DE WAAL With Ryan Sowray Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

This was a visit that John Morrison and I took to DE WAAL to taste possible new wines for Jo Theresa to add to their portfolio. We visited Ryan on Tuesday afternoon, March 17th, 2009 and had a really nice tasting. Here are some of the pictures I took while we tasted and while John and Ryan talked business I got up and walked around and took more pictures to better remember this experience.

Thanks Ryan, I enjoyed a number of your wines today as we tasted and if John & Theresa bring them to the U.S. market I will be happy to sell some of them. I will add my notes shortly but here are the pictures in the meantime for everyone to look at and hopefully enjoy. It sure was a beautiful day there. I loved it!


As you can see by these photos that I worked my magic or at least tried to : the wine does not spill out of the upside-down glasses for example!?! Now that's a trick if I ever heard of one : how did I do it? I like to experiment a whole lot with my photographs and see what turns up. I never know exactly and that's a real part of the appeal. I also like to show some of the more interesting things that I see and preserve history as I do with the photos of the old wine-making equipment. It shows where things started and came from and I love that. I also love the vines and the living part of this equation : notice how the vines outside the tasting room are starting to change into reds and yellows along with the deep greens? Beautiful, the palm trees, too : and look at that blue sky. have you ever seen anything more beautiful?

As I said I liked the wines and will find my notes. I am also, however an artist and this trip was as much about art appreciation in all it's wonderful, varied aspects as it was about tasting wines. Hope you enjoy this inclusion that often never is mentioned in all the wonderful hubbub about wine and food and how magical they can be when they come together and create magically another taste that was not evident or there in either by themselves. Now that's real magic!

Cheers, TONY