SA Rocks

I’ve been emailed the final list of participating acts for the OppiKoppi WildCard festival in August.

Here it is:

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I read an article at M&G Online this weekend that says that according to Moving companies, real estate agents and nonprofit groups more white South Africans in their late 20s who are abroad are coming back to SA.

Now obviously it would be easy for me to say I can believe this and slot it in to the SA Rocks apparel as proof. But I can’t just do that. Let’s be honest, everyone here seems to be talking about leaving.

So my question is this, what have you heard? Are you noticing more people wanting to leave, talking about leaving or doing it? Me being “The SA Rocks Guy” makes it tough to go out with family, friends, colleagues or aquantances and not talk about leaving SA, am I staying, why and the rest of that discussion. So I hear it alot but are people around you talking about it?

Here’s a snippet from the M&G Online article:

Moving companies, real estate agents and nonprofit groups say more and more white South Africans in their late 20s and beyond are returning to South Africa. Hungry for their own culture, eager to raise children near their own families, and encouraged by their country’s economic potential, these adults are leaving their successful careers abroad for an uncertain future at home.

“We’ve been happy and enjoying ourselves ever since the day we’ve been back,” said Prins, who moved to Johannesburg last October. “I felt like my quality of life improved dramatically.”

Prins and her boyfriend Mark Kirkness, a civil engineer, may not have made the decision to come home if weren’t for the Homecoming Revolution, one of several South African organisations dedicated to persuading expatriates to come back. Kirkness received a job offer after attending a career fair put on by the group, which also provides candid information about the South African economy, security conditions and crime, and hosts networking dinners and other events for those who have returned.

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Not by mistake, not in a panic, but by choice, to see, look, observe and experience?

I’m also not referring to one of those tours that take you around in a bus full of white folk staring down at the “poor township people”.

What I am asking is if you have friends in townships and have visited them, if you work in a township, teach, educate, experience, live, walk amongst the people who live there?

I have done so when I lived in Grahamstown, I did a lot of work in the townships, made a lot of friends by playing soccer and through studies. I visited them, and saw where they came from and respect them fom achieving what they have against such incredible odds.

So have you? Or is a township some place that you’ve heard about, seen or read of in the news?

image courtesay of: sea turtle

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Hurrah for Wines of South Africa (WOSA) for coming up with one of the most meaningful 2010 programmes that I certainly have come across. The plan is to train 2,010 wine stewards by 2010. And to fund this initiative, they have pulled the wine industry together to produce a new range of wines called Fundi.

Profits from the sale of Fundi will go towards training up the 2,010 stewards. Half will be pulled from existing hospitality staff, and the remainder will be from currently unemployed people. There are so many wins to this formula: upskilling people, improved wine knowledge and service levels in time for the influx of tourists around the 2010 Football World Cup, improved service levels for locals almost immediately, and a fabulous new range of wine locally and abroad.

The wines for the range were selected by a blind tasting of the Cape Winemakers Guild. We tried the Stellekaya (50% Merlot, 30% Pinotage, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon), Anwilka (very elegant but a hefty 15% alcohol) and The Company of Wine People at the launch – all of which were outstanding, but given my current hankering after fairly in your face, feisty reds, the Stellekaya Cape blend was my favourite. Also in the pipeline are blends from Hartenberg Estate and Waterkloof. The sixth wine in the line up still needs to be chosen and announced.

The first two wines – the Stellekaya and The Company of Wine People versions – will be available from the beginning of August, with a price tag of R 120 in the shops and R 150 in restaurants. The bottles are easy to spot, with a cheerful sunflower motif and a handmade bead neck tag. 17,500 Bottles are available and need to be sold here and abroad to raise the R 4.5 million needed to fund the training.

The cheap and cheerful side of me wonders if there should not also have been an entry-level wine available. I am far more likely to try something new if it is a bit more accessible price-wise, and why shouldn’t people who buy wine at the more affordable end of the market be able to contribute to this great initiative? However when I see this in a restaurant I am sure to order it by the bucketload (why is it that I will happily pay over the odds for wine in a restaurant, while um and ah over an extra R 5 in a supermarket?)

The other thing that I am not sure about is how do you know which wine you are ordering, or is it pot luck? The label at the back identifies the producer and the blend, but I can’t work out if you can tell one from another in any other way – the bottles were kept well away from my grubby paws at the launch so I didn’t get to study them. This could be a problem in a restaurant where you don’t see the bottle in advance, and also if you aren’t familiar with the range.

