Warwick proudly played host to an old friend and very important South African dignitary yesterday.

Can you guess who the person in blue is and what role he plays in South African governance?

You may recognize the "First Lady" in the middle of the picture too!

When you're harvesting by hand, the importance of teamwork becomes paramount to creating efficiency!

Take a look:

Nominations for the SA Blog Awards 2008 are now open!

We would love it if you could take a few moments of your time to nominate us in the "Best SA Blog about Food & Wine"!

Just click on the icon below to cast your vote:



While you there - in the spirit of being proudly South African - we recommend that you also vote for these outstanding South African blogs:

SA Rocks

The Cru

Vilafonte Blog

The Pinotage Club

Winefly Selection

Wine Country

They are all a great read, so give them a go and decide for yourself - in the meantime,thanks again for your support!

Welcome to 'Harvest 2008' here at Warwick Wine Estate - here's a video to take you right into the heart of where it all begins : the vineyard!

RonViti takes us through a tasting of the Bush Vines Pinotage - from the vines themselves - take a look!

'Harvest 2008' has begun here at Warwick Wine Estate!

In the words of Ronald our viticulturist (RonViti) , "the grapes are looking great and we are seeing some fantastic, healthy bunches coming in" - we are no doubt very excited about the vintage!

In an effort to bring you closer to the heart of the effort and people involved in creating your favourite Warwick wine - we will be bringing you a series of videos highlighting this years harvest!

You'll see everything from where in the vineyard the grapes came from, the tractors used to transport them, the berry sorting process and you'll even see us filling up the barrels! And who knows - you may even catch a glimpse of our famous "Wedding Cup" in one or two of the videos - in which case there may be some sort of reward (so keep your eyes glued!)!

We hope you find them entertaining and informative - above all we hope that you feel a connection with the estate, the wine and the people who are so passionately involved!

Feel free to comment and ask questions!

Warwick was selected as the 'official' wine for the State Presidents Intternational Investment Council dinner in george in December 2007. Here is a picture of Mike welcoming the president and then a great second picture of the president 'inspecting' the goods - so to speak!

The State president appears 'smitten' with the latest release of

Warwick 'Old Bush Vines' Pinotage which went down a treat!

Back from overseas!

What a great trip. I went to Germany, England and Holland for the Cape Winemakers Guild to promote both the guilds wine, as well as that of Warwick. I had an absolute blast and the amount of positive feedback is really reassuring.

The German tasting was held in Hamburg at the Intercontinental hotel, and was one of the most stylish tastings I have been to. We did the tasting with the Guild wine in partnership with the Sauvignon blanc society and WOSA, and the synergy proved very positive.

About 100 people attended the tasting that was held on the same day as that of all the new German wines that where being, released, so we were very fortunate to have such a good attendance. The view over the city, combined with Cape tapas and good feedback from the tasters made the tasting really worth while.

Hamburg surprised as a city and with its people, to make this tasting extremely memorable.

London Hamburg Amsterdam

Next week I am starting my mini world tour for the Cape Winemakers Guild. I will be giving tastings in Germany, England and Holland. I will be traveling with another guild member, David Trafford, and we will show off the wines from the guild. I will have time in between to visit some clients and see what is happening in the bigger wine world.

Very exciting stuff. I have already started packing my bags. The country mouse is off to see the world.

Moving wine wine wine

The most common activity in the cellar is racking wine. This means we take the wine out of barrel, into a tank and back into the same barrel. This seems an exercise in futility at first, but it is a very important part of the process.

Through racking we get a chance to add air to the wine, inadvertently, and we also check the sulphur levels to protect the wine against oxidation and spoilage.

We have 800 barrels in total and we try to rack them three times a year. The job a very labour intensive, but the end result is worth it.

Topping barrels

During ageing some wine is lost because of evaporation. If the room is very humid the alcohol content of the wine will actually go down while if the room is very dry the alcohol content will go up slightly.

To prevent the staves in the barrels from drying out we therefore have to top barrels once a month. This is quite a big task if you have 800 barrels and we use quite a bit of wine in the process. This is also the main time when the wine gets some air contrary to most peoples belief that air comes in through the staves.

So our main aim today is to top and replace the bit of wine comonly referd to as the angels share.

Roll up, roll up!

The 2007 Professor Black is out. We finished labelling the wine last week so get your orders in. The Trilogy 2005 is also labelled so you can get some of that at the same time.

This week we are moving the last of the 2007 red wines to barrel and then we will start racking the red wines from the 2006 vintage.

Barrels barrels barrels. I will be counting barrels in my sleep.

Getting ready for labelling

We have started folding the boxes for the Professor Black 2007. We have stickers for Germany, the USA and the rest of the world. It takes quite a bit of planning to organise this effort.

Next week we will label the most urgent Professor black 2007 orders as well as the Trilogy 2005 orders. We will have a few days in the next to label the rest so I hope we finish everything.

Not long now.

Bottling bottling bottling

Yes folks, its that time of the year again. All those who have signed up for pre orders of the 2007 Professor Black Sauvignon blanc and the 2005 Trilogy will soon be rewarded. We are finally bottling the wine this week.

Bottling is a tricky operation and after spending months( and years with the Trilogy) this is the time that I must safely put the wine in the bottle. It can be very tricky so we are ultra careful.

After this week of heavy bottling we will finally label the wine at the end of the month so the wine should be ready in the first week of June.

Patience will definitely be rewarded.

Flying Wine Writer Jan Rook visits Warwick

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Chardonnay is next!

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Finally getting round to the Chardonnay and it was well worth the wait.

Nearly finished with the sauvignon blanc

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One more day to go and that is it. The weather girl predicts some rain for the weekend and we are heeding her warning and finishing off with the Sauvignon blanc.

 Thirsty work.

Sauvign Blanc being crushed

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Some of the first Suavignon Blanc grapes from the 2007 harvest being crushed - very exciting stuff!

Tags: wine, warwick, louis, nel, ratcliffe, stellenbosch, sauvignon, blanc

Anyone seen our barrels?

We lost a few barrels on the MSC Napoli, which has gone aground off the southern coast of England. If anybody sees one of our barrels please let us know because we need it for harvest.