This week I'ave been mostly drinking...

Russell Wallace, General Manager

This Week I ‘ave been mostly drinking… Running Duck Pinotage.  

This is one of those low price, Organic no added Sulphur wines that despite my colleagues assurance I have been rather sceptical about and thus have avoided.  Most of my reluctance I would imagine comes from insider knowledge, just in the same way as having ran many restaurants and seen the reality behind the curtain, I now really struggle to enjoy a meal out like I used to!  Being part of the wine trade I am all to familiar with how much of a bottle of wine goes into the Government pockets and other things that I cannot actually pour in my glass.  So with that in mind I always struggle to grasp just how any budget wines can really deliver a level of quality for the incredibly low return a vineyard owner will get, never mind when they go for Organic certification and more difficult low-sulphur type techniques.  So this week I got my act together and gave this one a bash to see just what a South African Vineyard can actually do with a couple of Rand and I was really quite pleasantly surprised.  The producer Stellar Organics produces this great Q& A on http://stellarorganics.com/media/general/No-sulphur-added_wines_QandA.pdf.  The wine itself is great, nice and rich for these darker colder nights but not heavily tannic so it gets my thumbs up.  This is more refined than your average Pinotage with rounder edges and generally a less harsh feel to it.  It also has just a tiny touch of the same quality that made me fall in love with the Welgegund Pinotage, an unusual lemongrass type feel.  All in all for under a tenner you do get well more than £10 worth of wine in my humble opinion.  Grab a bottle today and give it a bash!

Susan Ross, Logistics manager

Get into the Christmas way of thinking with Rocland Estates The Chocolate Box SparklingMoscato

Moscato is normally sweet but delicate and a great tipple for day-time drinking or pre-dinner.  Not too high in alcohol, so it won’t spoil the rest of the evening, or put too many inches round the waistline (always my concern)!  The wine is very pale in colour, but the aromas are anything but understated, zooming out in full floral, orangey Muscat character.  It is soft and sweet, balanced a bit by citrusy acids on the finish.  A great drink for Christmas morning while you’re opening all these pressies, or if that’s too much to think about at the moment, a very pleasant early evening tipple just before dinner on Saturday while you’re tapping your toes to Strictly Come Dancing.

Dianne Barrie, Company Administrator

I can’t say that I know a great deal about one of my wine choices this week…in fact I have to admit that, to my knowledge, I have never tried this grape variety before! Well, there’s a first time for everything, and so it was with some intrigue that I decided to give Crossroads Winery Milestone Series Gewurztraminer from New Zealand a try. It’s fair to say that this style of wine is not my usual choice, however I found myself really enjoying this wine. While it does have a soft lemony fruitiness to it with slight hints of ginger, it was the beautiful floral rose notes that really grabbed my attention in the glass. Wonderfully balanced, it’s not a heavy wine, though I would say that this is one of those wines you would want to enjoy with food. As it happens, we were having plaice for supper that evening and this wine complemented the subtle sweetness of the fish perfectly. If, like me, you haven’t explored this grape variety before either, then I urge you to give this one a try…you won’t be disappointed.