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Under the Influence of Riesling Wine Festival driven by Lexus

We are very proud to announce that in conjunction with The Riesling Club, Golf und Wein Magazine, Under The Influence and Lexus South Africa, we will be hosting the world’s top Riesling producers at a wine lifestyle festival taking place from 20 - 21 February 2009 in the beautiful surrounds of the Roundhouse Restaurant in Camps Bay Glen.

You are invited to attend this exclusive event limited to 300 local & international guests.

The Under the Influence of Riesling Festival: Driven by Lexus has managed to secure the attendance and participation of the following internationally acclaimed winemakers, who will personally be representing their wines at the festival’s events along with top South African producers:

EGON MÜLLER

ERNST LOOSEN

PHILIP WITTMANN

HERMAN DÖNNHOFF

DIRK VAN DER NIEPOORT

WILL BRÜNDLMAYER

WERNER MAYER-NÄKEL

ROBERT WEIL

REICHSGRAF VON KESSELSTATT

The festival which will be held over two days, is comprised of three special events:

RIESLING WORKSHOP AND FINE DINING EVENT

Wine lovers will participate in a rare and interesting presentation from each individual wine maker on his vineyards and wines, encouraging discussion and allowing interaction around these wines at the beautiful Stans Halt Tasting Room overlooking the Twelve Apostles and Camps Bay. A six course degustation dinner paired with the wines of these same producers will follow and will be presented at The Rumbullion Restaurant.

Friday 20 February 2009 (18h00)

The Rumbullion

Tickets: R2350

RIESLING WORKSHOP FOR WINEMAKERS AND ENTHUSIASTS

An extensive, in-depth two hour workshop will be held for local winemakers and ardent wine enthusiasts over two hours where the international winemakers will go further into their wine producing techniques.

Saturday 21 February 2009 (11h00 - 13h00)

Stans Halt Tasting Room

Tickets: R450

THE RIESLING FESTIVAL

Setup on the grounds of the Roundhouse, the Riesling exhibition will take the form of food and wine pairings designed by four chefs: Harald Bresselschmidt of Aubergine, Bertus Basson of Overture, Peter Tempelhoff of The Collection Group and PJ Vadas of The Roundhouse. Four outdoor stands will be offering guests the dishes of the selected chefs paired alongside wines of winemakers both local and international. Each dish will be carefully crafted to match the fruity and dry Rieslings. Thereafter guests will recline on the lawns of the Roundhouse overlooking Camps Bay and the 12 Apostles and enjoy a picnic served with varying Rieslings throughout the meal all accompanied by live music from Sven Meyer, Hamburg based producer.

Saturday 21 February 2009 (15h00 - 21h30)

Terraced lawns of The Roundhouse

Tickets: R500 all inclusive

We have 100 tickets allocated to Under the Influence members to this exclusive lifestyle event and invite you to take up the offer of joining us for one of the superb occasions.

To book tickets, please contact Jörg Pfützner on 072 467 5943 or email info@rieslingclub.co.za or Jenny Lowin on 021 438 4391 or email info@undertheinfluence.co.za.

We hope to see you at this promising international event!

February tastings at Stans Halt, The Roundhouse

We look forward to welcoming you to our evening tastings at Stans Halt, adjacent to the Roundhouse Restaurant in Camps Bay, starting at 6pm Monday to Saturday. Each evening we explore a single subject of wine through tasting and discussing wines from around South Africa.

Estates that will be discovered include Grangehurst, Hamilton Russell, De Trafford, De Toren, Ataraxia, Waterford, Graham Beck and Iona to name a few.

Bookings are crucial. Each tasting is only R50 per Guest for the month of February. Call 021 438 4391 or email info@undertheinfluence.co.za. We look forward to getting you Under the Influence of the finest!

February 2009
Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28

	Under the Influence of the mixed bag: Glasses are laid out, moods of Guests are deduced and wine is plucked from racks in an ad-hoc and “I have been meaning to drink this” manner. Every week is unique!
	Under the Influence of the Grape – Cabernet Sauvignon: An exploration of Cabernet Sauvignon in South Africa from mountain top to valley floor.
	Under the Influence of the Rhone: We explore Rhone style wines in South Africa and a distinctive wine from the south of France. How do they compare?
	Under the Influence of Bordeaux in South Africa: The claret in the Cape. We investigate top Bordeaux style wines in South Africa and deduce how their terroir influences flavour.
	Under the Influence of the Oak: Just how does oak influence flavour in wine? This is a question better answered by sampling wooded and unwooded wines and deciding for yourself!

