Tag Archives: Danie de Wet

SA Chardonnay: success through ‘incremental improvement’!

At the function to present The Christian Eedes Chardonnay Report 2012 at French Toast Wine & Tapas Bar yesterday, sponsor Alwyn van der Merwe of Sanlam Private Investments emphasised that like Team GB obtained success in the 2012 Olympics, so too our Chardonnay winemakers are using ‘incremental improvement’ to obtain success. Uva Mira Single Vineyard 2011 and Jordan Barrel Fermented 2011 Chardonnays were both awarded a 5 star rating, and were the top two Chardonnays out of 60 evaluated.

Chardonnay is a white wine that should get recognition, said competition co-ordinator, wine judge, and wine writer Christian Eedes.  The first successful Chardonnay was made 20 years ago by Danie de Wet, of De Wetshof in Robertson.

Eedes explained that he started the Chardonnay competition last year, as he felt that wine judging needed a shake-up, as strange results were coming out of competitions.  Involving Roland Peens of Wine Cellar and James Pietersen, Beverage Manager of Belthazar and Balducci, as his fellow judges, they invited 60 Chardonnay producers to enter the competition, not charging an entry fee.  2010 and 2011 vintages were tasted, and Eedes said that they did not have the same richness as those of 2009, which now are ‘fantastically drinkable’. The vintages evaluated this year are ‘big and forceful’ wines, he said.

The Top 10 Chardonnay list, not ranked other than in terms of its star rating, is as follows:

* 5 stars:

Uva Mira Single Vineyard 2011

Jordan Barrel Fermented 2011

*   4,5 stars:

Tokara Reserve Collection Walker Bay 2011

Sumaridge 2011

Sterhuis Barrel Selection 2010

Radford Dale 2011

KWV The Mentors 2011

Hartenberg 2010

Hamilton Russell Vineyards 2011

Almenkerk 2011

French Toast served a number of their tapas dishes, including chicken kebabs, salmon pancakes, deep-fried seafood treats, mushroom bruschetta, and Mediterranean vegetable stirfry bruschetta.

Disclosure: We received a bottle of Uva Mira Single Vineyard Chardonnay 2011 with our media pack.

The Christian Eedes Chardonnay Report 2012.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Bartho Eksteen puts Hermanus(pietersfontein) on the Diner’s Club wine map!

One of the most refreshing wine marketers in South Africa, and focusing predominantly on traditional marketing media, is Hermanuspietersfontein, a mouthful of a wine brand, and also the original name of the seaside town of Hermanus.   Now its winemaker Bartho Eksteen has been named the 2010 Diners’ Club Winemaker of the Year, joining such illustrious previous winemakers winning this honour as Pieter Ferreira of Graham Beck, Carl Schultz of Hartenberg, Günter Brözel of Nederburg, Marc Kent of Boekenhoutskloof, Sydney Back at Backsberg and Danie de Wet of Dewetshof.

Eksteen and his team are proudly-Afrikaans, choosing one of the longest wine brand names in the country(although abbreviated to HPF on some labels), in their choice of sub-brand names (Bloos for their Rosé, Swartskaap, Kleinboet and more), and in their advertising.  Leading their marketing is Gerrie Heyneke, an advertising veteran of The White House, Y&R Cape Town and DDB South Africa.  He is the CEO of grapefuel.co.za.   The winery is visible as a modern structure when one enters Hermanus, on the left,  and has made itself popular as the home to the Saturday morning food and wine market.  

Eksteen himself is a character, much like his wines, and his Die Bartho 2008 blend was awarded a 5-star 2011 Platter rating  for the first time last week. However, it is the 2009 Hermanuspietersfontein No.5 Sauvignon Blanc that won the Diner’s Club award, the wine produced for the first time exclusively from grapes of its own vineyards.   His prize is a SAA ticket to any wine-producing country in the world plus expenses. Eksteen was previously a winemaker at Wildekrans in Bot River, winning SA Champion Young Wine in 1996.  He launched the Bartho Eksteen label for his Sauvignon Blanc, and five years ago he became a partner in Hermanuspietersfontein Vineyards.

The Diner’s Club Winemaker of the Year was judged on Sauvignon Blanc submissions this year.   Chairman of the judging panel, Dave Hughes, said of the six finalist wines submitted: “There was not a single wine amongst them that was not deserving of praise.  Where they differed was in style” .  Every one of them was expressive of their location and, taken together, represented virtually the entire taste spectrum that can be produced locally. We tasted the typical cool-area grassy nose and sweet gooseberry fruit; lemons and limes on the nose with a ripe tropical fruit palate and citrus zing; dusty hedges and zippy acidity; exotically oaked with opulent sweet fruit; a tropical fruit salad; and West Coast green peppers, grass and green figs”.