According to Dalene Steyn of WOSA, they are comfortable that wine connoisseurs will be clued up about the story of Fundi and will know what is going on, while for the rest, it’s not going to be a big issue. I do hope this isn’t confusing for people who are new to the wine world and are trying to work things out for the first time, or even for more experienced wine drinkers who just aren’t paying attention.

Fundi of course means learner in isiZulu, and means an expert in South African-ese. The training initiative has been dubbed WOSA Laduma and will be run by the fabulous team at Lets Sell Lobster. I have been lucky enough to attend one of their champagne and popcorn tasting and it was great fun. The team has got the balance right between making wine fun and accessible, while still sharing accurate and useful information. In Lets Sell Lobster’s version of wine tasting, a Cabernet Sauvignon is like an elephant: big bodied, thick skinned, lots of backbone and lasts for a long time … you get the picture.

You can read more about the Fundi project here.

[Vanessa Clark writes for WineCountry, a blog that focuses on bringing the fun in wine, food and lifestyle to the people of South Africa.]

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It seems as though the very first Gautrain car “four-car train sets” have been handed over to SA!!

This is fantastic stuff.

Here’s a short press release and Pic below!

Custom branded in Gautrain’s distinctive golden colour, the first four-car train set was proudly handed over to Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa at Bombardier’s Derby assembly plant in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, 8 July.

The Gautrain rolling stock of 96 rail cars is based on the renowned Bombardier Electrostar series, known for their state-of-the-art technology and reliable, high performance standards. The lightweight aluminium car bodies – a first for South Africa – also offer increased energy efficiency and reduced maintenance requirements. It has been customised to meet South African requirements.

The first 15 rail cars, plus the body shells for the complete fleet, will be manufactured at Bombardier Transportation’s facility in Derby. The body shells and some of the major components for the remaining 81 rail cars will be shipped to Union Carriage and Wagon (UCW) in Nigel for final assembly.

Teams from UCW, who are presently at Derby being trained in the assembly of the Gautrain rail cars, will constitute the core of the assembly teams when local production commences. A core feature of the Electrostar rail cars is their suitability for local assembly, which is made possible by the use of bolted aluminium construction methodology. In turn, this delivers on Gautrain’s socio-economic objectives of skills transfer and job creation.

In order to meet the requirements for safety at higher speeds and easily obtain ‘state-of-the-art’ rail cars, Gautrain will operate on the widely used Standard Gauge track. Measuring 1 435 millimetres between rails, this is the predominant track gauge internationally, and was last used in South Africa in the 1860s. The existing narrower track gauge (1 065 millimetres) used locally is known as Cape Gauge.

Supported by a dedicated fleet of 125 buses, Gautrain will be able to carry more than 100 000 passengers per day in each direction between Johannesburg and Tshwane.

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I blogged about my reasons to stay in SA a while back.

I’ve found another article by Deon Terblanche containing 24 reasons why he wants to stay in SA.

Here’s Deon’s list:

South Africa ranked 44th out of 131 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2007/8

Three South African cities were voted amongst the world’s top 100 Most Liveable Cities in a study conducted by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Cape Town was ranked 85th, Johannesburg 90th, and Port Elizabeth 97th

South Africa is ranked 20th out of a total of 128 economies in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2007, ahead of many developed nations, including the United States (31), Switzerland (40), Austria (27) and France (51)

South Africa is ranked 35th out of 178 countries for ease of doing business – ahead of Spain, Brazil and India – according to Doing Business 2008, a joint publication of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation

South Africa ranks in the top four countries worldwide in terms of the transparency surrounding its budgets – ahead of the US, Norway and Sweden – according to the Open Budget Index
The number of tourists visiting South Africa has grown by 188% since 1994, from 3 million to 8.4 million in 2006 (Department of Environment and Tourism)

South Africa is the first, and to date only, country to build nuclear weapons and then voluntarily dismantle its entire nuclear weapons programme

South Africa will become the first African country to host the Soccer World Cup in 2010, and the first country in the world to have hosted the Cricket, Rugby and Soccer World Cups

South Africa is home to both the largest land mammal (elephant) and the smallest mammal (shrew)

South Africa is the only country to house an entire floral kingdom (fynbos), one of only six on the planet

South African Breweries ranks as the second largest brewing company in the world. It supplies up to 50% of China’s beer

Cape Town has the fifth-best blue sky in the world according to the UK’s National Physical Laboratory

21 South African beaches were awarded Blue Flags, an international indicator of high environmental standards for recreational beaches in 2007

