Samantha O’Keefe must be pretty tough. She has a spectacular wine farm in the middle of nowhere, and she’s been running it pretty much single-handedly since the beginning, as well…
Thorne & Daughters, one of South Africa’s most exciting producers
John Seccombe is the man behind Thorne and Daughters. John has a calm, reassuring presence, and a voice made for radio, and the locals – who can’t pronounce his name…
Do Parker points matter any more?
Do Parker points matter any more? This was the question that started a big thread on facebook today, and it got me thinking. Points, points, points. It’s such a complicated…
Harvest at Gabrielskloof: collecting grapes
The producers working in the Gabrielskloof cellar in Botriver – Peter-Allan Finlayson, Marelise Niemann and John Seccombe – all buy grapes from growers spread across the various Cape wine regions….
Harvest at Gabrielskloof: vineyard sampling
One of the most critical decisions at harvest time is when to pick the grapes. Pick too soon or too late and your wine won’t reflect its vineyard origins: you…
Wines of the year, as decided by Instagram (2)
Following on from my earlier post, looking at the most popular wines on my Instagram feed in 2017, here’s the next batch of wines. We begin with the Jura, and…
Wines of the year, as decided by Instagram (1)
It’s just turned February, and I realise that I’ve not done a wines of the year compilation for 2017. This is a major oversight: such a list is pretty much…
2017 in pictures (1)
Time to take a look back on 2017. Quite a year. I’ll do this in chunks, beginning with January to mid-March. After a quiet early January it was off to…
Discussing sweet wines, with notes on 18 interesting bottles
Sweet wines aren’t all that fashionable, but they are delicious. The best sweet wines are among the most complex and concentrated expressions of the vine possible, and in past times…