At the awards evening last night, the 2010 Diners’ Club Young Winemaker of the Year was awarded to RJ Botha of Nitida in Durbanville, and went to the winery’s 2009 Calligraphy, a Bordeaux-style blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon.

To celebrate thirty years of the Diner’s Club Winemaker Awards, a commemorative pack of 12 wines made by past winners of the Award, including Rust en Vrede, Graham Beck, Allesverloren, Thelema and Bouchard Finlayson, has been made available via the Diner’s Club Wine Society.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com   Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Bloggers’ Code of Conduct called for by wine blogger Emile Joubert

The current social media “wars” taking place both in the food and wine arena should be a reason for bloggers to get together, and to write a Code of Conduct for blogging.  This serious call came from Emile Joubert, a PR consultant to the wine industry, and writer of the Wine Goggle Blog, when he addressed the final and best attended meeting for this year of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club at the Grand Daddy Hotel in the Cape Town city centre.

Emile was a most entertaining speaker, and challenged wine bloggers in improving their ‘game’.  He had brought along two De Wetshof wines from Robertson-based winemaker Danie de Wet, the Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, as well as Kanonkop Pinotage, the only South African wine in a recent list of “100 most exciting wines in the world”, and a magnum of Glen Carlou Pinot Noir, which were tasted by the bloggers.   Emile praised the initiative of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club, which was established in May this year.  He has seen the benefit that his wine clients have enjoyed through the increasing number of bloggers, all wine lovers with an opinion, he said.   Social media is a perfect platform for wine promotion.   Every wine has a story, he said, making it eminently ‘blogable”, unlike spirits or beer, which are more generic beverage categories.   Wines have a brand name, a culture and a personality, and these characteristics can be used to good advantage by wine bloggers.   Emile acknowledged the leadership of Mike Ratcliffe in being the first wine blogger ever, for Vilafonte, about six years ago.  

Emile was critical of wineries embracing social media by opening a Facebook page, and paying lip service to social media through poor writing on their blogs and in their Tweets, which give the wine industry a poor image, he said. He said that many wine bloggers “are more enthusiastic than talented in writing” about wine, wasting the time and space for serious wine lovers.  They are boring, he said, and if they contain spelling errors, they are an embarrassment.  He said that many bloggers are too obsessed with readership numbers, using links non-stop, no use he says if their blogs are lousy!    He encouraged bloggers to develop their “own voice”, and to create their own ‘blog brand’.   “Speak your own voice clearly, succinctly and passionately”, he urged.

Most social media programs of wineries lack a strategy, in his opinion.  He recommended that a 1/3 each of one’s action should be focused on SOCIAL, MEDIA and MARKETING.  He described the wine industry as ‘ego-sodden’ terrain, with over-intellectualisation of wines, for example, referring to wine tasting of “tar” and “figpaste”, having run out of new adjectives to describe the taste of wine!   Emile feels that bloggers will make traditional mainstream media wine writers obsolete, and that is why Neil Pendock too has taken to blogging.   He mentioned that the recent ‘Swartland Revolution’, a marketing activity by a number of Swartland wine producers in Riebeeck Kasteel to make their wine region “sexy” via social media marketing, had made TIME magazine.  

In developing a Bloggers’ Code of Conduct, Emile called firstly for anonymous comments to be disallowed, saying that this would never be allowed on a letters’ page in a newspaper.  He also called for a boycott of restaurants that ban writers!   When asked, he explained the split in the wine industry, based on wine writers being pro- or anti-Platter.   The anti-Platter writers are unhappy with sighted tastings to judge the stars awarded to each wine, as they can influence the livelihoods of those affected by lower star ratings.  He called Platter “the best phone book” for the wine industry.  It would appear that this group of writers is also critical of Wines of South Africa (WOSA), in that they feel that the monies spent on marketing South African wines is not effectively spent.  Accepting ‘freebies’, including airline tickets and more, is frowned upon, and leads the anti-Platter faction to expose their ‘colleagues’ guilty of this practice without disclosure.  This leads to backstabbing, infantile behaviour, and persons dishing out insults without being able to take them in turn. 

