Oscar's Pleasure

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The Cure for Technophobia

Oscar Foulkes January 18, 2010 My Little Black Book, Web Tools No comments

My favourite web hosting service, FatCow.com has a new ‘drag and drop’ function for building websites, which makes setting up a website (literally) as easy as 1-2-3:

Click here to buy your domain name and a year’s hosting for only $66.
Log into the Control Panel (using the username and password you selected), then click on ‘Weebly Drag and Drop Builder”.
Make use of the very user-friendly interface to select a template. Then drag whatever elements (picture, text, video, ecommerce, GoogleMaps and more) onto the screen. You can even add pages which are accessed via the navigation bar. Then input your text and click on ‘Publish’.

Perhaps I’m oversimplifying, but I think it would take a fairly extreme case of technophobia to get in the way of your own free (except for the hosting) website.

No Time Like the Present

Oscar Foulkes January 13, 2010 Wines No comments

In a movie restaurant scene that (to wine geeks, at least) could be as famous as Sally’s fake orgasm (When Harry Met Sally), Miles takes himself off to a burger joint with his prized bottle – a 1961 Chateau Cheval-Blanc – which he proceeds to drink out of a Styrofoam cup. Up to that point Sideways had been wall-to-wall wine porn; now, in a suicidal state, Miles is drinking the bottle for which – in his permanently depressive life – he could never find the perfect moment.

Every wine drinker has at least one special bottle. It may have been earmarked for a forthcoming event – an anniversary, a birthday, the birth of a child or the closing of a deal. Usually, though, the bottle is awaiting that ‘special moment’, the determination of which is clearly entirely subjective. For some people that moment never comes; they cannot conceive of the possibility that there will never be a better moment than the one right now.

The human body is fallible. It falls prey to a range of illnesses so vast that the pharmaceutical industry can afford to invest billions of dollars in R&D. And if we don’t get ill, we can become victims of completely random events over which we have no control. But, however impermanent our own existence, we’re a lot less perishable than bottles of wine. Few wines can last decades; those that can last the length of an uninterrupted human life are rarer still. This assumes, of course, that the bottles have been stored at an optimal temperature (between 12 and 16 °C), and aren’t corked. All bets are off if the bottle slips out of someone’s hand.

For my 41st birthday, my wife gave me a bottle of Salon champagne – and a card, of course, which said “To your Salon years”. Many people will happily spend $300 on a pair of fabulous shoes, especially if they are expected to give 10 years of service. Spending the same amount of money on a single bottle of wine requires the application of a completely different set of values.

Within the first months of owning this bottle I did suggest we open it, but my wife wasn’t in a champagne mood at the time (there’s no point drinking the stuff if the acid is going to clash with one’s body). Then, six months later we made a successful offer for a house, having been renting for more than six years. Surely buying a house is a ‘Salon years’ kind of thing, I thought? No, let’s wait until we move in.

I didn’t trust the movers with a few select bottles, of which Salon was one. And, workmen were still busy with renovations when we moved in. So, for a couple of weeks I drove around with a case of wine in my car (it was winter, so no concerns about storage temperature). When I thought the coast was clear I put the wines into a locked store room off the garage. What I’m working up to, is that there were still workmen on site, and somehow my bottle of Salon went missing.

Eugène-Aimé Salon must have been a pleasure-seeker of note. He was a fur millionaire, living in la belle époque, of the opinion that black grapes (pinot noir and pinot meunier) bring coarseness to champagne, and therefore devoted himself to making his own, but based entirely upon chardonnay grapes. At first his champagne was distributed to friends, business associates or relatives as gifts (one hopes he drank some himself!), making him a kind of garagiste champenoise. The first commercial release – and one of only 37 in the entire 20th century, was in 1921.

The key to Salon (the champagne) is grand cru chardonnay from the village Les Mesnil-sur-Oger. These grapes simultaneously deliver richness and acidity to create a kind of elegance that is impossible to achieve by blending with black grapes.

In 1995, I imported a small quantity of Delamotte champagne. This small house is joined with Salon, and the shipment arrived with a couple of sample bottles of Salon, one of which was consumed on our wedding anniversary soon thereafter. For the next five years, or so, it became customary for us to celebrate our anniversary with a bottle of Salon.

