Top wines this month bring together strange bedfellows including a Southern Hemisphere syrah from the long ignored vineyards in South Africa’s Swartland Cape Winelands outpost, a brilliant Burgundy from the stepchild Côte Chalonnaise village of Mercurey, and Bordeaux from a refocused producer working right bank Saint-Émilion vineyards. Each one of these wines represents strong value in […]
Peeking In On Winemakers in Swartland, South Africa
South Africa’s emergent Swartland wine scene nested somewhere near the center of my cultural and intellectual wine curiosity ever since tasting a bottle of Sadie Family Vineyards’ Palladius more than a year ago. Understanding why Swartland consolidates a disproportionate share of the most interesting and compelling wines South Africa has to offer became a personal mission […]
South Africa Wine Immersion, My Way
I will be swirling, tasting, and spitting in South Africa over the next couple of weeks. While I enjoy some elements of organized wine travel with groups of fellow wine geeks and writers, this trip is with family and friends on my own time and dime. Having spent 30 years in media, organized wine immersion […]