Apparently, if you want to have an outstanding evening, all
you need to do is fill a room with ladies and add some imported wine! At least,
that’s what how easy the Savvy Sisters’
Wine Club made it seem at their Italian Job event.
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| Our outstanding hostesses, Debi and Kirstin |
The evening was hosted by Kirstin, the Savviest Sister of
them all, in the Wanderers Cigar Lounge (although the only cigars to be found
were in the characters of some of the wines we tasted). Would you believe that
I got lost trying to find it? (Me? Never!) Luckily, though, the friendly staff
directed me to the correct venue after I somehow found myself at the bar!
There I found Kristin, with her perfectly-painted Ferrari-red
toenails, waiting very patiently for everyone to arrive. Well, everyone except me!
Turns out that I had somehow RSVPed to the wrong person, and so I wasn’t
actually on the guest list. She was so accommodating, though, adding a seat for
me right next to her. I felt so very VIP that night.
As a pleasant surprise, I discovered that I’d already met
our second hostess, Debi, at an event I’d attended a week earlier (which you
can read about here).
She very generously poured me a welcoming glass of Howard Booysen Pegasus
Cinsault 2011 to calm my nerves.
It was the only local wine we would be tasting that evening,
and what a wine it was! I’d never even heard of Cinsault before that moment,
but its fresh, fruity, and approachable character really hit the spot! “The
question you want to ask Howard Booysen, when you meet him, is ‘can I feel your
abs?’” Debi insisted. “You’ve never seen fitness like that, and this coming
from someone who has been to events with Ryk Neethling!”
Intriguing and tempting…
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| Lovely ladies everywhere... |
Also tempting was the line-up of wines we could be enjoying
that evening, (which you can read about in more detail here).
However, before we could move on to the Italian section of our evening, Debi
had to hush the excited girly chatter and give us a brief overview of what made
the wines she’d selected so special.
“The world of wine is not dominated by women in any
respect,” Debi observed. “It seems that the only role women play is to wear
pretty little short skirts and sell wine!” Although all the wine we tasted that
evening was for sale, courtesy of Wine
Cellar, who Debi represented, it seemed she was intending to rely on her wit
and charm to win us over. No “pretty little short skirts” there!
Italy, though, is seeing a reversal in this male dominance.
According to Debi, there are more Italian female winemakers than anywhere else
in the world (Woo!). In a country with 3 000 varieties of grapes, it is
the 3rd largest producer of wine worldwide, with South Africa
trailing at eighth (Less woo). Such statistics demonstrate the diversity in
Italian wines. “As you travel from the North to the South, the wines differ
tremendously,” she revealed.
Every wine has its story, and imported wines come with
exciting, foreign ones! An excellent example of this was the beautifully
bronzed Terre Nere Etna Rosato 2010 from Sicily that tasted of marzipan
and had me wishing my skin could be of the same hue. Grown in volcanic soil,
Debi explained that “these wines are centuries old, and come from the ugliest damn
vineyards you have ever seen.”
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| I want skin this colour! How beautiful is that? |
And, yet, from such origins comes a wine that is nothing
short of stunning! “This rosé has been made the traditional way,” Debi informed
us, “with very little skin contact at very low temperatures.” It is unlike
anything I’ve ever tried in South Africa.
As we sipped it, Debi revealed her ‘shaky shaky’ method for
intensifying the aroma of a wine, which is very funny to watch, but
surprisingly effective! It essentially involves covering the glass with one
hand, shaking the wine around, and then removing your hand right before you put
your nose into the glass. “You wouldn’t want to do this in a restaurant,” she
cautioned, “but it’s acceptable in a tasting like this.”
What followed was the vegetal Corino Barbera d’Alba 2010 and the Nardi Turan Sant Antimo DOC 2010
– the wine in which we found the cigars! Each wine had a very distinct
character, and it was hard to decide on a favourite. A quick show of hands
indicated that the room was almost evenly split between the three we’d tried in
the first flight.
