The Traveling Grape

Last week I was so excited to try my first wine from South Africa. My dear friend introduced me to a friend who has a friend who spent six months in Cape Town Africa with his wife and two kids, the second-most populous city in South Africa. I’m not going to pretend I know anything about Africa or South African wines but this isn’t the first time I heard that I had to try their wines. To quote Michael Franz from the Washington Post “South Africa has attained competitiveness with the world’s top wine-producing countries in terms of consistency, depth and range.” They are known for Old World favorites like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc but also for New World varietals such as Shiraz but how about this thing called a Pinotage, South Africa’s very own creation.

A small group of us meet at one of my favorite places in downtown Raleigh, Mosaic. Mosaic is this warm, sophisticated, stylish, cozy, romantic and diverse wine lounge that features a garden terrace, front outside patio area, dance floor, café-style sitting area past a long bar and my favorite place; an upstairs lounge full of reds and burgundies and toss pillows and sofas and cool lighting fixtures and passionate artwork. The entire place is a place of art displaying Moroccan décor complete with unique iron work, mosaic tile and tapestries lit with candles and low sexy lighting. It’s the perfect place to come unwind after work and if you stay a bit longer till 10pm you are treated to local, national and international bands, samba drummers, Latin music…you name it. Visit Mosaic and see for yourself what a unique and classy place this is.

Every Wednesday evening at 7:30 Samad, the owner of Mosaic, features wine tastings offering ½ off all wines. He features six different wines from regions all over while you make new friends and listen to music by dj keith and guest. They also offer all kinds of special guests and events so if you are in the area please check them out, you will see me at the bar trying something new from his diverse wine list.

So there we sit, upstairs cozy and getting to know each other and finally the long awaited time arrives, pop open the Diemersfontein Pinotage. Wow, a chocolate bomb on my nose right away with dark rich coffee beans. Could this be a Café Mocha lover’s answer? At first it was a bit hot and tickled my nose but that dissipated in time. The front of the palate was quick but the middle, whoa nelly…smooth like velvet with a hint of smoke and leather but the coffee and chocolate certainly stole the show. The finish lingered around a bit and left me yearning for a chocolate covered cherry. Very unique and I encourage each of you to get your hands on some to try.

I am not sure how many cases of wine they produce but I do know they sell out every year before the next vintage. The Reserve Pinotage won the bronze medal at the San Francisco Wine Expo and the wine I tried, the Wellington wine estate Diemersfontein’s trademark coffee and chocolate Pinotage won the best red wine, voted by event attendees, for the Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban wine expos.

The Diemersfontein Pinotage sells for around $20 and is available retail and mail order from Wine n’ Things in Raleigh NC and retail from Cape Ardor in San Francisco, wholesale from Two Oceans in Raleigh NC.

This grand wine estate also offers guest house accommodations overlooking views of the Cape winelands. They offer 14 en suite bedrooms with other rooms and shared bathrooms which are set around their manor house gardens. They also offer three estate cottages – Blue Gum, Hanepoot and Tulani – each with their own fireplace, kitchenette and verandah, overlooking the vineyards and farm dam. Wow, doesn’t this sound amazing! What a way to see South Africa. Things to do include visiting neighbouring farms on the Wellington Wine Route, a sunset game drive, a beauty/spa facility, cheese and olive sampling,  golf courses within 1/2 drive, and other attractions. The popular towns of Franschoek, Tulbagh, Paarl and Stellenbosch are within 30 to 40 minutes drive.

It Befriends – it Converts – it Seduces

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 11:58 am and is filed under South African Wines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.