Last night I attended the launch of the ‘Platter’s by Diners Club International 2019 South African Wine Guide’ at the Table Bay Hotel. It was an evening of some surprises, and new awards presented! But one thing was consistent – the Mullineux duo of Chris and Andrea lead this country in its consistent wine award performance, winning Winery of the Year for the third time in the 39 year history of the Platter’s Guide. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Stark-Conde
Raats Family Wines named 2018 Platter‘s by Diners Club Winery of the Year; 111 five-star wines!
A record 111 South African wines received a coveted 2018 Platter’s Guide five-star rating at the Awards ceremony held at the Table Bay Hotel tonight. Raats Family Wines was named as the 2018 Winery of the Year. Continue reading →
‘Platter’s by Diners Club 2015 South Africa Wine Guide’ launched with a number of changes!
The 2015 Platter’s Wine Guide was launched at the Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel last night, in a Beaujolais Ferment colour, with a number of changes in terms of its methodology to evaluate the 5 star wines, as well as in the content of the Wine Guide. Out of 6000 wines submitted for evaluation, a total of 50 wines and one brandy received the highly desired 5 star rating. The Platter’s Winery of the Year is Sadie Family Wines, the second time that Eben Sadie has received this accolade. DeMorgenzon Reserve Chardonnay 2013 was named the White Wine of the Year, 
and De Trafford Blueprint Syrah 2012 was named the Red Wine of the Year.
The first Platter’s change is that JP Rossouw has been the new publisher for the past year, looking confident last night, relative to his first more restrained presentation a year ago. It was nice to see former publisher Andrew McDowell Continue reading →
Praise from USA wine writer for SA wine initiatives, addressing sales bottlenecks!
South Africa’s wine industry has a great fan in American wine economist Mike Veseth, who has visited our country twice in the past two years. In his latest article, the third about his trip earlier this year, he praises the wine industry for dealing with the ‘bottlenecks‘ it faces in selling its wines in the USA. According to him, the design of the South African flag can be seen to reflect a bottleneck too!
Veseth visited in 2012, as the guest of Nederburg, addressing the Auction as guest speaker. He observed the wine industry then and compared it with his observations of his visit this year. He writes that it can be easier to make good wines than it is to sell and market them, and this applies to selling in the USA in particular. He noted the increased confidence of our winemakers, and their ‘concrete plans‘ to tackle the marketing challenges, comparing his last two visits. His observations of our wine industry over two visits are as follows:
1. The leadership of the Winelands in Wine Tourism globally, a fantastic accolade. Continue reading →