"stellenbosch" news and stories

South Africa is all anyone's talking about right now because of its role as host to the FIFA World Cup matches.

It's also an up-and-coming wine region. While wine has reportedly been made there since the mid-1600s, South Africa's wine-making roots have since grown to include 60 appellations. The largest of those -- all near Cape Town -- are Stellenbosch, Paarl and Worcester.

South Africa is among the top-ten wine-producing countries in the world. And more and more bottles are making their way to the United States, many of them Fair Trade certified, allowing you to drink with a conscience. Bottles from South Africa that are imported by Minneapolis-based Etica Fair Trade, for instance, have proven to be quite good over the past few years.

After the jump, find five South African wines worth tracking down.

With the exception of Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc expresses terroir, or a "sense of place," better than any other wine.

The grape picks up minerality in the soil and shows it off in the wine with an exaggerated sense. Which is why, when I heard about Sauvignon Republic, a wine company dedicated to making Sauvignon Blanc from different regions around the world, I felt like I won the wine lottery. What could be better than tasting the terroir in a single brand of Sauvignon Blancs grown and made thousands of miles from each other?

I wrote about Sauvignon Blanc last fall when the 2008s were just starting to come out of Southern Hemisphere, but now it's spring up here, and I'm in the mood for them again. Sauv Blanc is light, zingy, minerally, refreshing and perfect with so many spring foods or just for sipping on the porch now that the days are (finally!) warming up.

If you can, find all three current releases of Sauvignon Republic's wines right now ($20 each) -- one each from Sonoma, Calif.; Stellenbosch, South Africa; and Marlborough, New Zealand, three areas where Sauvignon Blanc is known to do well.

Taste them together, and even better, blind, to see if you can detect differences among them. If so, you're talking terroir.

See my tasting notes after the jump. (I blind-tasted and got them all wrong, but it was fun anyway.)

Stellenbosch, recently voted South Africa's foremost wine region, is to host the 4th Stellenbosch Wine Festival from the 3rd to the 6th august.

Over the three days 450 or so wines from 100 of South Africa's top producers will be available for tasting along with a host of cooking demos, tutored wine tastings, food displays plus crafts and children's entertainment.

The Festival is South Africa's largest regional wine festival offering visitors the chance to sample the huge diversity of wines and foods from the region. On the wine front this will cover reds and whites plus sparkling and fortified wines.

Venue:  Paul Roos Gymnasium, Stellenbosch.  Entrance fee is R75 (includes a goodie bag & wine glass). Bookings through Computicket and Checkers Moneymarkets. For further information, contact the Stellenbosch Wine Festival office on (021) 886-4310

Source