Once I got past the nasty visual image of rival gangs of chefs attacking each other with foie gras and fresh local produce, I decided to try looking at wine drinkers in the same way. Sure enough, two clearly different kinds of wine lover began to emerge. To avoid being hunted down by gangs of chefs, I will call my rival wine gangs The Tasters and The Drinkers…

German wines have long been the Rodney Dangerfields of the wine world. Confusing labels, lame marketing and a serious identity crisis have caused great German Rieslings to be underappreciated and underpriced for many years. There has long been a perception that all German wines are soft, simple, sweet wines with little personality.  Many wine drinkers confess to liking German wines at first, but that they are now in their rearview mirrors as they’ve moved on to bigger, drier, ‘more serious’ wines.

When my cousin and I showed up on the front steps of Cape Jaffa Winery in South Australia we had absolutely no idea what to expect. We would live and work there for more than two months. We had taken the owners up on their offer a year before, on their visit to Saskatchewan, to come and work at Cape Jaffa for a while…

Perhaps South Africa’s authoritative wine guide, John Platter South African Wines 2004, says it best about Rozendal wine: “An authentic ‘cult’ wine (all the more remarkable for the winemaker’s belief that he succeeded possibly because he ‘knew too little’), it’s still considered one of the finest Cape wines of the modern era…

It delivers huge plum and spice notes, with tobacco, herbs and smoked meat working their way into the game. Remains powerfully fruity and spicy in the mouth, with a long, minty, medicinal finish. Competes with thousands of wines priced higher. Overdelivers by a lot!

For the family of Torreon de Paredes Estate Winery, concern about protecting the environment is a number one priority. “Trade barriers of the future will be related to the environment,” says Javier de Paredes, managing director…

Mount Benson’s founding winery and pioneer in biodynamic winegrowing on the Limestone Coast Cape Jaffa Wines has completed requirements to become one of South Australia’s largest fully-certified biodynamic winegrowers, a process some four years in the making…