Classic blind tasting: Matt Skinner challenged by Gordon Ramsay

Matt Skinner is one of our favourite wine writers and plied his trade as sommelier in Jamie Oliver's restaurants. Gordon Ramsay takes him to task with a blind tasting challenge here. Click here to view YouTube video

Under the Influence of Whisky Live

Under the Influence approaches the world of fine spirits in a different manner, one that looks at these products in a fresh and entertaining light. Liquor brands have a penchant to sometimes take themselves too seriously and they can be guilty of using jargon that for many consumers is bully language. Bully language is simply designed to confuse and dazzle clients. I.e. "Through balloon payments we can lower the prime lending rate on your car!" Whatever. Let's Sell Lobster has been teaching to an understanding, without the bully language, to improve service levels and wine and spirits knowledge at top lodges and hotels since its inception four years ago. Now, Under the Influence is doing the same for consumers. At Whisky Live In Joburg this year the local media were treated to the, somewhat dubious, honour of attending the Bush Logic of Whisky course.

A tour around some of the finest lodges in Southern Africa with Dave Broom was the catalyst for the creation of the Bush Logic course. Dave says it best in the article he wrote for whisky magazine; “So, impalas become fragrant whisky: thin legs, light gold in colour, a dry grassy note on the finish, light and skittish on the palate, an aperitif for human... and leopard. Over the next few days as we travel between Tanda Tula, Lion Sands and Ulasaba, whiskies are turned into elephants, bateleur eagle, zebra, leopard, lion, crocodile. Lagavulin becomes a buffalo, ‘Dagga-vulin’. The ideas begin to cohere, the ark begins to fill. I become Ranger Nkukulu.” Incidentally Nkukulu is Shangaan for broom! So, Whisky Live is now Under the Influence of the Bush Logic course. Keep a look out for our courses and ensembles on the website, maybe you will be next! Visit www.undertheinfluence.co.za

Under the Influence of the Place - an interview with Eben Sadie

Here are some highlights of a long discussion with Eben Sadie during the first production of Under the Influence's DVD collection. Enjoy!

It is said that all wine has one thing in common. Many may argue that the commonality lies in the fact that all wines are made from grapes. Taking the fact that grapes create wine as an absolute, the commonality lies in the fact that all wines in the world have an address…a place. Wines are liquid images that give us an understanding of a place. This is why wine has an origin, an address, a place.

With European labels, or for that matter the old world, the importance of the wine is not who produced it, but rather where it is from! For instance, in Burgundy, Mussiny would be large and apparent on the label and the producer’s name, small and insignificant in comparison. Mussiny is a place with a certain soil. These producers produce places, not certain percentages of alcohol with certain stylistic flavours.

Soil is where a plant roots itself; a vine puts its whole life, its anchor, in the soil. The whole neurological system of the vine is placed in the soil.

In the late 70’s wine became like fashion. Everyone wanted to be a famous superstar of the wine world. Producers started pushing wine making as a determinant factor for wine styles. Before the 70’s, the soil, the history and the community were the driving factors. In the late 70’s and early 80’s a shift in wine toward prestige and excellence was apparent, moving away from the importance of soil and into the cellar. This saw the birth of great winemakers, the great winemakers portfolios, and consumers opting for varietal wines like Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, which became a function of branding. Hence, more important than the vines grown and the soils grown in, was the need to produce a varietal wine of fashion.

In retrospect, we have lost so much in the last 20 years. Many wines were made by people who put their own importance above that of the region or address. All wineries use the same barrels, the same consultants and the same university textbooks; hence it is only normal to assume that most of the wines are starting to look the same.

Now we drink a Cabernet in Australia, Bordeaux and Napa and the differentiation is minimal in many cases. What is important, in these wines, is precision viticulture, precision wine making, precision barrels, precision yeasts and precision clones while in the end it is no surprise that many of the wines have no character of soil.

In Burgundy there are vineyards the size of a dining room in a large house, a soil with an expression. Within a stone throw of this aforementioned vineyard you have a similar sized vineyard, however one wine is priced at 5 Euros and the other at 300 Euros. Not because the light is better, or the climate is so different, but because the soil is superior and everything is working in harmony.

The New World is developing its wine regions where everything needs to occur instantaneously. The development of viticultural land is determined by the economy, excel spreadsheets, the financial manager, profitability and real estate values. Europe’s wine regions were developed around 500 years ago, and before this they had a thousand years without these modern day pressures, such as marketing and branding. The varieties growing in Europe were planted first and foremost as a function of the development of time. These grapes are best suited to their chosen soils, not because of the economy, nor profitability, nor a fashion created by newspapers 18000 kms away. These producers looked at their climate, their disease pressures, their soil behaviour and cultural values and this information determined that specific plants, varieties and vines on their soils would make the expression of their place.

Eben Sadie’s unique philosophy on wines and their expressions of their place have yielded world acclaim through two of South Africa’s most rare and most highly rated wines, Columella and Pilladius.