Tag Archives: dessert

Top 10 Classification = superb wine time and again, year after year

THE TOP WINE SA Hall of Fame is one thing, but so exclusive, very limited… Also prestigious is a Top 10 ranking in the South African Wine Classification – each of them found particularly appealing vintage after vintage, each of them recommended by panels of experts without fear or favour over the past decade, none of them ‘resting on their

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Second-last vintage of Cordoba Crescendo sold for just over R2K a bottle

OF THE SOUTH African wines auctioned by Strauss & Co on 25 July 2021, Cordoba Crescendo 2003 attracted most interest from the online bidders. Although, selling for R2150 a bottle (R12 898 for 6×750ml bottles), it fetched less than what many might have expected of such a ‘cult’ label, a Cab Franc-driven blend from the Helderberg in Stellenbosch – this vintage

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Muskadel, Muscadel, Moscato, Muscat… South Africa is good at it!

ODD that perennial sweet wine favourites Alvi’s Drift, Nuy and Orange River Cellars didn’t get a look in at the 2018 Muskadel SA Awards for fortified desserts, but maybe they didn’t field any of the 31 wines entered this time round. Then again, two of the Top 10 cellars in this category came storming through – Bon Courage winning with both

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Nederburg’s Muscadel impressing wine aficionados around the globe

NEDERBURG Private Bin Eminence 2012 has been included among the Top 10 entries at the 2016 edition of Muscats du Monde staged in the city of Frontignan-la-Peyrade in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France. The Paarl cellar’s Eminence was one of 29 gold medallists – another South African among them being the 2015 Red Muscadel from Orange River Cellars, Upington, with the 2010

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Nederburg and Orange River wave flag for South Africa at Muscats-du-Monde, France

NEDERBURG Private Bin Eminence Natural Sweet Muscadel 2008 placed among the Top 10 at the 2015 Muscats-du-Monde in the Languedoc Roussillon region of France. The only other South African gold medallist was the 2010 Eminence, and the only other South African wine to earn a medal of any sort in the competition was the Orange River Cellars Red Muscadel 2013, which won

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A South African wine unlike any other – its existence hardly acknowledged by the lawmen but delicious nevertheless

THERE ARE THOSE who gripe that it isn’t the real deal, that it isn’t made like it is in Europe and Canada where the Icewine or Eiswein process involves harvesting grapes that have frozen on the vines at the onset of winter. But there’s nothing else like it among the unfortified, sweet dessert wines in South Africa, it comes from

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Delicious desserts and fantastic value-for-money! Badsberg among South Africa’s most consistently good Muscadels

THERE ARE THOSE that can be too spirity, over the top, but the leading examples are quite wonderful among the dessert wine offerings of the Cape. At their best, the fortified red and white Muscadels and Jerepigos made from Muscat grape varieties – typically d’Alexandrie or de Frontignan – show complexity and alluring sweetness without being cloying. And generally speaking, they’re

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Top SA sweet wines and top SA sweet wine cellars over the past 10 years – best track records between 2004 and 2013

SOUTH AFRICA’S 2014 Wine & Cellar Classifications on the basis of the best track records in 25 local and international blind-tasting forums over the past 10 years have just been released. To be eligible for Classification, a wine must have been made and bottled in South Africa and must have earned very good reviews by at least one of the

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South Africa’s top dessert wine ratings in 2013 and best dessert wines under R100 a bottle – the experts’ choice

NEDERBURG and Nuy remain dominant among South Africa’s most successful sweet wine producers, but the competition is growing and getting stiffer… The following wines achieved outstanding reviews from the judges at blind-tastings around the world in 2013: TOP SOUTH AFRICAN DESSERT WINE RATINGS IN 2013 – UNFORTIFIED Badsberg Badslese Natural Sweet 2012 – 4½ Stars in Platter’s Guide Boekenhoutskloof Noble

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