South Africa ranks 57th out of 157 countries in the world in terms of economic freedom, ahead of Italy (64), Brazil (101), the United Arab Emirates (63), Greece (94th), India (104th) and China (126), according to the Index of Economic Freedom 2007

South African media ranks 26th out of 167 countries in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007, higher than any country in Asia, the Middle East or South America, and ahead of Japan, Spain, Italy and the United States

South Africa accounts for almost 45% of the GDP of the entire African continent, with an economy three times the size of the second biggest country (Egypt)

The South African Constitution is widely regarded as being one of the most progressive in the world, drawing from the experiences of the world’s most advanced democracies

Almost a quarter of South Africa’s non-interest budget is spent on education

Johannesburg ranks second among cities in countries from Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Africa in dealing with urbanisation and environmental challenges, in the MasterCard Insights Report on Urbanisation andEnvironmental Challenges

South Africa’s per capita GDP, corrected for purchasing power parity, positions the country as one of the 50 wealthiest in the world

Worldaudit.org ranks South Africa as the 40th most democratic country out of 150 nations

South Africa is the 35th best place in the world to do e-business, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2007 E-Readiness Report

South Africa is the best-ranked country in terms of price stability; our fiscal policy is ranked 11th, our international trade competitiveness 21st, and we are the 28th most-attractive destination for foreign direct investment, according to the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2005

The value of South African real estate has improved by 30% over the past five years

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I am aware that I am a bit behind on this blog post but I can’t help but place these photos on SA Rocks.

Originally found at The Telegraph. All pictures by Hal Brindley/SOLO Syndication.

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Nederburg have done it again and walked away with yet another award for one of their wines.

The Nederburg Winemaster’s Reserve 2006 has just won the Lexus Shiraz Challenge Award for 2008.

Now this win and the indeed the wine is significant in a number of ways, some of which I will list for you now:

- A big producer, producing award winning wines in large volumes (great, great news for the industry)
- The wine retails for only R50 – making it very accessible
- Romanian Oak was used in the aging process imparting “an aromatic character and cinnamon and clove flavours” – very interesting indeed.
- The largest proportion of the grapes for the wine came from eight-year-old vines in Philadelphia
(north of Durbanville, off the N7 en route to Malmesbury) – I have never even heard of this region before.

Well I’m off to the shops to find me a bottle so that I can report back on how good it is.

Well done to cellarmaster Razvan Macici and his team for completely transforming Nederburg into an award winning estate again.

All we need now is for those large volumes of wine to find their way onto the supermarket shelves of foreign lands to seriously lift the reputation of everyday drinking South African wine to the level it deserves.

Website : Nederburg

For more info on South African wines visit : The Cru

Read about Nederburg’s recent Old Mutual Trophy victory here

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All in all a great and interesting weekend for sports.

Unfortunately the Springboks lost against Australia in the Tri-nations. But the South African tennis players did a sterling job at dismissing of Denmark in the Davis Cup. Kaizer Chiefs did a great job of holding Manchester United to a draw in Cape Town, which is always an impressive result for us. If our National team can’t do it, at least on a club level we are performing!

Then the British Open has been taking place over the past few days. I love golf and this open have been fortunate enough to watch a few South Africans in the championship. One of whom is a friend of mine!

Here’s how they look at the time of writing this post:

T60 AIKEN, Thomas 18 RSA 75 71 82 68 296 +16
T37 ELS, Ernie 8 RSA 80 69 74 -1 +12
T27 FROST, David 12:05 RSA 75 73 73 Par +11
T15 GOOSEN, Retief 12:55 RSA 71 75 73 Par +9
T27 IMMELMAN, Trevor 12:05 RSA 74 74 73 Par +11

Goosen definitely performing the best so far out of the South African contenders but there is still some time to go and much golf to be played!

There’s also cricket going on between England and The Proteas but I’m really not too sure how that’s going, anyone have an update?

All in all, a sport-filled weekend that kept me very busy!

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A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of taking the afternoon off from my day job and heading out to London’s Excel exhibition centre to attend the London International Wine Fair. If you’re thinking “big deal, we’ve been to the Robertson Roadshow, how mich bigger can it be?”, think again. Over 3 days there were 14,000 visitors who came to see 1,250 international exhibitors, each of which must have had on average 5 to 10 wines… It’s easy to see how things can go fairly drastically wrong! The show is a trade show and, as such, not open to the public but only to e.g. trade buyers, importers, retailers, off-license staff, hotel/catering buyers, agents and press. So of course I went as Press – my first press badge!