The Food Blogger Marisa Hendricks from The Creative Pot blog praised her Twitter and blogging friends for their friendly support and ‘chattiness’, which makes Social Media enjoyable to her. She was honest in saying that she is a ‘messy’ cook, that her family does not eat fancy food every night, and that there are irregular meal times in her household.   She focused on three aspects of a blog, in making it more successful. The design of the blog is paramount, as it expresses one’s personality. 

Secondly, food photography needs attention.  In her household photography is mainly done at night, which is complicated as far as lighting is concerned, making dishes look too yellow.  She says that cellphones are not made to give good photograph quality, and that one should choose the right camera (she uses a Cannon), read the manual that comes with the camera, and experiment with the camera settings.  Natural light is best, and it can be softened by gauze, she said.  Food should also be lit from the side, and not directly from above.   Food styling is equally important for successful photography, creating a desire of “I want to lick my screen”, she said!   Styling can be enhanced through the use of cutlery, glasses, doilies, napkins, etc.   White plates are classic in food styling, but bright plates offer a contrast for a one-colour food dish.   The styling should be natural, in how one would eat the dish.  This helps one when one submits one’s food photographs to what she called ‘foodporn” sites such as Foodgawker!  Thirdly Marisa spoke about advertising, and she only allows text-based ads.  She does not want her blog to look like a “billboard”.   She knows that advertising could be off-putting to her readers.  She also discussed affiliate links, to cookery books sold by Amazon, for example, which can work well if used properly.

In discussion it was mentioned that bloggers’ “user-generated content” is becoming more trusted for recipes and information than are recipe books and magazines.  Marisa called for better hardware to read blogs.   Disclosure of receiving free products is paramount, it was said, and PR companies should not expect bloggers to write about the products they have handed out, much like a print journalist will not guarantee that he/she will accept a media release. It was felt that one should not write about something one did not like.  

A competition amongst attendees to find the most frequent Tweeter during the two-hour Bloggers’ Club meeting led to a flood of Tweets.  Hila Jonker (who Tweets as @LadyRaven) won the prize of a bundle of fresh greens from the gardens of the wonderful new restaurant Babel at Babylonstoren.

The 2011 programme for the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club will be announced closer to the start of the new year.  The first meeting of the year will be hosted by Pigalle on 26 January.   More information is available from info@whalecottage.com.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com   Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Crush!3 food and wine digital magazine remains unexciting, tries too hard!

We have been critical of Crush!1 and Crush2!,  the new food and wine digital magazine under the editorship of Michael Olivier, respected food and wine guru, as he calls himself on Twitter.   Our opinion has not changed after seeing Crush!3  We are heartened to see that our feedback is being acknowledged and implemented up to a point.   The overwhelming feeling is that the designers are trying too hard to add design ‘bells and whistles’ which distract rather than add to the magazine. This was reflected in the following Tweet on Twitter earlier this week:  “luv your magazine idea but the technology you using is not user friendly. Why don’t you do trad website?”  

We are sad that Michael, a friend for many years, has taken our feedback about the magazines so personally that he has chosen to not comment on our blogposts at all, no longer acknowledges my presence at functions, and has blocked us on Twitter, a rather unprofessional reaction from what we have always believed to be a mature gentleman.

Our review of Crush3! is as follows:

1.   The cover page has appetite appeal, but a new design feature is to show the cover shot change into a dirty used plate, not looking appetising at all.   The photography of this plate of food, from a feature on rosemary, does not come near the beautiful shot which was used for the cover of Crush2!   The type relating to the content runs over the photograph, making most of it unreadable.

2.   We are delighted that the video button has been taken off Micheal’s face on the Introduction page, our complaint of the previous two issues.   Michael also talks on the video without any clanging kitchen noises, as was the case in Crush2!  The Content listing is an improvement.

3.   Advertisers Old Mutual, The Kovensky Quartet of restaurants, Pick ‘n Pay, Pongracz, Arumdale and Welmoed remain faithful, with new advertiser Avontuur.  Arabella wines is no longer advertising.

4.   When reading the Chenin Blanc sub-page on the “Michael says” page, the page rolls down too quickly when one clicks onto the arrow, for one to be able to read the page.  

5.   On the ‘Essentials’ page there are no distracting flashes, and the brand names are typed at each product, but brand and pack recognition for Dalla Cia, Imhoff Jams, Fairview Chevin and Madécasse Chocolates is poor.

6.   The Morgenhof advertorial is visually intriguing but totally spoilt by the Uwe Koetter ring competition block, spoiling the appeal of this page.   The promotional box stays open when one clicks onto one of the four editorial boxes, making it impossible to read the windows about the restaurant, the coffee shop, the cellar and the owner, defeating the object of the exercise.

