South African Wine

I am not what you would call a connoisseur, I spent most of my working life as a Brewer so beer was the main drink .

Virtually all the wines are from the Cape Area, I spent 7 years in the Cape Town brewery as the Brewmaster so it was a bit frowned upon to drink too much wine (publicly) apart from the fact I got more free beer than could drink !!!

The main varietals are Shiraz, Merlot and Pinotage for Reds and Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc for whites. Funnily enough Rieslings are few and far between.

When we do treat ourselves to a nice bottle I tend to like Delheim or Thelema for Sauvignon Blanc as well as any of the Constantia Wineries such as Buitenverwachting , their Buiten Blanc is reasonably priced . Durbanville Hills seems to get exported quite a lot too their Merlot & Shiraz are quite good. There are just so many.

We are spoiled we get really nice stuff in 3L boxes eg Robertson or De Toitskloof whites and reds and all for < $10 for 3L . Our Excise Duty is very low . So I tend to stick on that except for special occasions.

Our beers are really “normal” lagers for a mass market apart from a rapidly growing Craft Beer industry.

I personally drank Castle Lager mostly , but inevitably every brand as I tasted most days in the brewery, less so in later years as I moved back to HQ in the IT area.

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