The first South African Wine Bloggers Braai was held here at Warwick and proved to be a great success!

Lanie Janie and her tasting room team did a fantastic job of ensuring that the wine and evening flowed smoothly and freely.

Ronald our resident 'Braai Master' cooked everyone's meat to perfection, we had a blind tasting and Mike, to everyone's demand, even told the story of Prof Black!

At one stage in the night a guest said that the Prof Black Sav Blanc was so good, it tasted like 'mothers milk'!

It was a great evening and hopefully there will be many more to come!

Take a look at all the photo's:

>>Click Here<<

Thanks for coming everyone!

"The Press"

In the last video, you saw how we got our grapes from vineyard to winery. Well now that they're at the winery - Matt, our assistant winemaker from California, explains what happens next!



And remember:

We've shown you where and how we pick our grapes. In this fun video, we take a look at how we get our grapes from vineyard to winery!

One of the drawbacks of organic Viticulture.

 

Thank to all your nominations - we are pleased to announce that the Warwick Blog has made it into the finalists stage of the SA Blog Awards 2008!!

With that in mind, we have one last favour to ask you: Can you please click on the icon below and vote, vote, vote for us!!!



And once you have voted for us, we suggest you give the following blogs in their respective categories, your vote too - they thoroughly deserve it:

South African Weblog of the Year:
SA Rocks

Best Overseas South African Blog
Cooksister

Best SA Blog about Technology/Computers/Web Development
iMod

Thanks everyone, have a great day and crack open a great bottle of wine tonight!

With the Warwick Trilogy being awarded 93 points by Wine Spectator - we felt it was only right that we give her a little tribute!

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.