7.   The double page spread on snoek pate has five beverage bottles on it too, and one can only recognise the brand name of Steph Weiss beer.  Even when “rolling” over the pics of the bottles of Danie de Wet Cape Muscadel, Klein Constantia Rhine Riesling, Douglas Green Fino No 1, and Mullineaux one cannot read their labels.

8.   Andy Fenner’s “Jamie Who?'” page looks as it did in the previous issue, but the flashes are no longer petal-shaped, now being balloons.  The content of these is boring.   One bubble opens onto ‘After Work Drinks’, and three are meant to be featured, but only Harvey’s Bar is visible.   The balloon bubbles flash even when one opens the balloon, giving it a tacky feel.

8.   The “High Five” page is blocked by a promotion “Share the High Five with your friends”.   The Table Bay MCC Brut brand name is barely legible, being light blue.

9.  JP Rossouw has been overseas, so there is no review by him in this issue.  Michael has taken over the role, and has done a feature on La Motte, but once again a competition block blocks the photograph of the grounds and buildings of the “new” La Motte.  One cannot see how to close this block, which incorrectly spells the wine estate as ‘Lamotte’.   The competition does not call the reader to action – it leaves one feeling confused as to how to enter the competition. Whilst the La  Motte pages have three La Motte wines on the page, with unreadable brand names, the placement of the Pongracz ad on the same page seems to be an error of judgement, especially given that La Motte recently launched its own sparkling wine!

10.  The ‘Quick & Delicious’ page is also blocked with a “make sure you are subscribed” block over the week’s recipe cards.  A tiny packshot of Bisquit Cognac is barely readable and when one clicks onto it, it is yet another attempt to get one to subscribe.

11.  The “Cellar for later” page is fine and all wine brand names are clearly readable below the packs.  However, on the “Quaff for now” page, the brand names of the white wines are typed in green, making them barely legible. 

12.   A dreadful old-fashioned burlesque-type typeface is used for the main food feature, being “4 Ways with Rosemary”.  As it is an ingredient, it is not visible in the food shots, other than in its subtle use in the styling.   The information about each of the four recipes in respect of baking time and the number of persons that the recipe serves is barely readable.   This food feature is nowhere as yummy as the Lindt chocolate one was in the previous issue.

13.   David Cope’s “The Foodie” page looks much better than in Crush2!, and has some brand carry-over from his blog with the red tablecloth.  The “Midlands roadtripping” story has little interest to the mainly Cape Town readers.   There are tiny links at the bottom of the page that are barely visible, being so small.

14.   On the “Fresh Summer Food” one dish for Thai prawn cakes can be seen, yet a flash highlights ‘five delicious recipes’.  When one clicks onto that flash, it just enlarges it, and does not reveal the other four recipes.

15.   The feature on The Kitchen restaurant has a collection of photographs to the left, but one cannot see that they are linked to the restaurant story.

16.  The endlessly long “We love Real Beer” feature is blocked by yet another subscription sign-up block!

The design team clearly still tries too hard, making Crush! off-putting to read.  It is also too hard-sell, in pushing its free subscription (most readers would not be reading the magazine if they had not subscribed to it)!  Pushing its competitions at the expense of its own features or of advertisers’ brands is off-putting too, and reduces the value of their brands.   Our invitation to Michael to comment, issued in each of our reviews, still stands.  To read Crush!3, click here. (page 1 of the magazine has not been loading for a week now).

POSTSCRIPT 17/10: We are shocked that Michael Olivier, as editor of Crush!, can endorse a malicious campaign against us on Twitter as of last night, born out of a dinner of the Crush! editorial team, which included Michael Olivier, Sophia Lindop, Andy Fenner (Jamie Who?) and David Cope, in reaction to our three reviews of Crush!.  The driver of the campaign appears to be David Cope (the so-called ‘The Foodie’).  This is a most childish and unprofessional reaction, that one would not have expected from the once highly regarded Michael Olivier. 

POSTSCRIPT 18/10:   David Cope has taken great exception to having been outed, and is now hurling abuse at this writer via e-mail.  Surprisingly Michael Olivier has done nothing to protect his honour and that of his publication.  His broken page 1 has also not been fixed. 

POSTSCRIPT 4/11:  Andy Fenner (JamieWho?) has announced his exit from Crush!  He bases the decision on a collaboration with Woolworths, which has just been signed.   He may be smart in using this as a way out of Crush! to save his reputation, as he was part of the Crush! editorial team that launched the Twitter smear campaign, and is David Cope’s best friend.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage