with a chance with his own as is the white blend with the funkiest [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 24, 2009
14:23
Perdeberg Winery’s Zebra Found
There is good news and bad news for Perdeberg Winery. The good news is that it looks like their mascot, Merlot the Zebra, has turned up. The bad news is that it was at rival Stellenbosch Hills Biltongmaker of the Year Competition on Thursday. This year competition for first prize of a rifle [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 22, 2009
09:39
Wag the Dog
Has the Cape Winemakers Guild Auction become the tail that wags the dog? Certainly it’s a huge money spinner for the some and a useful marketing bijoux for sponsor Nedbank, in desperate need of some good news. Although like the bank, probably not too many of the 36 members show much profit as [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 21, 2009
06:24
The Rhône Ranger rides into Town
The collective SA wine spittoon draws its breath and waits for quantitative numeric verdicts from “experts” Steve Tanzer and James Molesworth plus other hired guns on the quality of this year’s Cape Winemakers Guild Auction offerings. While their opinions are important (so we’ll all know which wines to rave about) some comments from yesterday’s [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 19, 2009
19:49
Time for a TAG, Tienie
Ask Thys Louw for the time and he rolls up his sleeve and points to a tanned but naked wrist. “My dad Tienie promised me a Tag Heuer when I made a Veritas double gold wine [the ultimate accolade from the SA wine-judging circus] or the equivalent at the Michelangelo International Wine Awards. [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 18, 2009
12:02
Cape Town left out in the cold
FT columnist Tyler Brûlé possesses even more exotic punctuation than our own sommelier to the stars, Jörg Pfützner. And like Jörg, Tyler has found a winning recipe with his Monocle magazine growing fresh shoots in the shape of a 22% increase in circulation (and more importantly ad-sales up 18%) in a Tunguska forest of [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 17, 2009
11:56
Car City Varietals and Big Blend Believers
Port Elizabeth is the Detroit of SA, so when the “Palate behind Platter“, Angela Lloyd, noted recently on her Grape blog that “carcity” is the reason Pinot Noir commands such high prices, PE as an appellation was thrown into the vinous spotlight. I’d already heard from DP Burger at Glenwood in the rainy Robertsvlei [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 16, 2009
09:23
VVC
Off to the VVC - Vino Varsity Challenge rather than a funky new white blend of Viognier, Verdelho and Chardonnay from the Swartland by Bernard McCoy - I was nipping I’d be a No Show, the Friday afternoon traffic out of Cape Town only slightly better than transformation in the wine industry: slow, confusing and [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
August 14, 2009
13:20
Arco ain’t goin’ nowhere
“He’s not jumped ship” said the beautiful Avondale marketing maven Madeleine Jordaan, indicating Glen Carlou’s gifted winemaker Arco Laarman with her thumb, “he’s with me.” Glen Carlou have been shedding staff faster than Anglo Platinum (David Finlayson has departed for Edgebaston and Mooi Cobus Joubert is now consulting to several high profile brands) so [...]
Categories: Wine & Beverage News, Wine Blogs from South Africa, Wine Blogs in English
RSS | TOP
» What is RSS?