News> Bordeaux Buzz - The 2003 Michael Fridjhon Wine Experience


War is hell, as inhabitants inside the beltway of Washington DC can attest. French salad dressing and Dijon mustard are off the menu and several of the US capital's trendiest bistros have had to fermez as antipathy to all things French lingers in the aftermath of the Iraq war. With the canteen of Congress still serving Freedom as opposed to French fries, fancy French wine is being sent back by the container load.

Unfortunately for Washingtonians, France is almost irreplaceable in certain gourmet essentials - pâté de foie gras and pungent cheeses, for two. And while Oregon and the other Washington (the state) make an acceptable ersatz burgundy, as the Washington Post points out, "efforts to grow Bordeaux's red grapes and blend them into close replicas of the original" have been a
decade-long passion of wine nuts from California to Coonawarra. Alas, as the newspaper concludes, "this goal has never been attained anywhere with any consistency".

But why this buzz over Bordeaux? As the Post 's wine scribe Michael Franz noted in June: "Bordeaux is the world's most important wine region. It makes a greater quantity of high-quality wine than any other region, and it makes more of the world's ultra-expensive trophy wines than any other."

While Franz admits that "Bordeaux is as unique as the countless snowflakes that are all supposed to be different", he thinks he has at last found a replacement for the fickle French blend. And it comes from an unlikely place the Cape. "My hunch is that the Cape region of SA is a place where wines closely akin to red bordeaux can be made," he writes.

And he offers worried Washingtonians three examples: Mont du Toit from Wellington ("very complex but absolutely seamless, this is a beautiful wine ... sublime stuff"); the Ernie Els wine joint venture between the Big Easy golfer and Jean Engelbrecht, seigneur of Helderberg First Growth Rust en Vrede ("clearly an exceptional wine wrought from exceptional materials"); and Cobbler's Hill from Stellenbosch ("remarkably integrated and subtle"). It's made by husband and wife Gary and Kathy Jordan, who were trained in California.

For an in-depth exposition of what Franz is on about, some of the authentic crown-jewels of Bordeaux can be tasted on August 30 and 31 at Rosebank's Park Hyatt in Johannesburg, at the annual Michael Fridjhon and Wine magazine weekend of sybaritic plenty. Gildas d'Ollone, GM of Château Pichon-Lalande, one of the superstars of Bordeaux, will present a master class on the wines of the Médoc and Graves, featuring such trophies as Latour, Leoville Barton, La Lagune and Lynch Bages and that's just the Ls.

Among the dishes the Park Hyatt's celebrated executive chef Gaeteno Sgroi will prepare for Saturday's post-tasting midday feast and gala dinner are: fried giant prawn with squid ink risotto; Grappa-pickled salmon with mascarpone salad; and cocoa profiteroles with toasted almond ice cream, candied almonds and pistachio-honey melt.

Franz's find is doubly good news for SA: not only are our Bordeaux blends given the high five, but if Americans insist on sending back the best of Bordeaux, that leaves all the more for us, the current strong rand permitting.

The Michael Fridjhon Wine Experience consists of Saturday lunch, a Bordeaux master class followed by dinner and Sunday champagne tasting and brunch. It costs from R1 195 for the Sunday tasting and brunch to R4 500 for the Full Monty (or, rather, Full Michael).

It is also possible to book just for a wine tasting or a meal with wine (R995 for the lunch only; R1 650 for the dinner).

For more information tel: +27 (011)482-5936

-- By Neil Pendock and Linda Stafford