Clearly, we needed
time to mull it over, so Kirstin arranged some delicious Italian-style pizzas
to nibble on, while enjoying the wine and chatting to girlfriends. During that
time, I got to know our hostess better. She loved wine and was married to a
German, so we were bound to have loads in common. My husband is Swiss-German,
so, like her, I’ve had my fair share of mother-in-law-made-sauerkraut!
As we enjoyed our pizza, Debi insisted that “wine should be
enjoyed by everyone, and it is not meant to be sipped alone but to be enjoyed
with food.” She promised that enjoying wines with food would give them “a
totally different perspective,” which turned out to be right on the money. The
wines selected paired well with the rich, cheesy pizzas. Who says wine can’t be
paired with fast food?
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| The waiter's Italian Job was to keep those pizzas coming! |
As we moved on to the wines that Debi described as being for
“the more serious wine drinkers,” she revealed a few more unconventional tips
to help us along our journey of discovering wine. As we sipped the fruity Ca’Marcanda Promis Toscana IGT 2010,
she revealed to us that not all wines are ideal for ageing, with this one
needing to be drunk now. “Wine in a clear bottle, such as that of the Rosato we had earlier, generally mean: drink me
now!” she told us.
Her next kernel of wisdom is one that I am going to start
putting into place immediately. “If you intend to age your wines, place little
post it notes on them with the year that you intend to drink them so that you
don’t lose track – and then try to hold out until that date!” She also advised
on never keeping reds in the fridge, but rather somewhere that is cool.
Considering that I live in something that feels like a greenhouse, I am now considering
investing in a wine cooler.
The Tuscan Nardi Rosso di Montalcino 2010 we tried next reminded me a lot of
cigarettes. I suppose the correct terminology is ‘cigar box’ or some such, but
Debi encouraged us to use our own words to describe what we were smelling and
tasting. “Don’t let anyone dictate to you,” she ordered. “For me, a tasting is
not about me standing here and telling you what to smell and what to taste
because I don’t have your nose, and I don’t have your mouth.
We ended off with
the tannic Corino Barolo 2006, arguably the best (and most
expensive) wine of the evening. At this
point, someone asked Debi to describe the difference between tannins and
acidity, which she managed to do most amusingly.
In order to test the acidity of a wine, Debi demonstrated
the “spit test” where she swirls and sips the wine normally before spitting it
out. Then, once the flavour returns to her mouth, she spits again, counting how
long it takes between spits. “The sooner it happens, the more acidic the wine,”
she explained, “but don’t do this in public! Please, ladies, this is a private
moment!”
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| Three of the six Italian wines we were treated to |
Tannins, on the other hand, Debi felt could be best
experienced by brewing stronger and stronger cups of tea, allowing the
strongest one to steep for as much as an hour. “Tannins represent the structure
of a wine,” she revealed, “and there are also tannins in tea. Taste the tea as
you would taste wine, and you will get a sense of the mouth-feel. It’s a
textural thing.”
To end off the evening, Debi offered us a real treat: an
opportunity to taste a faulty wine. You really don’t get many chances to try
this, so I was quite excited about it. “You always have the right to send a
wine back in a restaurant,” Debi advised, “but speak to the manager rather than
the waiter, and don’t make a production out of it.”
For a faulty wine bought at a liquor store, she advises that
you contact the farm directly and describe how the wine is faulty, letting the
winemaker know where you bought it. “Most winemakers in South Africa will
honour their wines,” she reveals, “but Europeans are very unlikely to replace a
bottle, unless you can absolutely prove that there is a fault.”
Well, there was nothing faulty about her presentation, and
she hoped us ladies would be encouraged to expand our palates and try new
wines. “South African wine consumption has dropped since 1994, but alcohol
consumption has remained the same,” she laments. “The inclusion of alcho-pops,
such as Brutal Fruit, has diluted the market.”
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