The August Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting will ‘pair’ Food blogger Matt Allison of I’mnoJamieOliver Blog and Wine blogger Nikki Dumas of Swirl blog, and will be held at Den Anker in the V&A Waterfront on Wednesday 17 August, from 6 – 8 pm. 
Matt Allison, author of www.imnojamieoliver.com blog, is a “husband, stay at home father, urban farmer, eco advocate, closet designer, photographer & designated household cook”, he writes about himself. His blog originally started when he committed to cooking his way through Jamie Oliver’s ’20 minute meals’ for the iPhone, completing all 60 recipes in under 90 days. It has since grown into a platform to explore the origins of food, rethinking it one meal at a time.
Nikki Dumas has always been in the leisure industry, as Training Manager at Greyhound Citiliner, having obtained her training background at South African Airways. She has managed restaurants in Johannesburg, including the first store set-up and operations of Moyo on Grant Avenue in Norwood. She moved to Cape Town in 2000, managing a number of restaurants: Villamoura in Camps Bay, Belthazar in the Waterfront, and Balducci’s in the Waterfront. Two years ago she started her own consultancy, called Winestyle.biz, and it specialises in wine list design, wine training, and wine accessories for several wine estates and restaurants. The company has received the highest accolades, both locally and internationally, for its wine list design and compilation from Diners’ Club International and Wine Spectator. With its restaurant on-site tutoring program, the company guarantees an increase in turnover in wine sales. Nikki has produced and manufactured a wine tasting journal, to record one’s tasting experiences. Nikki writes Swirl Blog.
The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to reflect the tremendous growth in and power of food and wine blogs in forming opinion about food, restaurants and wines. Most bloggers do not have any formal training in blogging, and learnt from others. The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club aims to foster this informal training, and to serve as a social media networking opportunity.
Each of the two bloggers will talk for about half an hour about their blog, and what they have learnt about blogging. The Club will give fledgling as well as experienced bloggers the opportunity to learn from each other and to share their knowledge with others. Attendees can ask questions, and get to know fellow bloggers. The Club meetings are informal and fun.
Future Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meetings have been organised as follows:
* 21 September: Chef Brad Ball of Bistro 1682, and wine speaker from Steenberg, at Steenberg
* 19 October: Roger and Dawn Jorgensen of Jorgensen’s Distillery, and Anthony Gird and Michael de Klerk of Honest Chocolate, with a chocolate and potstill brandy tasting, at Haas Coffee on Rose Street.
* 12 November: Visit to new Leopard’s Leap tasting room and cookery school in Franschhoek
Jordan Wines from Stellenbosch will lead bloggers through a tasting of their wines. Snacks will be served by Den Anker.
Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club, Wednesday 17 August, 6 – 8 pm: Den Anker, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town. Bookings can be made by e-mailing Chris at whalecot@iafrica.com. The cost of attendance is R100. Twitter: @FoodWineBlogClu Facebook: click here.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com. Twitter:@WhaleCottage
On Friday evening I attended the launch of the 40th edition of the Diners Club International 2020 South African Wine Guide, at the Table Bay Hotel in the Waterfront, an event that is pretty much the same in format every year, yet was different this year, in the interest of making the event shorter. 
