The latest in wine news and events

Jamie in Hermanus

By Jamie Goode | 9 May 2017

If you are going to drive to Hermanus from Cape Town International Airport, you have two choices. The first is the most direct route: you hit the N2 and just keep driving, over the pass into Elgin and then over the pass out of Elgin, and you'll be there is about 80 minutes. The second route takes a bit longer: head to the coast at Somerset West and then follow the gently winding coast road. I reckon this is one of the world's great drives, with stunning sea views. There's something very special in this landscape, and the real challenge is keeping your eyes on the road. If it's the weekend you'll be sharing the road with a lot of cycles and motorbikes.

Experiencing harvest

By Jamie Goode | 4 April 2017

The interesting thing about wine is that you only get one chance a year to make it. So for the average winemaker, retiring at a normal age, you might get to make 40 or so vintages in your lifetime, unless of course you switch hemispheres in your winter and go to work somewhere else.

Wine is an expression of place; it's also an expression of a particular year. For the winegrower who also tends their own vines, there's a special significance to vintage time. From the time the vine buds, to the point where the flowering occurs, to the point where grapes begin developing, to the point of veraison when the skins soften and red grapes chance colour, to the point of deciding when to pick, the winegrower tracks the progress of vintage. That year is then something they try to capture in the wine, as the grapes enter the cellar. It's only after several months that they will really know the personality of the vintage they have just lived through, when the baby wines begin to show what they are about. Along the way, there are many things that can go wrong: frost, disease, pests, microbial disasters in the wine. It's a complicated business, but when it does well, it’s worth all the anxiety and toil.

Why is Cape Town such a great tourist destination?

By Jamie Goode | 7 February 2017

Why is Cape Town such a great tourist destination? Oh, there are so many reasons. I first took my family there back in 2003, when our boys were still young. I remember that before we travelled, most of the people we spoke to were surprised: isn’t it risky to take your family on holiday there? What about the crime? This planted little seeds of doubt in my mind, so for the first day of that trip I was scared and overly cautious. But I quickly realised that the concerned friends were completely wrong. While crime certainly exists, and I’m not making light of it, I’ve been multiple times and never felt threatened any more than I would in London or Paris.