It is my opinion that the perfect way to enjoy a bottle of Salon is to share it with only one other person, which gives each person three glasses. The first glass will be the most bracing, if one can use such a word in a positive sense – the bubbles are strongest and the acidity freshest – giving a kind of Granny Smith apples experience. The second glass is showing more evolution in the wine, and by the time one gets to glass number three (especially if an hour has passed), the apple character has changed to a kind of baked apple pie with hint of orange rind and perhaps even a background of bread and butter pudding. Salon is a dry, and demanding, wine to drink. It rewards patience; this is not a champagne for supermodels to drink through a straw in nightclubs.

My disappointment at losing my bottle of Salon, then, is partially based upon its rarity (usually only three vintages per decade, released eight to 10 years after the vintage), its unique quality, as well as the emotional significance it holds. But there is another reason, and this was a visit we made to Delamotte and Salon in 1997.

We were on a wine and eating trip through France with another couple. There was no-one from the export team to receive us, but were told we were most welcome to visit anyway; they would deputise someone to take us around. The deputy turned out to be Max, a man in his seventies, who worked with the wine (he even wore the leather apron), but spoke not one word of English. I can understand some wine French, so off we set on our tour of the cellars that make what can lay claim to being the world’s most exclusive champagne, led by this wonderful old man. That we couldn’t communicate in a conventional sense was irrelevant. His manner was imbued with the quiet dignity and humility of having spent his life contributing to the making of one of the world’s great wines. Under those circumstances there really isn’t much need for marketing hype.

The tour ended in a simple reception room at the rear of the house, looking out over a small patch of vineyard. On a table was the full range of champagnes from Delamotte, and two vintages of Salon. Max then left us to get on with tasting/drinking the wines. As the sunlight across those vines started softening, I was filled with the sensation of perfection – the scene outside, the down-to-earth quiet in the room, and the elegance in our glasses.

So, what to gain from the loss of my special bottle? Unlike Miles, I’d prefer proper glassware (I’ve known people to ‘neck’ grand cru Burgundy when no glasses were available). And, drinking wine is like having a conversation; the greater the wine, the more it has to say for itself. That being the case, give it the space to be heard.

A couple of years ago I attended the end-of-year Men’s Function for the local branch of the International Wine & Food Society. The menu comprised foie gras, crayfish and duck, and for this feast members were asked to bring their best bottles (some of which, it has to be said, could only be regarded as ‘best’ relative to something rather dismal). My friend Zak brought a bottle of 1996 Domaine Jacques Prieur Musigny – his ‘best’ bottle – which he shared with several of us. Later he made an impromptu speech in which he expressed his admiration and appreciation for the friendship of various “gentle men” (two words intended) amongst us. That was the last time any of us saw him alive. Later that night, after getting home, he succumbed to a heart attack.

Zak had an almost mythical last supper; he ate his favourite foods, he drank a treasured wine, and he said a whole bunch of meaningful things that will stay with us forever. More than anything, though, the evening illustrated that there really is no time like the present; all kinds of things can happen either to our bottles or to ourselves.

This article first appeared in Player magazine.

Angelic Red Snapper

Oscar Foulkes January 12, 2010 Restaurants No comments

I am usually loath to describe something as “the best” experience ever. Speed or distance travelled, weight and other such things can easily be supported by empirical measurement, but experiences are too subjective.

Similarly, there is no such thing as “the best” wine, because scoring of wine is inherently flawed.

Having said all of that, the whole wood roasted red snapper I had at Angels Bay restaurant on Koh Phangan (+66 8432 67031) in Thailand was so delicious, so perfectly cooked – and so fresh – that I can’t recall ever having eaten better fish. I loved the way the fennel seeds complemented the flavour, and Jesus, did I admire the way the chef had timed the fish’s time in the pizza oven to the perfect point where the flesh against the bone was in its final moments of being pink.

I think I could be described as a red snapper junky. During our holiday on Koh Phangan I ordered whole fried snapper every time I thought my stomach was up to it. It’s not that there is a huge amount of flesh on a snapper, but eating Thai style means that one’s stomach quickly shrinks as a result of the smaller portions, which have less protein than one is normally accustomed to.

I think my favourite part of eating snapper is sucking the juices and flesh residue off the bones. In the case of the abovementioned Angels Bay snapper that was a particular treat.

Food critics often qualify restaurants in terms of the length of detour that would be worthwhile. In the case of this meal, it was worth international flights, another flight on a prop aircraft, as well as a choppy ferry ride and sundry taxis inbetween.

