Pretoria - After successfully taking the South African Wine Tasting Championships to Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town as part of the 2019 TOPS at SPAR Wine Show, the finals of this tough " Search for a Supertaster" competition were held last month and the five-person TeamSA announced.
Fifteen finalists competed in the hotly contested competition, with four making it onto TeamSA, along with one reserve. They are Anton Swarts
(CWM) - who also walked away with the inaugural wine.co.za Top Taster trophy; Anita Streicher-Nel; Heidi Kritzinger; Cyril Meidinger and Chris
Groenewald (reserve).
This experienced team will now go forward to represent South Africa in the World Wine Tasting Championship, which takes place in Chambord, France in October, and hopes are high that they will better last year’s result of 10th position.
“Each of the team members has competed at least once before, making this the most experienced team we’ve ever sent to compete in the World Champs,” says organiser and #flyingsommelier, Jean Vincent Ridon.
The finals in July were held as an exact replica of the World Champs, giving finalists a taste of what’s to come. The finalists were presented with 12 wines, blind, and had to identify the country of origin, cultivar, vintage, appellation and producer for each. “There are well over 8 000 wines
produced just in South Africa, so imagine how fine-tuned your palate needs to be to identify just 12 of them correctly,” says Ridon.
“This year's South African winners are all members of the 'Mooiwyners' tasting group, who taste together regularly, showing how important it is to
expose your palate to international wines frequently. In the last few weeks, they tasted over 100 wines!” he says.
Residents of Pretoria, East London and Nelspruit can get their fill of wine-tasting at the TOPS at SPAR Wine Show, which WINEds its way to
Menlyn Park Shopping Centre from 3 to 5 October, to Hemingways Casino from 7 to 9 November and to Emnotweni Casino from 28 to 30 November.