South African Wine - what does this label mean? Bargain wines in Britain and wine tasting in South Africa ...

Fish Hoek means Fish Hook or Fish Corner in Dutch. It is the name of a town in the Cape area of South Africa. When the town was first founded selling wine was banned. Times have changed.

Pinotage is a grape. It is a South African grape, a cross between pinot noir and another grape which is now called Cinsaut but many years ago when first produced was called Hermitage, hence the last four letters of the name pinotage. 

Pinot noir is a black grape. Noir is French for black.

Hermitage is a French place name and was used by various other products until the French brought in appelation controlee (control of the name) so other people were no longer allowed to use the name had to find something new.

Rose of course means pink wine. What I like about this bottle is the raised fish bones on the botle above the label. The top of the label is wavy, like the sea.

We bought this for only £5.99 from Waitrose supermarket in London, England.
If you go to South Africa the wine region has many restaurants and vineyards where you can taste wines.


For more details see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinotage
http://www.pinotage.co.za/
http://www.wine-searcher.com/grape-385-pinotage (This article tells you about how the way you grow or train the vines affects the flavour.)
http://www.fishhoekwines.com/sa
http://www.awhaleofatime.co.za/fish-hoek.php (Fish Hook area history.)
http://www.sa-venues.com/things-to-do/westerncape/flagstone-fish-hoek-kumala-winery/
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g312665-d1764070-Reviews-Cape_Town_Wine_Tours-Milnerton_Western_Cape.html
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g1722390-d2264993-Reviews-African_Story_Wine_Tours-Cape_Town_Western_Cape.html

What a vineyard tour teaches you about red and white wine and sparkling wines

I need to know about wines for my level one exam. So here's a recap to help me and you.

Blanc is white (in French). Noir is black. White and black grapes.

Blanc de blanc (on the bottle label) is white wine from white grapes only, chardonnay the white grape.

Much rarer is
Blanc de noir which is white wine made from a black skinned grape which nonetheless has a clear colour juice.

The most usual black skinned grape juice added for a mixed grape sparkling will be pinot noir.

Pinot grapes come in three well known varieties, pinot blanc (white), pinot gris (grey), and pinot noir (black).

What about pinot meunier added by Nyetimber to one of their blends?


It is known is 'm e u n i e r' for short, because there are several pinots but only one m e u n i e r. I have had to insert spaces because the spell checker keeps changing the word to meaner.

So there are several Pinots.

Most champagne is brut - the driest.

Nyetimber Wines

Nyetimber vineyards are open to the public only on special days when they conduct tours. I've known about their wines for a long time but not until visited them for a tasting on the open day did I realise that they are in more than one location.

If you are in the business you might get a complimentary invitation, or if you are a frequent visitor to a local restaurant which features their wines, but members of the public were also invited to apply for tickets on line for £20 per person which included tasting three of their wines and you could use your ticket for a discount if you then ordered wine at the event. There was no refund on tickets so if you are likely to be working at that weekend or to cancel for any reason, don't risk it. However, even on a dull day it was well wroth the trip to see the vineyard, the delightful buildings, hear the talk, meet the people, try the wines, and get the voucher.

Leave your high heeled shoes behind in the car. You need walking shoes or wellies to walk along the stoney uneven ground with occasional muddy sections.

Sommeliers in restaurants in England and worldwide and others who work in shops, warehouses and sales and distribution in the wine trade take WSET exams. Right at the beginning you learn about the grapes in wines. For the WSET (wine and spirit education trust - two members of my family are taking different levels - me only level one - another member of my family several levels higher, diploma level). So the first thing I heard was Champagne is Chardonnay - plus pinot noir. It's dry white wine from a green grape, with a little extra livening up from a black grape, pinor noir, noir being French for black.

The black skins add the vibrant red colour to red wines but also the taste of tannin which some don't like. Remove some of the skin and you get rose wine.

However, many times I heard that, I tended to forget. But you remember it instantly after visiting the Nyetimber vineyard. First you see Chardonnay the main green grape used in sparkling wines.

(Sparkling wines include the king of sparkling wines, Champagne, a region of France - traditionally only wines from that country and that region - or possibly in our times and in the future new world areas owned or licensed by a Champagne house).  But now Nyetimber has challenged themselves and others to produce top quality sparkling wines, coming out equal to or better than some of the Champagnes, at some blind tastings in shows, and depending on your taste as a tester or consumer.

The well-kept vineyards.

The area features in the Domesday book and the name Nyetimber means new timber or new wood, as in the nearby New Forest on the South Coast. 

Later, Henry the VIII figures in the history. On the estate are genuine old buildings in which the family lives and works. 

The old barn has been beautifully renovated in sparkling clean white inside. The owners got married here and hope it will be popular when they open it for weddings. 

Everything is elegant.

They add to the green grape, Chardonnay, two black grapes, Pinor Noir and another Pinot, Pinot Meunier.

I'd heard that grapes for wine are often not suitable for eating. I and a couple of other people tried tasting a green and black grape. They are small and rather tasteless when not yet ripe for picking. Not horrible and bitter as I had imagined, but not nice eough for me to want a second. 

But the grapes are good enough for the local badgers. Nyetimber say they are lucky enough not to be plagued by local birds nor flocks flying in. Local farmers' sheep are invited in to graze on the grass which is a win win season, food for the farmer's sheep, and saves diesel and wages and time of people who would otherwise have to cut the grass.

Where can you taste Nyetimber? If you are local, I can recommend Restaurant Tristan in Horsham where we went for lunch. (See my post on the restaurant, which is also recommended by many people on Tripadvisor and rated in the Michelin Guide.)

If you are in London or the rest or England, many top restaurants as well as theatres and concert halls. Overseas Nyetimber is expanding to Denmark and Japan and seeking distribution in more countries. You can also buy bottles in Britain in Majestic wine suppliers and Waitrose supermarkets.

http://nyetimber.com/where-to-buy/

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Buying wine - are you blank about Blanc de Blanc and plonk?

At the airport or supermarket wondering what those wine labels mean?
Blanc de Blanc means white (wine) made from white (grapes).

    That's usually white sparkling wine, Champagne if from the Champagne region of North East France.
   Champagne and other white wines are the 3Cs: Champagne, on chalky soil, from Chardonnay white grapes.
   (Chardonnay is a village, not in the Champagne region but further south of Champagne in Burgundy. A wine expert tells me the finest white wines in the world are white burgundies.)
(At the southern end of Burgundy you get Beaujolais.)

   (The German name for Pinot Noir grape is Spatburgunder - meaning late Burgundy, late to ripen? or lately or formerly from Burgundy.)

   Blanc de Noir is white (sparkling) wine from a black grape, Pinot Noir. Noir is French for black.
(Pinot is a kind of grape. You find more than one grape starting with the name Pinot then the colour. Pinot Gris is grey - a white grape with a reddish mottle.)

  Blanc de Noir is a white sparkling wine from Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.

For more details see a book called Wine Grapes by Jancis Robinson.

Angela Lansbury is a travel writer, speaker, speech coach and English teacher.

PS Plonk is supposed to be the English language attempt to say Blanc. Those not fussy about wine would just ask for a bottle of white, Blanc, called it Plonk.