South Africa’s inspiring women winemakers

Anyone who reckons winemaking is a man’s job should head for South Africa and see the kind of wines that women are making in some of the country’s most exciting cellars.

It would also be a mistake to think they make ‘feminine’ wines. As with their male colleagues you’ll find a range of styles from crisp saline sauvignon blancs to robust grenaches made from low yielding old vines.

Here are 8 to follow I met on my recent trip.

Erika Obermeyer (@erikaobermeyer)

Her wines are not available in the UK yet but Erika Obermeyer is definitely one of the Cape’s up and coming stars having been nominated Newcomer of the Year in the 2019 Platter Wine Guide. Formerly the assistant winemaker at Graham Beck she went out on her own when the winery made the decision to focus on their sparkling wines and clearly hasn’t looked back

Look out for: the superbly elegant 2015 Erika O Cabernet Sauvignon

Andrea Mullineux (@mullineuxwines)

One of the original Swartland revolutionaries Mullineux’ wines, which she makes with her husband Chris, have become some of the most expensive and sought after in the Cape since Leeuw family invested in the business in 2013 (she also makes the Leeuw Passant range).

Look out for: Her fabulously mineral 2017 Granite Chenin Blanc and delicious straw wine.

Corlea Fourie (@bosmanwinemaker)

Innovative winemaker at Bosman Family Wines who not only makes one of the best Fairtrade wines I’ve tasted (the Adama white) but orange wine and a pet nat (naturally sparkling wine). A keen cook too judging by her instagram account (@corleafourie)

“Pet Nat is such a pleasure to produce. In essence it is HARVEST JUICE. It’s the Weiss Beer of the winemaking world - where we get to bottle something that resembles the wines that we as winemakers get to taste in the cellar.”

Look out for: the luxuriant 2016 Optenhorst Chenin Blanc from the third oldest chenin vineyard in South Africa.

Riandri Visser (@_Riandri_)

Formerly assistant winemaker at Cape Point, Riandri had the unenviable task of stepping into her high profile predecessor Duncan Savage’s shoes but is now confidently putting her personal stamp on its distinctive coastal-influenced whites

Look out for: Cape Point Isliedh 2017, a fabulously textured sauvignon blanc (awarded 96 by Tim Atkin). UK retailers still seems to be on the 2015

Trizanne Barnard (@TrizanneB)

Known as much for her love of surfing as wine Trizanne makes some classy whites from Elim fruit under her Trizanne Signature Wines (TSW) label but also dabbles with syrah from the Swartland. Part of the Zoo Cru group of small independent winemakers

Look out for: her wonderfully expressive cool climate TSW Swartland Syrah. (I tasted the '16 but again it's the 2015 that's currently available in the UK from e.g. Border Wines)

I’m always looking for freshness, uniqueness and contrast, which I have found in the cooler temperature vineyards of Elim for Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon contrasted with the concentrated reds of the drier Swartland. (From a recent interview with The Buyer)

Marelise Niemann (@momentowines)

A passionate advocate for grenache - "the best grape on earth” since she did a vintage in Priorat with Eben Sadie, Marelise makes her wines under the Momento label at the Gabrielskloof cellar in Bot River, sourcing grapes from all over the Western Cape.

“There’s a great future for grenache - it needs to be planted on South African soils” she said in an interview with Jamie Goode during the very dry 2018 harvest. “It’s just thriving in these dry conditions - small berries, small bunches, green leaves - and they look happy"

Look out for: both her grenaches - red and white (available from Armit wines)

Elizma Visser @olifantsberg

Another grenache fan is Elizma Visser of Olifantsberg who makes wine in the up and coming Breedekloof - in the process acquiring the most impressively dirty hands I’ve ever seen on a winemaker during harvest (She’s also the viticulturist) Her chenin is top notch too. According to her importer Hallgarten Wines if she hadn’t pursued wine, she would have liked to have become a professional rally driver"

Look out for: Olifantsberg's Lark chenin blanc 2017 (The Breedekloof Chenin is available in the UK from winebuyers.com)

Samantha O’Keefe (@lismorewine)

Not a native Saffer but a Californian with a background in TV who somehow ended up establishing a highly acclaimed cool climate wine estate (Lismore) on the site of a former dairy farm in Greyton. There she makes a supremely elegant chardonnay and viognier and again, a gorgeous syrah. (How do you get these flavours, someone asked her over dinner. “It’s terroir, dude”

Look out for: her beautifully floral fresh Estate Reserve Syrah.

Picture of Corlea Fourie (top left) by Tom Cannavan.

I visited the Cape as a guest of Wines of South Africa.

The truth about millennial wine drinkers

Do millennials really scorn wine? Or only pour it to take pictures of it on instagram? Nathalie Gardiner, a member of Generation Y herself, examines a few prejudices

Recently I’ve seen a lot of hate within the wine community towards the millennial generation. As an ardent 22-year-old member of the community, this got an immediate rise out of me. And it got me thinking: why on earth do those born before 1981 have 'boring drinking habits"?

It’s always easy to begin an article on us pesky Gen Y kids with the smartphones and the internet and all of this new-fangled technology. Millennials perpetually get mocked for our obsessive use of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and my personal favourite, ‘never getting off that phone’ when checking the time.

