31 January 2016

WoTM - Rijk's Private Cellar 2009



My Wine of the Month for January 2016 is Rijk’s Private Cellar Pinotage 2009.

It was one of the wines in my wine tasting club’s annual blind tasting competition, and this particular bottle is the  ‘runners-up’ prize we enjoyed with dinner the evening afterwards.

Rijk’s do make excellent Pinotage. I recall when they started planting some pundits said Tulbagh was too hot to make fine wine. They were wrong and Rijk’s have proved it.
 
This  maybetheir basic Pinotage (their 2011 Reserve has 5 Platter stars and is a 2015 Top 10 Winner) but it’s darn good. Rijk’s tend to release their wines with a little bottle age, and this 2009 is currently available in the UK.



I loved its seamless combination of fruit and tannins. It’s a real food wine, straight down the core with no wild edges. Suave and sophisticated. 
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17 January 2016

Abrie Beeslaar 'My Doctor Friends Want to be Winemakers'


Abrie Beeslaar

South Africa’s News 24 has an  interview with Abrie Beeslaar on winning Winemaker of the Year at the 2015 International Wine and Spirit Competition.

The article discloses that Abrie went to London to accept the trophies SA Producer of the Year, and  Best Pinotage trophy for the Kanonkop Pinotage 2012, (see  here but he didn’t know until it was announced at the IWSC gala dinner that he had won Winemaker of the Year Trophy.

Abrie says he switched to studying for a BSc in Agriculture after failing to make the cut to study medicine.  He says “I am so happy about my career path. I look at my friends who studied to be doctors and they all want to become winemakers now.” #

Read the full interview here.


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