Platter's South African Wine Guide

South Africa’s first and still best-selling wine annual, Platter's Guide is the comprehensive, up-to-date and authoritative guide to who's who and what's what in the winelands. Featuring hundreds of producers, negociants and brands, and thousands of individual wines, Platter's Guide packs everything you need to know about the South African wine scene into an informative and entertaining format.
The Platter star ratings gives you a good indication of what to expect from a wine, where five stars is the highest rating a wine can get.   

Platter's Guide was conceived in 1978 by wine lovers and print journalists John and Erica Platter, after reading Hugh Johnson's ground-breaking Pocket Wine Book. The couple wryly recall that the first (1980) edition – an attempt at assembling a local version of the Pocket Book, recording as many of the why, where, when and how specifics as possible – was dismissed as “boring” and a “waste of their money” by a compositor employed by the very company commissioned to do the printing! But three decades, two Best Wine Guide Worldwide awards, and well over a million copies later, we’d like to think the Platters were onto something.

Veritas

After almost two decades the Veritas Awards has earned its reputation as one of South Africa’s most authoritative and credible competitions for market ready wines.

The Awards with its coveted Veritas emblem, has become synonymous with top quality wines. The results are trusted implicitly when international as well as local wine buyers use them to assist in their buying decisions and also when the ordinary wine lover simply selects a bottle from the shelf to enjoy with dinner.

The first National Bottled Wine Show in South Africa was introduced by the SANWSA in 1990 and renamed the Veritas Awards from 1991.

Gold and double gold awards are of significant value to the wine industry as well, as it offers a prestigious image for the wine, winery and winemaker and contributes to growth in sales.

Veritas is the only wine competition in South Africa for the industry by the industry and there is no commercial gain for the organisers, the South African National Wine Association (SANWSA).

Creation Wine and Food Pairing

Wine Village is situated at the foot of the Hemel-en-Aarde (Heaven and Earth) Road. This road has become known for its’ natural beauty and award winning wines that are produced from the clay-rich, stony soils, and cool climate being unusually close to the South Atlantic Ocean.

One of the many wine producers that stand out is Creation Wines, situated 18km from the Wine Village on the Hemel-en-Aarde Road (the R320). 

Our team attended one of the famous wine and food pairing experiences at Creation Wines. They have put one of the most remote cellars in the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge on the map as a gourmet destination - by offering some of the most sublime wine and food pairings.  

The winemakers, JC Martin and Christoph Kaser, along with Carolyn Martin and the rest of the team give you an experience that is close to heaven on earth! Their tasting room shows how it should be done and the views and welcoming atmosphere makes the trip out there worth it!  

André van Vuuren, owner and chef of one of the local restaurants in Hermanus, Season To Taste, is responsible for the delectable food creations that make their way on to the plate with the wine and food pairing and the rest of the menu for Creation’s tasting room. 
For bookings to Season click here.

You can look forward to Asian salmon dumplings,  spicy chicken and apricot satay, cauliflower soup, springbok rillete with cherry jelly, bobotie spring rolls…to name only a few.  Each of the wines is paired with a particular bite to enhance both the flavour of the wine and the food. 

To book a tasting or for directions to the farm click here.

 

QR Codes

The wine industry has always been innovative and in today’s fast moving world you have to keep up or you will quickly fall behind in the masses!

QR Codes are the latest craze in the wine industry as more and more wine producers are adding these codes to their labels.

QR-Codes are being used world-wide to provide information to consumers in a quick, easy and accessible format. QR-Codes are an image which is printed on a product or label which can be photographed or scanned by a (smart) mobile phone and is then a quick link to a web page/mobi page, without having to type in the website address.

By placing a QR-Code (Quick Response Codes) on say a back label, a wine producer can supply much more detailed information about their wine, directly to the consumer, at the time of purchase.

If you do not have a QR or barcode reader on your mobile phone you will need to download one from your ‘Android Market’, ‘BlackBerry App-world’, ‘I Phone Store’ or similar site depending on your phone.

You then hold your phone’s camera over the square until your phone beeps.  Within a few seconds, the home page will open on your phone’s screen and you can scroll through the information on the web pages.  Hence the name Quick Response Code

Many of our local wine producers have now added these codes to their labels. Ataraxia, Creation and Hermanuspietersfontein are just a few who have taken the step in their marketing approach. 

 

Under the sea

Following the fascinating experiment into the benefits of ageing bottled Southern Right Sauvignon Blanc in the sea versus on land in the cellar, the team at Southern Right decided to repeat the experiment this year (the 2004 vintage was taken out of the Walker Bay waters on 16 September 2010).

We were very fortunate to have received 180 of these bottles last year and they sold out in a few days at R60 per bottle.  We have kept a couple of these bottles for ourselves and they are currently on display in the shop, but not for sale.