Firstly, I have met plenty of people born before the millennial gen cut-off who use social media more than some of us combined. And, is it not the case that the majority of bars, restaurants and even producers/brands get pretty much unlimited free advertising from these social media sites?

I know for sure that when I was in London, I went pretty much anywhere that I spotted on my ‘Discovery’ page on Instagram, whether it be ‘Spoons or Swift. So yes, shun us for supporting the economy if you must. But we are doing the leg-work of several overpaid middle-aged Mad Men, only on a smaller scale and for one very particular industry. It still counts.

Not to mention that if you look at ‘#wine’ on any social media search, the place is swarming with younger faces enjoying wines that are considered classics together with new up-and-coming producers. Even within my Wine and Management Diploma course, which focusses mostly on French wine, you will find us looking for wines that wouldn’t even cross the minds of some Boomers and Gen Xers. I think the millennial drinking habit in terms of variety is a non-issue.

Millenials are more adventurous

Bear in mind that we are diversifying the market, specifically in the wine industry, even though we are spending less overall. 22-37 year olds have been drinking different types of grapes from stranger places than your simple “I like white wine" and "I hate chardonnay but I love Chablis” consumer (the same consumer many of us hospitality types know better than our own mother or, indeed, could well be our own mother).

You may find us at the table round the corner from these types more often, though, since it’s been found that millennials go out to eat more than previous generations, even though we have no money (I’m telling you, NONE). And what we buy in terms of wine, we generally spend more on per bottle, even if we don’t spend as much overall.

Wine doesn’t look to be top of the league tables for Gen Y drinks yet, but it is gaining momentum. If we take a look at rosé, which has only been increasing in popularity by about 5,000% since the turn of the millennium, it has been thrust into stratospheric sales by fantastic marketing, diversity of product (sweet, dry, sparkling, you name it), and, honestly, just better winemaking. Rosé is not only great for sipping on a terrace in the high summer of continental Europe, but all year round, and it’s surprisingly easy to pair with food

Social media has, of course, contributed to the boom. In 2015, one of my favourite examples of fragile masculinity reared its ugly head: #brosé. Rosé for men. Need I say more? I’m shivering in disgust. But it was, tragically, a useful tool in bumping up those sales.

Millenials 'moderate their alcohol intake'

When I looked at articles about the impact millennials have on the alcohol industry, I found myself disagreeing with most things that were being claimed. I’m not sure if I have a genetic predisposition to the classic USA stereotype of frat and sorority house style (and quantity) of drinking, or maybe I’m just a bit more keen on a bev than your typical millennial, but if “three out of four millennial drinkers say they limit how much they drink most of the time they go out and 38% say they moderate their alcohol intake every single time”, according to Forbes, then I just don’t want to be part of this generation anymore.

Ok, maybe that’s a bit harsh. It’s commonly known that drinking until one’s head is planted in the neighbours vegetable garden at 4am isn’t a pretty or sensible option any more. Young people are being healthy! Shame on them for taking better care of their liver! An era of moderation shouldn’t be too much of an issue, especially if we keep buying quality. Not only wine, but craft beer sales have rocketed in comparison to your big brand lagers, and spirits have begun tailoring products to the millennial market to keep up with us being, well, millennials.

I’m not saying older generations are totally wrong when they stereotype us as brattish, self-entitled, impatient, narcissistic social-justice snowflakes (definitely rings a bell with me), but as with every single generation before, back to the beginning of wine, things change. Industries, technologies, tastes, everything about the natural development of society will change how every good or service is perceived.

So what if we drink less but better and more diversely? Gen Y is giving rightful praise to winemakers who deserve it, or may not have been considered before. The market naturally chops and changes. We are doing our best. Especially British millennials like myself, who I can tell you without a doubt will be bumping up the consumption statistics around the end of March, so please don’t worry - our drinking habits could be the only thing that will be of any entertainment soon.

Nathalie Gardiner is a trained sommelier and is currently studying for a Wine and Management Diploma at the Cordon Bleu Institute in Paris.

How we started our Batonnage podcast

I suspect a lot of you are podcast enthusiasts but I’ve come late to the party and probably wouldn’t have dreamt of doing one myself, to be honest, if my collaborator Liam Steevenson hadn’t come up with the perfect name - Bâtonnage.

Liam is one of those Renaissance men who seems to be able to turn his hand to anything which in terms of the wine trade means he’s bought wine (for Waitrose), sold wine, marketed wine and made wine - in places as far apart as the Languedoc and India. He was also one of the youngest Masters of Wine but despite all this cleverness is one of the least stuffy wine people I know.

We’ve done a couple of events together this year - in Borough Wines Tëte à Tête series and bounced off each other rather well so it wasn’t a massive leap to think of podcasting. Even then we probably wouldn’t have done it if Liam hadn’t come up with the name Bâtonnage which refers to the process of stirring the lees or dead yeast cells in a wine to give it flavour and texture - hence the subtitle ‘stirring discussions about wine'. His design team also came up with a brilliant logo so we couldn’t not run with it.

