Essays
Photo by Malu Lambert

From Cape Chianti to hero: Grenache in South Africa

by  |  26-10-2020

“I grew up with Grenache,” shares South African wine legend, Jan Boland Coetzee. His pale blue eyes focused on the verdant Swartland hills from our vantage point on Adi Badenhorst’s porch. The crops and vines... more »
Photo by Morana Zibar

The nitty & gritty about The Wine Instagram

by  |  09-10-2020

Lockdown brought about an exponential increase in my social media screen time to the point of saturation and forced me to re-evaluate the good, the bad and the ugly of both Twitter and Instagram. My... more »

Rethinking the wine writing award

by  |  23-09-2020

This recent article by Alicia Kennedy held one of the most insightful and powerful comments I’ve seen in some time regarding awards: Awards reinforce hegemonic narratives of industries that uphold the oppressive structures that govern... more »

WSET vs CMS

by  |  20-08-2020 ~ 29 Comments

Wine education is something not to be undertaken lightly. There's the investment of time and, well, a great deal of money. There's also the issue of choosing the right direction which can be hard to... more »

What’s a Sommelier?

by  |  27-07-2020 ~ 16 Comments

The sommelier. What was once just the guy in the room with a corkscrew has become one of the sexier titles to hold these days. But what does it mean? The most basic definition of... more »

Avaline wine and transparent production

by  |  20-07-2020

It would have been hard to avoid the news of Cameron Diaz and Katherine Power launching their white and rosé “Avaline” wine last week. In what was an amazing-to-behold marketing campaign, their PR firm, KLG... more »
Photo by Lenka Sedláčková

A love affair with Assyrtiko

by  |  24-06-2020

Scrolling through my Instagram feed, you may think that I am a bit of an Assyrtiko fan girl and you’d not be wrong. Fuelled by my love of all things Greek, I studied the language... more »

Don’t come around here no more

by  |  04-06-2020

It was amazing to see so much work put into such a campaign in Priorat. It was after all shared widely across social media. Our village notice systems were constantly broadcasting it as well. Even... more »
Resting hound at a Stellenbosch winery

The fall and rise of Pinotage

by  |  12-05-2020

Members of the wine trade are cursed to forever wander from party to party and set the record straight with regards to Chardonnay. The ‘Anything But Chardonnay’ crowd still walk among us and it must... more »

What you might not have known about Georgian wine & food, Part II

by  |  27-03-2020

Daria Kholodilina is the co-author of Georgia: A Guide to the Cradle of Wine. Here she breaks down a number of lesser-known facts about the food and wine of this delicious country. See Part I... more »