The latest in wine news and events
The South African wine industry is known for its dynamic and innovative approach as well as its top notch wines and young, creative winemakers.
The industry is progressing and changing at speed, as South Africa is increasingly recognised for premium wines and world-class wine tourism. Read all the latest news from Wines of South Africa...
Read Jamie's latest feature on South African wine
Some wines that inspired me last year - by Jamie Goode
By Jamie Goode | 6 January 2017
I’m in the lucky position of trying a lot of wines each year, both on my travels and also in London, at organized tastings and at home. I recently looked back on all my notes from the year and pulled out the very top wines. This is quite a tricky exercise, because there are a lot of very good wines out there. As a result, the list I compiled was a very strict selection of just the very best. I use a 100 point scoring system for wine: not because I think it’s necessarily the best, but because it’s the industry standard. The major wine critics from the USA established it, and it’s the default system that’s understood by the wine industry. Its weakness? It’s very congested from 90 points onwards. So a very good wine might get 90 points, and an exceptional wine 93 od 94 points, and then something great will get 95 points or above. The cut-off I used was 95 points for this list. There’s no real science here. I just use points as a way of saying how much I like a wine, and my scores probably tell you as much about me as they do about the wine. So these are some of my very top-rated South African wines.
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Four regions, four winemakers
By Jamie Goode | 5 December 2016
This month, I’m writing about Chenin Blanc again, and I’m making no apologies for this. It’s such an important and interesting variety for South Africa, it’s only natural that it’s going to get plenty of coverage. But this time I’m getting more specific, and speaking with four key figures who each make very distinctive, and delicious, expressions of the variety.
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Exploring Elgin
By Jamie Goode | 3 November 2016
I was visiting the Elgin wine region, where I was due to be taking part in the Chardonnay Symposium. My hosts, Brian and Marion Smith of biodynamic winery Elgin Ridge, had arranged a treat for me: a flight across the valley in a light aircraft. But there turned out to be a problem. The pilot had sold his plane, and thus was planeless. But Brian had another plan. One of the growers in the valley, Ian Corder of Corder Wines, had a gyrocopter. Ian, Brian and I just happened to be tasting together at Almenkerk, and Brian asked Ian, ‘could you take Jamie up?’ So it turned out that the next morning I headed over to small landing strip on Oak Valley’s farm, where Ian was preparing his gyrocopter for the flight.
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Looking for South Africa wines in the UK? Click here to review the South African wine guide for more information.
