Life is full of pleasant little surprises for those of us who enjoy our wine.
I was having lunch with friends at Piazza Trevi in the Constantia Village shopping centre the other day, when I thought it would be pleasant to order a glass of red wine with my meal.
Only two of us wanted wine and, as we both had to work after lunch it seemed a bit too much to order a whole bottle. We asked for two glasses of red.
"Our house wine is a Saxenburg blend," said the polite waiter. "Will that be in order?" What a pleasure! To be offered a decent, branded wine by the glass. All too often the best information you can get from your waiter is "It's a red wine from a box."
I've said before that I believe every restaurant should choose its house wine very carefully. It should, in fact, be the one to order as a matter of course.
The restaurateur should know what wines go best with his or her style of food. The house wine should be one that can be offered with pride. A good house wine is a mark of the restaurateur's respect for food and wine. It is also an indication of their wine palate.
Who would want to order food from a chef who does not know good wine from bad? The sad reality is that far too many Cape restaurants offer a limited range of commercial wines on their list, and then keep a box of cheap stuff under the counter for those customers who just ask for "a glass or red," or white as the case may be.
I was delighted to learn that Diners Club International had reinstated their Winelist of the Year awards. Restaurants that take trouble over their wine selection deserve recognition. And if you, like me, select your restaurants on their wines as well as their foods, the following Cape restaurants came out tops in the competition: Arabella Sheraton, Grand Hotel, Belthazar, Constantia Uitsig restaurant, Schulphoek Guest House, one.waterfront, Caveau Wine Bar and Deli, B's Steakhouse and Emily's.
- Shiraz has always been one of my favourite wine cultivars. It just does so well in our country that I feel we should appreciate it more than we do. I was naturally eager to learn which shiraz wines had come out top in the recent Wine Magazine Tops at Spar Shiraz Challenge. There were some surprises.
Kleine Zalze's Family Reserve Shiraz 2003 was the winner, scoring five stars and stealing victory from some worthy competitors - the Hartenberg Shiraz 2003, Flagstone Syrah 2002 and Boschrivier Shiraz 2003. Of course, if you want the best you must be prepared to pay a little extra.
The winner costs R115 a bottle and was described by the judges as having "berry fruit, pronounced pepper as well as some floral notes" on the nose, and is "full-bodied with rich, ripe fruit and sleek tannins" on the palate. All agreed it was worth the price.
The panel chairman, Michael Fridjhon, commented that South Africa's shiraz wines had the "quality and breeding to be world-class ambassadors for the Cape winelands.".