Pondering Teenage Drinking

Oscar Foulkes January 11, 2010 Uncategorized 1 comment

As the father of a rapidly growing-up thirteen-year-old I am being confronted with an avalanche of important guidance issues. Boyfriends are not yet on the scene (beware, boys!), but I am cogitating the issue of alcohol.

Before I continue, in this moment I can see the allure of the fundamental application of religion. If one lives one’s life according to one of the major codes there is never any need to engage in a debate. The answer is simply “no”, and the reason is that the Bible (or Koran or Torah or whatever landmark book of guidance) says so. I could try to invoke such dogma on the issue of premarital sex, but I don’t have any high hopes of success.

I’m not suggesting that fairy tales offer superior guidance, but I’d like to introduce my interpretation of Sleeping Beauty, who slept for a very long time (not with anyone, it must be said!) because she fulfilled a curse by pricking her finger on a spindle. The reason why this happened is that her father, the king, had ordered all spinning wheels removed from the kingdom in an attempt to protect his daughter. The problem is that she therefore did not know what the spindle was when she finally encountered one. If we truly want to protect our children we must empower them with knowledge, is the conclusion I draw from the fable.

The implication, therefore, is that teenagers should not encounter alcohol for the first time when they are of legal drinking age (18 in South Africa). Nor, should it be prohibited, because this will only increase their interest in consuming it illicitly. I am not advocating profligate consumption of alcohol by anyone of any age, but it is a reality that people are going to drink alcohol, and if they are it’s preferable that they learn to do so in a responsible manner. Being drunk – I’m not going to soften this one by using phrases like excessive consumption or overindulgence – puts one into a high risk situation. If one is driving a car after drinking it puts other, innocent, people at risk as well.

Wine is consumed in our house every single day, to the extent of a bottle shared between Andrea and myself. Both my son (nine years old) and daughter (thirteen) are free to taste anything we’re drinking. Our hope is that they develop an interest in appreciating wine the way we do – an endless collection of diverse (and often beautiful) experiences that encapsulate the the place and people that created them. Yes, one can get as drunk drinking Chateau Margaux as cheap vodka shooters, but I’d like to think that wine inspires a more cerebral – and hence more moderate – type of consumption.

Thus far our son is showing a much greater interest in wine (and beer, but then he is a boy). While on holiday we had a couple of cocktails, which is very unusual for us. What surprised me was our daughter’s sudden liking of the tastes she had, as she seldom shows any interest in tasting wine. Given the sweetness of cocktails and their cooldrink-y flavours this is not a huge surprise, but she doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, and nine times out of ten will drink water in preference to fizzy drinks.

Perhaps her late nights on Cape Town’s Long Street are closer than we thought.

The conventional interpretation of Sleeping Beauty suggests that a handsome prince will rescue inebriated girls from vomiting into gutters. I’d rather it never reached that point.

Maybe it’s time for a new round of fairy tales, in which the women aren’t perpetually being rescued, or waiting for the handsome prince. Is it too much of a stretch to imagine my daughter reaching for the wine list on that mythical first date?

At what age does she qualify for her first ‘own’ drink? I’m not suggesting that she should be having a gin and tonic along with the adults just yet, but 18 strikes me as being an arbitrary and hence perhaps an indefensible point. Is that drink going to do anything different to her at the age of 17 years and 364 days? Will she have a more responsible attitude to alcohol if she doesn’t touch a drop until that fateful birthday?

I’d be really interested to get some other opinions on this one, so feel free to use the comments section below.

Awed into Silence

Oscar Foulkes December 14, 2009 Hotels No comments

Words have a way of forcing their way out of my brain, into spoken or written existence. This is especially likely to happen if I’ve had exceptional experiences, or made fabulous discoveries. I therefore find it striking that something similar has taken so long to happen with respect to my visit to Mumbai a few weeks ago.

It’s not that the visit wasn’t worthy of detailed mention; perhaps I was so awed by the experience that I didn’t want to trivialise the city with superficial comment. What I can say unequivocally is that nothing I’ve experienced anywhere else in the world even came close to preparing me for India.

My Mumbai Taxi

I didn’t expect to be driven to my hotel in a ramshackle old taxi (it even had air conditioning!), and was a little alarmed to enter a slum almost immediately upon leaving the airport, which we did not exit until reaching the perimeter wall of the hotel. The Grand Hyatt is a big, posh hotel. The centre of a slum is the most unlikely location for such an establishment.

