ALMOST as newsworthy as the record-breaking price of over R58K fetched for a 500ml Vin de Constance 1987 at the ‘Cape Heritage Wine’ Auction by Strauss & Co end-August 2022, was the ‘bargain’ price that the 1957 Chateau Libertas went for. A 750ml bottle of this old Chateau Lib blend from Cinsaut and Cabernet Sauvignon that came out of the
Read moreRECORDS APLENTY! There were five bottles up for grabs at the Strauss & Co Fine Wine Auction held in Johannesburg on 14 September 2021. All South African wines, ranging from a 34-year-old dessert to one from a barrel first filled in 1800 – some buyers in the room, some bidding online and others phoning through. Never before had anybody paid
Read moreODD that perennial sweet wine favourites Alvi’s Drift, Nuy and Orange River Cellars didn’t get a look in at the 2018 Muskadel SA Awards for fortified desserts, but maybe they didn’t field any of the 31 wines entered this time round. Then again, two of the Top 10 cellars in this category came storming through – Bon Courage winning with both
Read moreNEDERBURG Private Bin Eminence Natural Sweet Muscadel 2008 placed among the Top 10 at the 2015 Muscats-du-Monde in the Languedoc Roussillon region of France. The only other South African gold medallist was the 2010 Eminence, and the only other South African wine to earn a medal of any sort in the competition was the Orange River Cellars Red Muscadel 2013, which won
Read moreNEDERBURG and Nuy remain dominant among South Africa’s most successful sweet wine producers, but the competition is growing and getting stiffer… The following wines achieved outstanding reviews from the judges at blind-tastings around the world in 2013: TOP SOUTH AFRICAN DESSERT WINE RATINGS IN 2013 – UNFORTIFIED Badsberg Badslese Natural Sweet 2012 – 4½ Stars in Platter’s Guide Boekenhoutskloof Noble
Read moreHOT AND DRY, PERFECT FOR MUSCADEL: Orange River Cellars, Upington IF THERE’S one type of wine that they’re really good at making in the Orange River Cellars of the Northern Cape it’s sweet wine, and the farmers up and down the river on either side of Upington have been making some of South Africa’s best dessert wines for ages. Their
Read moreThese wines are generally under-valued, as in very competitively priced, many of them nothing short of cheap. In part it’s because some of the country’s very good Muscadels – red and white – are made in areas of the Cape winelands not renowned for top award-winning stuff when it comes to the unfortified wines of various sorts. In part it’s because
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