Tag Archives: Sour Grapes

Ellerman House uncorks unique world class Wine Gallery!

Ellerman House Corkscrew Whale Cottage PortfolioEllerman House is one of Cape Town’s leading boutique hotels, and has one of the largest private art collections.  Now it has inaugurated a world class Wine Gallery in the basement of its newly opened Villa Two, with a record number of 7500 bottles of wine. Architect Michael Dennett of DV8 Architects created the unique space, which aims to reflect the more than 350 year history of winemaking in South Africa, and to create an environment of learning more about and tasting our wines.   It presents the Ellerman House wine collection as a work of art in itself.

Earlier this week I visited Ellerman House, and friendly guide Heike Gerntholz showed a group of us around the new Villa Two and its Wine Gallery. The 3 bedroom villa costs R50000 per night to rent, with its own butler and chef.  The Wine Gallery can be accessed by the guests in the villa, as well as by the guests in Villa One, and in the main building, via a separate entrance.  Villa Two guests are isolated from any noise made by the users of the Wine Gallery, we were told.

My focus was the Wine Gallery, and a hand-crafted stainless steel spiral staircase takes one down to it.   It is a vast temperature-controlled space, and a number of elements attract one’s attention.   The design of the very large  lights above the tasting table was inspired by wine glasses.  Behind the tasting table is a Ellerman House Terroir Wall Whale Cottage PortfolioTerroir Wall designed by Angus Taylor,  in shades of brown, orange, yellow, and beige, representing the soils of 100 local wine farms, including La Motte and Chamonix, each framed and named.   There is a massive bar counter made from a solid block of granite, with a hematite wall behind it, and a 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 →

On The Dot Sweet and Five Flies Sour Service Award

The Sweet Service Award goes to Aneesah Botterill from On The Dot, a mail order company in the Media 24 group.   In a most amazing service recovery, Aneesah prevented her company from receiving this week’s Sour Award.   Attempts to order wine writer Neil Pendock’s new book ‘Sour Grapes’, which was advertised in the Sunday Times last week, were met with tremendous inefficiency initially.   The ad had an immediate call to action, encouraging readers to buy “NOW” – however, the company’s order line is not open on Sundays, when the Sunday Times is published!   The following day it became impossible to get around the company’s bureaucracy, e.g. receiving a Tax Invoice to pay for the book, when it can only be issued once it has been paid!   An attempt to reach the MD of the company led to a customer call being made by On The Dot Supply Chain Manager Trade Aneesah Botterill, who listened to the customer, apologised profusely for the administrative red tape experienced, and offered to send the book for free by speed post within two days, a promise she fulfilled perfectly.

The Sour Service Award goes to Five Flies restaurant in the Cape Town city centre.   An e-mail request to the restaurant, to allow guest houses in Camps Bay to jointly share a meal at the restaurant, utilising the vouchers the restaurant had issued to the guest houses, received no response.  When the telephonic follow-up was done, the owner Alex van Nes said “No” to the request immediately, saying that he wanted to do this “his way”.   He was disparaging to the caller, swore, and then put down the phone.  A follow-up e-mail to Five Flies and a call to its PRO have not received a reaction yet.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.