Before getting onto the rest of Mumbai, I do need to mention the excellence of the service at the Grand Hyatt (booked via Otel). The staff at the hotel is the most friendly and attentive I’ve experienced anywhere. One can find professional efficiency – perhaps even with a smile – in many places, but this was something else. The revelation to me was Praveen, the guy who cleaned my room. Usually such workers operate under the radar. They come, they do their work, and they go. If I walked past Praveen on my way to breakfast he’d greet me with apparently sincere friendliness, before establishing a time that would be convenient for him to clean my room. On the fourth day I returned to find that he had folded the dirty shirts at the bottom of the cupboard!

If it weren’t for the location I wouldn’t hesitate to return to the Grand Hyatt. During my stay I met an Italian who had been staying there for three months. If there’s any hotel in the world where one could feel at home, this is it.

I couldn’t help thinking of Hogwarts’ Room of Necessity while being driven on the Western Expressway, which was choc-a-block with trucks, taxis, motorbikes, rickshaws (tuk-tuk taxis) and assorted other vehicles. The taxi driver would hoot (OK, honk in American), then aim the vehicle at the narrow gap between designated lanes. As if by magic – the force of necessity – the gap would widen to accommodate a car.

The black and yellow city cabs – ancient Fiats of indeterminate model – weaved and hooted their way around the city. I even saw one with a Pierre Balmain badge, which appeared to denote that the couturier had styled that model, but I have not been able to find any information that could shed further light. It’s certainly one of the more incongruous things I’ve seen.

Sitting inside one of these ramshackle taxis, complete with holes in the floor, threadbare upholstery, one’s mouth and nose getting clogged with smelly dust, is not what one would call a comfortable experience, especially taking into account the goings on in the traffic, not to mention the surrounding slum. Once I’d told myself that I was in a theme park – perhaps one for Shantaram or Slumdog Millionaire – I became a relaxed spectator.

More than 250 million Indians live on less than $1 per day. Extreme poverty, potholed roads, refuse and slums are everywhere; yet all I could feel was awe for the ‘bigness’ of experiencing India.

I made two visits to the Colaba precinct, once for dinner at Indigo, and once for lunch at Leopold Café followed by some intensely bargained shopping. This is a part of Mumbai I’d certainly want to spend more time (especially if I was staying at the Taj).

The tiny slice of India I experienced is by no means representative of the whole, but it was enough to make me want to explore the rest of the country in more detail.

It was certainly enough of an experience to silence me for a few weeks!

Of Features, Benefits and Needs

Oscar Foulkes December 5, 2009 Uncategorized No comments

I’ve spent about 17 years selling a product – wine – that doesn’t deliver measurable benefits. In addition, one’s ‘need’ for it is based upon learned lifestyle or cultural preferences. We drink wine because we’ve grown to like the taste of it, and probably also because of the mild intoxication that follows from drinking a glass or two. When our brains get involved the interest leapfrogs to another level, where we are drawn to the great variety of wines and wine styles, not to mention the rarity of those that are truly excellent.

Compare this with selling airline seats, which offer the obvious benefits related to air travel; or, selling a cure for cancer. Selling wine is very much more taxing, which is perhaps part of the reason why the majority of people selling wine get hung up on features.

The features of any particular wine (i.e. all the technical stuff related to its production) may well be interesting to the serious wine drinkers, but is more likely to have the opposite effect on casual drinkers because it increases the perceived complexity.

I wouldn’t say this entire argument flashed through my head this morning when I fielded an unsolicited telesales call from someone at Telkom. And, perhaps I am just very curmudgeonly when it comes to telesales, but the sound of someone reading a script just switches me straight off.

What she was trying to sell me was a package that would save me money. I didn’t stick around for the whole thing, but the story goes along the lines of “pay this fixed monthly amount and you’ll be able to make a whole bunch of lower-cost calls at predetermined times of the day”. All the very well, but I’m sure that I signed up for something similar a few years ago.

So I asked her if she would kindly do an analysis of my call patterns relative to the package being offered. If there was, indeed, a saving I’d happily buy the package. All of a sudden the shoe was on the other foot – she couldn’t get me off the phone fast enough.

I’m assuming that she’s on some kind of incentive programme. I bet she’d get fantastic results if she first analysed the call patterns of her prospects, so that when I answered the call it would go something along the lines of: “Hello Mr Foulkes. This is Rowena from Telkom [with genuine warmth, then switching to a confident, more professional tone], I’ve analysed your account, and I’ve found a way that can save you x rand per month.”

The benefit has been spelt out. In addition, I’d probably be impressed that she’s done her homework.