On August 3^rd, 2011, the second consignment of Southern Right Sauvignon blanc was floated out into the cold Walker Bay waters and sunk in approximately 10 meters of water. This time they have submerged two vintages – 200 bottles each of the 2010 and 2011. They have sealed each vintage with a wax capsule of a different colour, to avoid confusing the vintage with barnacle and seaweed encrusted bottles and to minimize the risk of seawater getting around the cork.

With this trial they will be able to determine (with the 2011) the possible benefits of submerging the wine immediately after bottling. Having two vintages ageing together will help get an idea if different vintages react differently to sea ageing versus land ageing.

Both vintages will be tasted once a year and compared to the same vintages ageing in our cellar. All the wine will be raised from the sea for sale in local restaurants (barnacles, seaweed and all) in September 2016.

We hope you will get a chance to taste the wines then!

Sulfites

We get so many requests for "sulfite free" wines and organic wines.

This might come as a shock to some people, but unfortunately there is no such thing as a sulfite free wine.

Totally sulfite free wines are an accident of nature; but wines low in sulfites or free of added sulfites do exist. Let me explain. Sulfites are a natural byproduct of the fermentation process. Fermenting yeasts present on all grape skins generate naturally occurring sulfites in amounts ranging from 6 to 40 parts per million.

An organic wine is first and foremost a wine made out of grapes that were grown organically. Organic wines are produced using organically grown grapes. No pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, chemical fertilizers, or synthetic chemicals of any kind are allowed on the vines or in the soil. Strict rules govern the winemaking process and storage conditions of all imported and domestic wines that acquire certification. Moreover, organic winemakers often avoid many of the chemical substances used to stabilize conventional wines.

Even if no sulfur dioxide is added to wine, fermenting yeasts will produce SO₂ from the naturally occurring in organic sulfates in all grape juices. It is impossible for any wine to be completely free of sulfur dioxide. Although technical advances permit the industry to add much less sulfur, most serious winemakers and enology professors concur that to make a consistently stable wine, some sulfites must be added to those naturally present. A handful of winemakers go beyond that; they use no added sulfites at all. However, sulfite agents, when properly handled, are not intrinsically toxic to humans or to the environment, and many feel they are essential in order to prevent oxidation or bacterial spoilage. Therefore, American and European organic winemaking standards allow for the addition of strictly regulated amounts of SO₂.

Sulfur has been used as a preservative in winemaking for quite some time. To prevent wine spoilage, European winemakers pioneered the use of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) two hundred years ago. Unfortunately, freshly pressed grape juice has a tendency to spoil due to contamination from bacteria and wild yeasts present on the grape skins. Not only does sulfur dioxide inhibit the growth of molds and bacteria, but it also stops oxidation (browning) and preserves the wine's natural flavour.

According to doctor’s studies, only about 0.4% of the population, is considered highly allergic to sulfites.  Sulfites pose no danger to about 99.75% of the population; the highest risk group is asthmatics (about 5% of the population) and only about 5% of this group is allergic to sulfites.
Many people, however, have little tolerance for sulfites. They are considered sulfite-sensitive.

Even for moderate wine drinkers, the average level of sulfites found in many commercial wines can cause heartburn or other side effects. Unpleasant reactions include burning sensations, hives, cramps, and flushing of the skin. For them, organic wines are an especially good choice since they contain minimal amounts of sulfites that will in most cases lie below their threshold level.

Sherry

For many people sherry is a sweet sticky thing they stole from a half forgotten bottle when they were young. While there is sweet sherry - and it can be particularly delicious with cheese or desserts - a lot of sherry is quite dry and also delicious on its own.

Sherry will not last forever in the bottle after opening. While some of the richer and sweeter styles will last for a while once opened, all sherry tastes better the fresher it is. Lighter, dry sherry such as fino & manzanilla are best drunk within days of opening.

It is best to keep sherry chilled. Not only does sherry keep better when chilled it also tastes fresher.

Sherry is a fortified wine, originally made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez, Spain. In Spane, it is called vino de Jerez. The word "Sherry" is an anglicisation of Xeres (Jerez).

After fermentation is complete, sherry is fortified with brandy. Because the fortification takes place after fermentation, most sherries are initially dry, with any sweetness being added later. In contrast, port wine (for example) is fortified halfway through its fermentation, which stops the process so that not all of the sugar is turned into alcohol.

Sherry is produced in a variety of styles, ranging from dry, light versions such as finos to darker and heavier versions known as olorosos, all made from the Palomino grape. Sweet dessert wines are also made, from Pedro Ximenez or Moscatel grapes. Sherry is regarded by many wine writers as "under-appreciated" and a "neglected wine treasure".

There are four different styles of Sherry: Fino (Dry and light in colour), Oloroso (sweet and fairly dark), Amoroso (lighter in colour and sweeter than Oloroso) and brown (dark and sweet) blending different wines.

Sherry is traditionally drunk from a copita, a special tulip-shaped Sherry glass.