Tag Archives: fine wine

Le Riche shows again that Stellenbosch Cab among very best

THE LE RICHE cellar has always been there or thereabouts when considering South Africa’s leading producers of Cabernet Sauvignon over the past decade or so! However, the last three years have been particularly successful for the family, with rave reviews from critics locally and internationally, culminating in victory at the Global Fine Wine Challenge in Sydney where the 2018 vintage

Read more

Five trophies for South Africa at Global Fine Wine Challenge, Sydney

A COMPETITION of which the results are talked up in stages, the Global Fine Wine Challenge in Sydney picks up where the Six Nations Wine Challenge left off in 2019, prior to the Covid pandemic sweeping the world, with the 2021 edition contested by wines from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. At the time of writing,

Read more

R20K paid for bottle of Vin de Constance – small bottle, vintage 1987

WHAT TO MAKE of Strauss & Co’s July 2020 online auction of fine South African wines?! For the auction catalogue, click here. Full results of the sale here. There were just three producers involved: ‘first growth’ Kanonkop on the slopes of the Simonsberg in Stellenbosch where they make a range of top reds from a range of varieties, Klein Constantia

Read more

Best SA wine shops? On land, online, anywhere in the country, the world?

  WHO ARE the best of the specialists when it comes to SA wine retailers? See above or below for the prime candidates in South Africa, but have we left out anyone, any place? And, while we’re about it, where best to shop for South African wines anywhere else in the world?   Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellar Cape Town: CBD

Read more

Fine Wine is about the level of quality and interest value, but what else?

A FEW DECADES ago, wine lovers looking for recommendations as to which South African reds, whites or sweets were a cut above the rest might have relied on certification that the country’s Wine & Spirit Board had pronounced the contents of a bottle to be of ‘Superior’ quality. Then came the wine scribes, individual critics, local and international, offering either

Read more

Strauss & Co fine wine auction both confirming and confounding

FOR THE MOST PART, the results of Strauss & Co’s ‘Rhône-themed’ fine wine online auction conducted in collaboration with the merchants Wine Cellar and sommelier Higgo Jacobs from 6 to 14 April 2020 were to be expected. But how impressive was the demand for that youngster from Donovan Rall, and could that old Zandvliet really still be alive and well?

Read more

Confirmation of South Africa’s top ‘investable’ wines – 2019 auction data

KANONKOP PAUL SAUER tops the list of most ‘investment-worthy’ South African wines produced over the past 20 years and sold in 2019 at one of the various Strauss & Co Fine Wine Auctions or at the Cape Fine & Rare Wine Auction (CFRW) in Stellenbosch. That’s according to Roland Peens, director of Wine Cellar, the Cape Town-based merchants associated with

Read more

Alheit, Delaire Graff, Kanonkop, Klein Constantia, Raats, Sadie …

  THE MOST in-demand South African lots at the first Strauss & Co Fine Wine Auction to be held in Cape Town, organised in collaboration with retailer Wine Cellar and sommelier Higgo Jacobs… Following the inaugural event in Johannesburg three months earlier, the Cape reds, whites and sweets to fetch over R2000 a bottle/750ml at the September sale were as follows:

Read more

CWG Auction 2016: which wines to taste, what’s most worth bidding for?

THE CAPE Winemakers Guild Auctions together with the pre-sale dinners and Showcase tastings are many things to many people… Obviously, they are opportunities to experience and/or collect some of South Africa’s finest and rarest wines from some of the Cape’s top cellars. They are also indicators of what the vintners are particularly passionate about producing or confirmation of what they’re best

Read more

First port of call when fine-wine-shopping in Cape Town

There have been some great wine shops in South Africa that have come and gone. Some that were once special are now ordinary, with the good ones that are still around so few as to count on one hand. We’re not talking about liquor stores, bottle stores, places that deal in alcohol and where the staff wouldn’t know a fine wine even

Read more