Tag Archives: Grape blog

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 19 May

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The Dutch government is sponsoring World Design Capital 2014 with a R4,5 million investment through the ‘Department of Design’ event, to be held at Provenance Auction House in Vrede Street in Cape Town from 8 – 27 July.  A Dutch economic trade mission will visit Cape Town and the event, which consists of workshops, presentations, debates, and activity relating to sustainability, focusing on water management, transport and logistics, agriculture and farming, health and science, and the creative industries in particular.

*   R4,7 million has been spent to upgrade the facilities of the Department of Home Affairs’ passport control counter at Cape Town International, in the interest of improved service, reports The New Age.  Passport control has been moved closer to the Duty Free section of the airport.  An automated queuing system with turnstiles has been introduced.

*   Start-up Cape Town company Over has won first prize in the U-Start Conference in Milan, its app allowing one to place text and artwork over photographs. The app has been downloaded 8 million times since it was developed in 2012.  Western Cape Minister Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 8/9 March

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Wines of South Africa (WOSA) has announced that CapeWine 2015 will be held from 15 – 17 September 2015. (via Twitter)

*   Franschhoek resident Nolan Hoffman has won the 2014 Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay Momentum Cycle Tour. (Via Twitter)

*   While online accommodation evaluations are much more responsibly handled, about half of travellers feel that a substantial part of accommodation reviews have been ‘manipulated‘, a Tourism professor told the travel industry at ITB, the international travel  expo which ended in Berlin this weekend.

*   The most child-friendly airports in the world, according to Travel News Weekly,  are Heathrow (number one on the list, and offers children play areas, a quiet room, and a game zone), Zürich (with child minders), Frankfurt (with boarding passes for teddies too!), Munich (with touch screen terminals to explain how an airport works, and German TV series shown), Singapore (with a Butterfly Garden, arcade games, a four storey slide, and internet terminals), and Chicago (with an interactive educational play area).

*   The flagship MCC Villiera Monro Brut 2008 won one of 20 Bacchus Trophies at the 16th Annual Taj Classic Wine Trophy Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 23/24 November

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The Garden Route has been named as the best golf destination in Africa and the Middle East.

*   Solms-Delta is one of only 15 recipients  (one of three from South Africa – Bushman’s Kloof Wildlife Reserve and Camp Jabulani) of the Travel + Leisure Global Vision Awards 2013, ‘all of which ‘embody the extraordinary ways that travellers can give back to the places we visit’.  Solms-Delta empowers its workers through profit-sharing, equity, land-ownership, educational scholarships, music-based heritage projects, and other socially and culturally uplifting programmes. (received via media release from Paula Wilson Media Consulting)

*   Tim James of Grape blog has won the inaugural Du Toitskloof Wines Wine Writer of the Year competition, of which the theme was Climate Change and its effect on the South African wine industry.  The prize value is R30000. (received via media release from De Kock Communications)

*  Neil Ellis Sincerely Sauvignon Blanc is recommended for Continue reading →

Pieter vs Pendock: Plaintiff posts Publik Pendock punch!

Neil Pendock Sour GrapesThe wine industry is surprised about the repeated missives i.e. missiles from Neil Pendock, the blogging bully attacking Pieter de Waal, Secretary of the Sauvignon Blanc Interest Group (SBIG), sponsor FNB, Christian Eedes as chairman of the judging panel, and the Sauvignon Blanc producers generically.  Most readers of Pendock’s raving ramblings have no idea what his fight is all about.  There is no better book title to describe this mess than the one penned by Pendock himself, appropriately entitled ‘Sour Grapes‘!

The Sauvignon Blanc Interest Group, with the material muscle of its sponsor FNB, is not allowing polemic Pendock to get away with his defamation, denigration, and  disparagement, and has taken action Continue reading →