This strategy would work for her individually because her calls would have a high conversion rate. Telkom would perhaps be less impressed that customers yielding a high margin are suddenly less profitable.

I was thinking about all of the above while sprinkling Maldon salt on my poached eggs this morning. Salt is a need item; we can’t sustain our lives without at least some of it in our diet every day.

In the case of Maldon, the flakes are a feature (and also a status symbol!) that they’ve convinced consumers deliver a better salt experience, which is an excellent case study in converting features into benefits. Salt is a low-cost commodity, but the likes of Maldon have turned it into a premium product.

That a wine is made in a certain part of France is a feature, but French producers have managed to convert that into a benefit. In many parts of the world wine drinkers will pay a premium for the perceived benefit of drinking a village Burgundy, even if it’s inferior to an estate Pinot Noir from Otago or Walker Bay.

The real benefit is offered by the New World Pinot – a better experience at a lower price. But, as with all things, benefit is in the eye of the beholder. That’s a feature of marketing.

Skin Contact

Oscar Foulkes November 30, 2009 Wines No comments

While in Mumbai last week I was a guest at two Bertani wine dinners. Apart from the pleasure of watching other people doing work that I normally do, the wines were a real eye-opener.

Amarone is not a new wine experience for me, but I don’t think I’ve had any for ten years. Also, I seem to recall drinking the more ‘modern’ styled wines, such as those made by Zenato.

If I’d been asked before the time to describe a wine that had spent six years in cask I would have bet money on the wine being oxidised, if not ridden with volatile acidity.

I tasted three vintages of the Bertani Amarone Classico – 2000, 1998 and 1983 – all of which did spend six years in cask. They were gorgeous, and the 1983 was so fresh that I would never have guessed it was 26 years old.

The unique feature of Amarone vinification is that the grapes are harvested in September before the full ripeness of the grapes causes the acidity to drop. The grapes are then placed on cane mats in open-sided sheds, where they lie for four months. Due to the cool, dry winds the grapes remain healthy, but lose a substantial amount of moisture, which causes the flavours to become very much more concentrated.

Regardless of which producer has made it, Amarone is a big, rich wine.

After pressing, the skins are used to re-ferment Valpolicella, which then becomes Ripassa. In essence, Ripassa is more concentrated than ordinary Valpolicella as a result of the use of Amarone skins.

Grappa is the distillate of the alcohol remaining in pressed grape skins after the completion of fermentation. Were these skins to be used for grappa, having already undergone fermentations for both Amarone and Ripassa, they would be the most-used grape skins ever!

My solution to Dubai’s debt crisis

Oscar Foulkes November 29, 2009 Uncategorized No comments

It is no great surprise that Dubai World is looking to its bankers for accommodation on a reported $59 billion of loans. I have been – and remain – a Dubai sceptic (read my previous comments here).

To these I can add observations collected while driving around the Emirates last week. Firstly, there are ‘To Let’ signs on a large number of completed buildings. Secondly, many building projects have been halted; the most notable of these being an entire ‘mini-city’ between Sharjah and Dubai.

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that there’s a gross over-supply of all kinds of real estate. Even if there was financing available to complete the moth-balled projects, who would occupy all that space?

It would be really easy to get involved in a smug “I told you so”, but I’d rather offer a solution that is more sustainable than a bail-out from one of Dubai’s richer neighbours, which appears to be likely.

Let’s begin by taking an alternative look at the role of Dubai’s government, which is effectively that of a property developer.

The global slowdown has unquestionably had an impact, but I’m of the view that Dubai would have hit headwinds anyway. It now finds itself grossly overstocked with all types of real estate inventory.

So, what I would do is kick out all policies or laws based upon nationalism (the usual benchmark for government decisions), and tie everything to rental agreements for property. In the case of Dubai, payment of rent is effectively revenue for the government, and is therefore a proxy for taxation.

Anyone who is willing and able to rent property can have residency in Dubai for the length of the rental agreement, and the monthly rent would be their sole tax responsibility. Opening a business would be dependent upon entering into a similar agreement for commercial space, and initially that would be their sole obligation to the fiscus. Employment of UAE nationals – if obligatory – would not be subject to the minimum wage currently in force.

Failure to pay rent, or criminal activity are grounds for immediate deportation and forfeiture of moveable assets.

Residents under this programme would be obliged to contribute to privately managed health insurance. A fuel levy would fund road maintenance and construction.

