Wine Diva

The Jo’burg Wine Show, in association with Beeld, has invited the Pebbles Project to be part of the show. The Pebbles Project is an initiative which offers support to children whose lives are affected by alcohol. The Jo’burg Wine Show aims to drive awareness and support from wine producers, suppliers, retailers as well as visitors to the show.

The lives of children in and around the winelands of the Western Cape are often negatively impacted by parental alcohol abuse and neglect as well as the social and environmental impact of living in communities where alcohol abuse is a persistent problem. These children often do not receive early childhood education and are therefore unable to complete higher education and become economically active adults.

The Pebbles Project aims to give these children an opportunity to empower themselves by providing for their special education needs and teaching the necessary skills to drive and shape their own future in South Africa. Programmes aimed at assisting these children include the establishment of crèche and after-school facilities at wine farms and in townships as well as training teachers and providing resources such as books, toys, games and play equipment.

“The support of the wine-industry and its consumers is imperative to the success of The Pebbles Project, in addressing the social issues in the Western Cape Winelands,” explains Sophia Warner of The Pebbles Project. “Through educating and supporting these children we believe that we can change and uplift the community creating adults who are able to positively contribute to society.” “By exhibiting at The Jo’burg Wine Show, we hope to increase awareness and support of these initiatives to be able to deliver more services to communities battling the impacts of alcohol abuse.”

Join The Pebbles Project at The Jo’burg Wine Show and Sponsor-A-Child for no more than the cost of a bottle of good wine and make a difference.

For more information visit www.wineshow.co.za and www.pebblesproject.co.za

Plenty of people are intimidated at the thought of buying wine, because ‘wine is so confusing’. That is not too far from the truth, because the sheer variety of wine can certainly be bewildering. Therefore, most wine buyers, unless they are experts, prefer to stick to tried and tested brands and vintages. However, you can be a little adventurous when you choose your next bottle of wine. Don’t believe us? Here’s how:

First up, trying new wines is not as risky as you think. Sometime ago, the Wine Market Council released data that showed that Merlot, Chardonnay, and White Zinfandel are the most popular wines in the U.S. However, with close to 20,000 different wines available in the country, there’s certainly room for experiment.

So when you choose your next bottle of wine, you could well afford to be a little daring and buy a wine you haven’t tried before. Obviously, price will be a factor, but once you establish your budget, you could try asking the wine store staff to give you some helpful tips about various brands and labels.

Wines, as you probably know, are classified into five broad types depending on their method of vinification: table wines, sparkling wines, dessert wines, aperitiv wines and pop wines. However, unless you’re an expert, and we’re assuming you’re not, you are best advised to classify wines according to taste. Ultimately, you will be the best judge of what tastes good to your palate, so no matter how much anyone recommends a label or a vintage, trust your taste above all else.

Wines are essentially made up of chemical compounds fairly similar to those occurring naturally in fruits, vegetables, and spices. The taste of a particular wine depends on the grape variety that has gone into its making, but the ‘oak cask’ factor is at work as well – to be explained later.

So a wine may be dry, off dry, fruity, or sweet, depending on the grape variety. To take an example, a wine’s sweetness is determined by the amount of residual sugar it contains post-fermentation, relative to its acidity. Dry wine, for instance, has extremely low residual sugar content.

However, when it comes to flavors, a wine may contain chocolate, vanilla, or coffee flavors, to take only three examples, and all of these come about as a result of ageing the wine in oak casks – hence the oak cask factor. Then again, if you detect a banana flavor, you can attribute it to the presence of particular yeast, and not any grape. Similarly, plenty of people report detecting animal scents in wine, once again attributable to natural yeasts.