What sort of podcast should we make though? There seemed to be two kinds - one largely dominated by the presenters indulging in jolly banter - the other interviewing guests. We wanted something between the two - a genuine and lively discussion giving our expert guests a platform while (hopefully) contributing our own insight and expertise.

The only drawback was that while we had plenty of ideas for content neither of us had the faintest idea what we were doing - what recording equipment we needed, how to edit, how to upload a podcast to the various podcast platforms. Fortunately Liam had a friend David McWilliam who was not only a bit of a techie but also a wine expert (he works for Liam’s dad’s firm Steevenson Wines). So he became the third member of the team (pictured in our inaugural selfie at the Dartmouth Food Festival!) coming along for each of our sessions and - even more challenging - making sense of the recordings.

Even with his help it’s been a steep learning curve - trying to make sure we create lively but listenable content, not talking over each other, not rambling on to long. Working out how to communicate what a wine tastes like on air and how many you can sensibly try. (we reckon about three works best). At first we forgot to ask guests to bring along a wine to talk about and had to make a mad dash to the supermarket to find an appropriate wine for the subject. Talking to other broadcasters (Lawrence Francis of Interpreting Wine was very helpful) that’s apparently par for the course

We also wondered who we would actually be talking to. People who knew a lot about wine? People who knew very little? People who worked in the wine trade? People whose day job was something else entirely? I guess we want to appeal - as most podcasters do - to the curious. One of the most gratifying things from the feedback we’ve had is that both wine professionals and people who don’t regard themselves as wine experts have enjoyed it.

So what have we recorded so far? Well we started with a discussion on Terroir - the term that refers to the soil, orientation and climate of a particular piece of land and asked whether that was the most important thing to know about a wine. That was with Liam’s fellow MW John Atkinson.

Next we discussed the extraordinary phenomenon that is New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc with winemakers Simon and Jane Waghorn of Astrolabe wines. Our third podcast was on familiar territory for me - Wine and Indian Food with chef Romy Gill (it’s a bit of a riot) and in our latest on Bordeaux with Sunday Times wine columnist Will Lyons Liam and I muse why we don’t love Bordeaux as much as we should.

The podcasts are scheduled to go out every fortnight and you’ll find us on iTunes, Soundcloud and Spotify. We hope you’ll join us there!

Why I’ve become a fully blown flexitarian

It should, I admit, have happened before now but a working weekend away with an overnight stay a chain hotel and a couple of long train journeys has finally convinced me I can no longer eat cheap meat.

'What’s taken you so long?' I can hear some of you ask sarcastically and I truly don’t know. I don’t buy cheap meat in a supermarket but when I’m on the road I seem to fall on any trashy food for comfort

The first nail in the coffin was a particularly disgusting Korean chicken burger at Leon, a chain that should know better. There was far too much meat for the £5-odd it cost so I can’t imagine it was ethically reared and had literally no taste at all. While I’m at it I don’t know in what respect it was Korean - a bit of cabbage and some mildly spiced gloopy orange sauce, I'm guessing (a ‘gochu-jang chilli mayo slaw’ according to their website which sounds much more impressive than it tasted) I left it after a couple of bites. Even if you love chicken this is a pathetic apology for a burger.

The second was one of those dreary breakfast buffets at the hotel I was staying at (a pretty posh Hilton Doubletree). I passed on the bacon which was oozing white goo but added a sausage to my plate. It tasted slightly fishy - nothing resembling pork. Again I left it after a mouthful.

Those of you who are fully blown veggies and vegans won’t be impressed by the fact that it’s the foul taste and texture of mass produced meat that has finally driven me to this conclusion rather than welfare considerations of which I’m well aware but like many people I tend not to think as much about where my food comes from as I should.

Over the years I’ve consumed bacon rolls and BLTs with no taste of bacon, soggy baguettes with limp, waterlogged ham, endless fried chicken of questionable origin and dodgy meat curries and kebabs. That has to stop. No great hardship when the vegetarian - and even vegan - options are so appealing these days (though I don’t count the frozen (I assume) mushrooms, undercooked, underripe tomatoes and tasteless oily hash browns on the same breakfast buffet). I will miss the occasional sausage roll but can always indulge when I feel confident about the origin of the pork.

Fish is a better option but there are issues with that too. I really don’t want to eat cheap farmed salmon, given the well documented health issues on which you should read campaigning food writer Joanna Blythman, and that means another sandwich filling - and smoked salmon - off the menu. But again the taste, and particularly the oily, greasy texture, is appalling

I realise that for many people eating more expensive meat isn’t an option and that it’s hard enough to get kids to eat healthily without cutting it out of their diet. I like to think if I was bringing up young children again on a tight budget I’d feed them a mainly vegetarian diet but wouldn’t blame anyone for not following suit.

But for me enough is enough. I don’t intend to quiz every restaurant and food producer I come across about their sourcing policy (I haven't the time or energy) but to use my common sense from now on to judge whether eating meat or fish is appropriate. If it’s a cheap food outlet, I’m veggie from now on and selectively pescatarian and carnivorous elsewhere.

Tell me I’m not going far enough - I’m sure you will - but it makes sense to me.