My thinking on the level of the rent is that it would be low – possibly only a little above the interest cost – with an annual increase. The power of compounding would soon elevate the rent to a level where some kind of return is being generated. The low return to start with isn’t an issue; the main thing is to get residents, especially ones who are contributing to economic activity of some sort.

The government/rulers need to be willing to embark on some radical changes to the general business and living framework, which as it stands is not conducive to the kind of outreach proposed under my plan. Expats complain of an inefficient, ineffective and arrogant bureaucracy. Based upon my own experiences, immigration officers could do with some lessons in friendliness.

My ‘dangerous mind’ has been quite active on the issue of selling Dubai. So, if anyone in the Dubai elite happens to read this, give me a call.

Converting Consumers

Oscar Foulkes November 28, 2009 Uncategorized No comments

India’s 1.1 billion population is one of the world’s prime targets for marketers, even if hundreds of millions live on the mythical dollar-per-day. Just the point-one part of its population is double that of South Africa.

The estimate of David Banford, founder of The Wine Society of India, is that India is home to about 25 million potential wine consumers. In the context of a billion-plus population that number barely amounts to a rounding error.

He faces many challenges in developing a wine culture, not least of which is the cost of wine as a result of outrageous federal and provincial taxes applied to wine. As a rule of thumb, a product that leaves the winery at $3.00 will cost the consumer a multiple of at least 15 times that by the time it appears in a shop.

I understand that trade negotiations are in progress.

Another company busy with a conversion drive is Proctor & Gamble, which probably has a bigger marketing budget than an accumulation of the entire world’s wine industry. While they face similar cultural issues as The Wine Society of India, they don’t get beaten up by India’s Revenue Service. They have dropped the price of the Gillette Mach 3 to Rs 125 (about $2.70), which is a quarter of the price of the same item in South Africa.

This week Gillette/P&G launched W.A.L.S. – Women Against the Lazy Shavers – with Bollywood actresses Neha Dhupia, Mugdha Godse and Manisha Lamba as ambassadors. Basically, what these hotties are communicating is “lose the mooch or there’ll be no smooch”.

It’s a clever way of changing cultural attitudes towards shaving, which is not as widespread a practice in India as they would like. Short of offering The Very Sexy Shiraz to his members, Banford may not have the same options open to him.

A Belated Apology

Oscar Foulkes November 24, 2009 Uncategorized No comments

There doesn’t appear to be any industry that doesn’t love a good scandal. The most recent in the South African wine industry relates to Clayton Reabow winning the Diners Club Young Winemaker of the Year award for a wine that was vinified prior to his arrival at Môreson (click here to read Michael Fridhjon’s comments on Grape.co.za). The argument given post-event was that he, in a French winemaking context, had “raised” the wine.

I was much more convinced of the argument I used in 1999 when a very stressed-sounding Bill Cooper-Williams contacted me about the 1998 Mystery Reserve Cabernet/Pinotage blend for which I’d recently been advised I was a finalist in the Diners Club Winemaker of the Year competition (the theme that year was Cape Blends).

Did I supervise the fermentation of the grapes, he asked me? No, was my answer, I hadn’t even bought the grapes specifically for the purpose of having the wine made. In fact, what I’d done, I told him, was to put together batches of wine from two different cellars.

It was the act of blending – in the ideal proportions – that had ‘made’ this wine. In Champagne, I said, the person recognised as the winemaker is the one responsible for blending the base wine. In that sense, yes, I was the winemaker. Subsequent to this, I seem to recall, the entry form was changed to define the winemaker as the person who was responsible for the fermentation of the juice.

Ten years have passed since my brief moment of ‘winemaking’ glory. Apologies to Bill Cooper-Williams and Diners Club are probably in order. While the wine would not have existed without my intervention, there is no way that I had the technical skills to have made its components in the first place. I put the organisers in a difficult position, and at the time they must have weighed their options very carefully.

Cloof’s winemaker, Christopher van Dieren, who does make extremely good components, calls me a wine maker (two words intended). He has been amazingly gracious in allowing me into his ‘wine space’, and together we have blended dozens of wines.

The blending theme is so strong for us that several months ago I even set up a dedicated ecommerce website redblends.co.za that offers an amazing deal on six of our blended red wines. Of the six wines in the pack, four have been awarded Four Stars in the Platter Wine Guide 2010.

Offering consumers a discount of over R200 on a R465 selection of wines is an excellent deal, for which – I’m pretty sure – no apology is necessary.

Having fun, writing about the stuff I like