Once inside, it’s quite overwhelming and unless you have a plan you won’t get the most out of the day. I met up with my good friend Andrew (who had already spent the morning there) and he let me choose what we would be tasting. No prizes for guessing… I headed straight for the huge South African pavillion! After a rather disappointing start at Kleine Zalze, we moved on to two of the more impressive SA tastings I’ve had in years.

First up was probably my favourite estate in the country – Springfield. The estate is in the lovely Robertson valley and is owned by brother and sister team, winemaker Abrie and marketer Jeanette Bruwer (who was one of the people manning the Springfield stand when we visited). Abrie is known for being obsessed with terroir (the influence of the land where the grapes are grown on the wine) and his philophy is that “terroir is a gift from God inherited by our ancestors”. This means that the winemaking process is kept as direct and uncomplicated as possible so that the natural elements in the wine can speak for themselves, with the least possible human interference.

Whatever he is doing, let me tell you it works. We started with the 2007 Firefinch Sauvignon Blanc (classic cut grass and green pepper aromas on the nose; slight initial prickle on the tongue giving way to luscious guava flavours) before continuing on to 2007 Life From Stone Sauvignon Blanc (less aggressively green on the nose; a balanced palate full of gooseberries & spiciness); 2007 Special Cuvee Sauvignon Blanc (also a slight prickle on the palate at first and less fruity than the other two, but far more complex and really delicious – my favourite white); Wild Yeast Chardonnay (a promising “cheesy” nose which I usually associate with French wines; but slightly flabby and too sweet for me on the palate); and the Methode Ancienne Chardonnay (a lovely golden colour but shy nose; beautifully balanced palate with both fruit and acid, creamy and mouth-filling with a very long finish).

From there we moved on to the reds, starting with the Firefinch Ripe Red, a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon (lots of ripe red fruit and cherries on the palate, easy-drinking), 2003 Work of Time, a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon (jammy vanilla flavours on the nose; beautifully structured wine with restrained fruit and balanced tannins – delicious); 2006 Whole Berry Cabernet with natural yeast and unfined & unfiltered (deep ruby colour; on the palate, the first taste is… red grape juice! This is followed by more complex, smoky, jammy flavours balanced by remarkably soft tannins. My favourite red by a mile.); and the 2002 Methode Ancienne Cabernet Sauvignon (very deep garnet colour; very complex palate – oaky, tobacco flavours but also dark fruit jam and dried berries – delicious but never over the top or overblown).

From there we staggered across to the lovely ladies at Ses’fikile. Now I have to confess that I had never heard of them before, but that’s hardly surprising as the company was only founded in 2004, by which time I was living in London. As it turns out, manning the stall were two of the owners and two more charming and passionate people you could hardly hope to find. Ses’fikile, as they told me, means “we have arrived” in isiXhosa and it is an empowerment company in the very best sense of the word, owned and run by women and fully BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) compliant. The women in question are former schoolteachers who set about educating themselves in the wine industry and they have a strong partnership with winemaker Bruce Jack of Flagstone. It is, by all accounts, a winning partnership for all concerned, and Ses’fikile wines are available through Marks & Spencer in the UK.

We tasted the 2007 “Rain Song” Chenin Blanc (“cheesy”, musty cellar nose – smells like a French rather than a South African wine; uncomplicated palate with hints of stewed fruit – easy drinking); the unoaked 2007 “Folklore” Chardonnay (a musty cellar nose again; quite fruity, well balanced and very pleasant for an unoaked Chardonnay); the 2006 “Rain Song” Pinotage (great colour for a Pinotage; a big mouthful of sweet cherries and soft tannins – about as lovely and accessible as a Pinotage gets); the 2005 Folklore Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc blend (deep colour; luscious, intense blackberries with hints of vanilla & balanced tannins – absolutely delicious); and the 2004 Matriarch Shiraz reserve (intensely purple; “meaty”, savoury nose; very intense jammy plum pudding flavours, in fact verging on a good ruby port).

And the best part is that as we staggered off at the end of the day, Andrew (who has spent many years in the wine trade) confessed that he had been expecting overblown South African wines and general mediocrity… but had been floored by the high quality and restrained Old World style of the wines that he had tasted that afternoon.

Now that really rocks.

And while we’re all feeling warm and fuzzy, why not pop over to Can You Twist and read my short story – easiest if you click the “read this story from the beginning” link first. And if you like it… please register and vote for me!

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