Finally, here’s a list of some relatively uncommon brands that you could go for the next time you choose a bottle of wine: Nebbiolo: A red wine that tastes of leather, tar, stewed prunes, chocolate, liquorices, and roses Tempranillo: Another red wine that contains vanilla, strawberry and tobacco flavors Melon de Bourgogne: A white wine with lime, salt, and green apple flavors Viognier: Yet another white wine that tastes of peach, pear, nutmeg, and apricot Chenin Blanc: A white wine with wet wool(!), beeswax, honey, apple, and almond flavors Sangiovese: An earthy red wine that tastes of herbs, black cherry, and leather Mourvèdre: Thyme, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, violet, and blackberry flavors combine in this red wine Sémillon: An appetizing white wine that combines honey, orange, and lime flavors

You can find fun wine accessories such as an elegant rabbit corkscrew, or a set of riedel wine glasses over at The Wine Standard. So, if you want to enjoy your wine at it’s best head over to this neat wine gift shop.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tommy_Leikas

Pipped at the post by the narrowest of margins at the 2006 Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show, Cape Point Vineyards came back this year with an even stronger entry and secured the Fairbairn Capital Trophy for the competition’s Most Successful Producer at the 2007 Show. At the awards function held at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town on 4 June Cape Point’s Duncan Savage walked off with trophies for the Best Semillon, Best Museum Class Semillon and the Best Sauvignon Blanc. Together with two silvers and one bronze medal Savage ensured that his lead was unassailable.Vergelegen, which has won the Most Successful Producer Trophy four times in the past six years, finished second overall and JP Bredell Wines came third. In comparison with most previous years, where one winery tended to dominate the trophy haul, this year’s results saw a far more even allocation of the 19 trophies awarded.

The Vergelegen White 2006 won the Trophy for the Best White Blend and Bredell’s Cape Vintage secured the Old Mutual Trophy for the Best Port. Two additional sponsored trophies were introduced this year: the Miele Trophy for the Best Chardonnay was awarded to Backsberg Babylons Toren Chardonnay 2003. This screwcap-closure wine also won the Trophy for the Best White Wine with a score of 96. The Grande Roche Trophy for the Best Merlot was awarded to Hillcrest for its Merlot 2005.

The Môreson Magia 2003 won the Riedel Glass Trophy for the Best Red Blend (Bordeaux Style) and with a score of 97 went on to win the BoE Trophy for the Best Red Wine. The British Airways Comair Trophy for the Best Shiraz was awarded for the second time to Carl van der Merwe – this year for the Quoin Rock Simonsberg Syrah 2005. The American Express Trophy for Best Cabernet Sauvignon was presented to Clinton le Sueur for the Longridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2004.

The Old Mutual Trophy for Discovery of the Show (Best Value) is awarded to the trophy-winning wine achieving the best score/price ratio. This year’s trophy for the Discovery of the Show was presented to Hartenberg for the 2004 Pinotage.

The competition – judged annually by some of the world’s best know wine experts – was held at the Grande Roche in Paarl from 7 to 10 May. There were 971 entries for this year’s competition, of which 968 were judged (after disqualifications and late withdrawals). This is a slight increase on the final numbers for 2006.

While the number of gold medals awarded was the same as last year (24), silver and bronze medals dropped significantly in number – from 46 to 38 and 227 to 175 respectively.

On the other hand, the trophies were more evenly spread across most of the major classes as a result of gold medal awards in almost all the significant categories. This year saw trophies awarded in the Dessert Wine, Methóde Cap Classique and Pinotage classes. In 2006 none of the entries in these categories won a gold medal, the minimum requirement for inclusion at the trophy judging. Museum Class entries (white wines of four years and older and red wines and ports at least eight years old) were significantly up on 2006.

Stephen Cahill, General Manager Marketing of Old Mutual, enthuses that as a proudly South African company Old Mutual is delighted to be associated with a world-class showcase for local wines. “We have been associated with the Trophy Wine Show since 2002,” he said. “The show provides us with a great opportunity to engage around the country with investment clients, advisers and other stakeholders”.

2007 Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show Roadshow

Within the next ten days, a series of tastings will be taken to six major centres countrywide including the inaugural Master Class in Soweto.

62 Trophy, gold and silver medal winning wines will be presented at public tastings in Cape Town and Johannesburg:

Cape Town: Thursday, 7 June 2007 17h00 to 20h00 Arabella Sheraton Grand Hotel

Johannesburg: Friday, 8 June 2007 18h00 to 21h00 Hilton Sandton

Tickets cost R90 each and can be purchased via Computicket or at the door.