This was another really fun tasting of South African wines with our customers Jessica and Russell and many others on Saturday, at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits with owners of their company Boutique Wines , John and Theresa Morrison. We brought out some of their " new " selections like LAIBACH Vineyards and their organic Ladybird dry red blend of grapes, the CAPE ELEMENTS, too , as well as some of their already tried-and-true wines of BEAUMONT Vineyard ( the Raoul's Basket Press dry red blend named after Raoul the owner ) and the DE MEYE dry white Chardonnay.
We basically had something for everyone in style and price range with excellent quality being the uniting theme. The wines were primarily European in style and not so much the New World style : and they were also very much designed with the idea that they would complement well their food pairings as well as also being complemented right back by the foods, too.
It was nice to see the Ladybird wines once again from the LAIBACH Vineyard where John and I had been a couple of years earlier when we visited them quickly. We had just a little time on this visit and I blogged about it here already on chatwine. Use the search engine above on the home page to get to it as there is more about the wines there as well as some really nice pictures that I took if I do say so myself.
Ladybird is the English ( British ) term for ladybug. There's both a dry Ladybird blended white and a Ladybird dry blended red. We are happy to have both and it's also nice to have them as they are also organic as well as quite balanced, tasty and fresh and filled with their own distinct personalities.
The Ladybird red really showed well on this evening. The " new " CAPE ELEMENTS also showed quite well but it was bolder and more intense and definitely more of a food wine. I could easily see myself drinking the Ladybird dry red blend all by itself ( at least as glass ) as it was and is quite fruit-forward, medium-to-light-bodied and with softer tannins and with acidity that was more for accent and easier on my palate.
Both the DE MEYE dry Chardonnay and the dry red BEAUMONT " Raoul's Basket Press " dry blend are really old favorites and our customers like them quite a bit already. It's still great to revisit them as we did here on this Saturday, November 13th, 2010. I got a chance with John to visit both DE MEYE Vineyard ( owned by Philip Myburg with his wine-maker and assistant that were all on hand to treat us with such great attention and care ) and also BEAUMONT Vineyard ( owned by artist Jayne and her children Adriane and Sebastien the wine-maker ) and I had memorable and lasting impressions from both these vineyards of the people, the place and of course the excellent wines. We were treated pretty much like very special guests - almost like royalty. They, too have also been to Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits before tasting their various wines with us and with those of our lucky customers that had been in the store at the right place and time.
I also got a chance to visit Curly with John while in South Africa. Curly is the wine-maker at HILLCREST just outside of Cape Town. We also were royally treated by Curly in his more rustic style. There was no pomp and circumstance but with Curly there was lots of honesty and no bull. I liked that. I also liked that he knew John pretty much inside and out and was willing to share quite a bit of that at dinner later that same afternoon in Cape Town not far from where John used to work before he and Theresa went into business together and he quit his high-paying job.
It was an eye-opener to visit Curly at HILLCREST as we tried a number of his red wines and their individual grapes before being blended into final blends.
I kept telling Curly that he should bottle his Petit Verdot all on it's own and that it would be quite successful standing on it's own and not as a part of a blend into his Merlot that we now sell at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits though we are currently out.
We have always sold Curly's Sauvignon Blanc. It's quite distinct and stands completely on it's own.
I just lost some of my blog that I wrote and so I will have to finish this tomorrow but will post it " as is " now for the moment as it is mostly completed. Stay-tuned for the rest tomorrow. Cheers, TONY
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