It’s true, CapeWine is the girl she thinks she is. It is where you want to be if you want access to a calculable sea (yes I did the calculations) of South African wine, ranging from cheap and cheerful lifestyle ranges to some of the countries most coveted producers. The type of wines that when you get to the stand, (and watch a certain Donovan pour litres out into hordes of thirsty glasses), it makes you think; “I definitely could have gotten a bigger allocation.” But alas, I’m not here to cry over spilt wine. I’m here to talk about one of my most fruitful experiences in the wine industry (so to speak).

Access

I feel like the crux of CapeWine is the access. Not just to wine, but to insightful seminars about soil mapping, themed tastings and talks about Cap Classique award winners, hosted by none other than Mr Bubbles himself, Pieter Ferreira. Above all else, you have access to all the shoulders you could possibly want to rub up against as a wine industry professional. Anybody who was anybody was there; myself included. Even if I was slinking around international importers and local industry royalty like the greatly unwashed vagrant that I am. If you’re going to CapeWine to network and taste as many wines as can (as I did), the three short days wisp by way faster than your palate fatigue does. I tasted around 60-80 wines a day, and put on my - I need to sell myself voice, with everyone that was misfortunate enough to cross my path, and I barely scraped the surface. It was a deep end situation, and it would be very easy to struggle to wade water if you weren’t trained to swim (and mildly inebriated). Not that I’m trained to swim, in fact would have drowned very quickly if I did not have the people around me holding me above the surface as I splashed violently in the middle of that deep pool. But like I said, the internet will be filled with stories of the convention, and what it means for South African wine in the global market. So let’s get to the juice!

The Juice

I joked as I walked about the CTICC (Cape Town International Convention Centre), chatting to numerous producers and buyers, that I’d be writing a tabloid piece to cover CapeWine. I knew that this statement contained a vast percentage of fibber- y , as I do not want to squeeze anyones grapes in a way that they don’t want them squeezed. But, I would like to talk about the social elements of CapeWine. My first social evening culminated at One Park in Gardens, near the city centre. I walked into what looked like the entrance hall of old and wonderfully warm house, and headed up the stairs to the unmistakable burble of Niels Verburg’s (Luddite) voice. In attendance with Niels was, Franco “Poenie” Lourens (Lourens Family Wines), John Seccombe (Thorne & Daughters), Reenan Borman (Boschkloof/Sons of Sugarland), Mick Craven (Craven Wines), Julien Schaal (Julien Schaal), as well as some guest appearances from the likes of Marelise Niemann (Momento) and Peter-Allen Finlayson (Crystallum). I remember earlier on in my career that just meeting one of these wine makers would be such a privilege. To have them all in one slightly drunk room though? That was a wet dream that I thought I had outgrown at my advanced age. Alas, I hadn’t.

My take-home from that evening, besides a belly full of wine and a smidge of chicken wonton soup (for the soul I imagine), was the camaraderie between these wine makers. To see them with their guard down. To see them speak about and drink each others wine, and most importantly, to be able to interact with them on a more human level (instead of someone who just sells their wine). By the end of the night, we weren’t talking about wine. The conversations were about people, the world at large, about life in general. I got to masquerade as a friend of this troop of extraordinary people for a couple of hours to see that they were just regular human beings. Albeit regular people with incredible abilities to farm and make some of the worlds best loud mouth soup.

The second night took me to a city cellar recently founded by Sam Lambson of Minimalist wines. If you haven’t taste No Place Like Home, a Syrah he sources from Elgin, then I suggest to find a bottle (or 12) and beat anyone into submission who tries to take it from you.

I was met at the door by non other than the wonderful Anne Ferreira, who stuffed 3 Tabasco spiked Saldanha oysters down my throat, and guided me inside the interconnected bakery next to Sam’s winery where another range of fabulous winemakers stood, pouring out their latests creations. Amongst them was Anne’s husband and winemaker Pieter Fereirra (once again), with whom I had a charming chat about the wonderful state of South African bubbly. Bernie Brunel (Scions of Sinai) was their too asking me if I still had some stock of his current vintage (which I didn’t. It was naturally all sold out, as was his stock), Angus Paul of Angus Paul wines, and Danie Carinus of Carinus Wines. Once again, not a room for the feint of heart, nor for a modest drinker.

Sam’s winery felt bespoke and special as we were taking on a tour of his gorgeous collection of moody grey concrete tanks and his tumble of wine barrels. It was like standing in Syrah heaven. You just knew that you were surrounded by thousands of litres of juice that was slowly moving in magic ways to create what Sam puts into his bottles.

My third and final night in the Cape Town, which by now was a wash with tired bodies and and stripped palates caused by endless tastings, dinners and inevitable gulp-y nights out, was spent in the company of the Zoocorp team at Tannin, a wine bar on Bree Street. If you don’t know who the Zoocrop team is, then the short answer is that they are group of (for lack of a better term) rockstar winemakers in South Africa. Go look up their page on Instagram, you won’t be sorry. And if you’re in Cape Town and you haven’t been to Tannin, please check them out too.

Walking into an already packed Tannin on that Friday night gave the impression that the wine industry was shedding the weight of the past week. Duncan Savage in his leopard print leotard definitely shed the corporate attire he donned at his CapeWine stand all week. Those in attendance, from local and international buyers and media, to wine agents, winemakers, wine drinkers, and wine professionals, all needed to let their hair down. For the first time that week, no one asked me what was in my glass, or what I thought about the wine. The only concern of the night was to keep glasses full, and so they did. There was drinking and dancing, quiet conversations in the corners of rooms, loud conversations came from the centre, it was almost like there was confetti in the air, as everyone celebrated one of the most important showcases of South African wine, that we were all lucky enough to attend. It was not a space to network, it was a space to make friends, and I discovered it’s a lot easier to make friends when you’re roaming around with a bottle of bubbly in your hand.

I am told that we stumbled out of tannin at 2 am that morning. This can neither be confirmed nor denied, because I did not leave an emptying venue, nor was I anything less than completely inebriated. I just feared that in this fight to the death with this party that raged inside; I would come up short, so I quit while I was ahead, and made my exit.

On the way home

Of the many contemplations that rushed through my mind as my colleague and I made our way back through the windy Cape Town streets back to our accommodation, a few things stuck with me. The first being that it is a great privilege to work in this industry. Especially doing what I do. I get to experience my career through my nose and my mouth, like a well trained truffle pig, stuck in a room full of truffles (oh the stench of gluttony). I worked, I drank, I ate, I breathed in the moist coastal air, and exhaled a long breath back into the city. Johannesburg is home, but Cape Town had been a demanding, yet moreish mistress that week. My second contemplation was the realisation that I felt slightly poisoned (due to disgusting levels of over-consumption), and the accumulative hangover that I had been building over the last couple of days would probably hit me like a gut punch in the morning. Which it did. But I lived to tell the tale, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Just not now… I need some time to recover from the breathtaking volumes of yap-yap juice that I pumped into my (less capable than I thought) body.