An international Riesling Festival will be held in Cape Town and Johannesburg in February, says the Fine Wine magazine.

Organised by sommelier Joerg Pfuetzner of The Riesling Club, the ‘Under the Influence of Riesling Festival’  will be hosted at the Roundhouse in Camps Bay and at The Hyatt in Johannesburg from 19 – 22 February.  Golf und Wein, the Under the Influence Wine Society and Lexus are the sponsors of the Festival.

Riesling producers from thirteen regions in Germany, as well as from Slovakia, Austria, Portugal, USA and Australia will rub shoulders with the top South African Riesling producers.   The international participants will include Egon Müller, JL Wolf and Dr Loosen Estates, Willi Bründlmayer, Philipp Wittmann, Hermann Dönhoff, Dirk van der Niepoort, Werner Mayer-Näkel, and representatives from Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt and Robert Weil.

The festival will consist of four workshops for wine lovers, the trade and the media, two fine dining tasting events (Cape Town and Johannesburg), a food and wine pairing tasting and exhibition with four of South Africa’s top celebrity chefs and all participating local and international Riesling producers, and a three course degustation picnic accompanied by both international and local Rieslings on the lawns of the Roundhouse, featuring one of Germany’s top live performers, Sven Meyer