With its rigorous judging process, by top wine experts from across the globe, the DWWA is the world’s largest and most influential wine contest.
For 28 consecutive days in August, 116 expert wine judges, including 37 Masters of Wine and nine Master Sommeliers, took part in Decanter World Wine Awards 2020 judging month to blind taste and evaluate 16,518 wines from 56 countries.
The prestige of being acknowledged in such a respected contest definitely keeps quality South African wines top of mind globally, and we are most grateful, and proud of these ratings.
The Novare South African Terroir Wine Awards honours the wines which truly portray South Africa’s different wine growing areas. All entries must be a certified Wine of Origin from a specific single vineyard, estate, ward or small district not divided into wards.
In a fantastic online event that included Chef Zola Nene preparing a delicious dish using local Extra Virgin Olive Oil, the winners of the 2020 ABSA Top 10 Olive Oil Awards were announced.
Despite a crippling lockdown being imposed during harvest, producers experienced bumper crops this year and the competition was certainly stiff, with 104 entries and 34 gold medals.
We were absolutely thrilled that our ‘Endless’ EVOO was recognised as one of the Top 10 winners.
For more info, please visit the SA Olive website to read the official announcement.
Contact us via orders@wildekrans.com if you’d like to get your hands on this award-winning EVOO.
Thanks to ABSA and SA Olive for this amazing accolade, and for all the work you do to promote South African EVOO as a world-class product.
The results of the 24th Michelangelo International Wine & Spirits Awards were announced via an online function on Friday 2nd October at 16h00.
With over 1500 entries this year, and a total of 615 awards presented, this competition is an important benchmark for producers targeting international markets to determine how their wines will be received abroad, and locally. The panel of judges are hand-picked wine experts representing all 7 continents and entries are judged blind.
We received the wonderful news that two of our wines were awarded Double Gold medals this year:-
Impress your friends and family next time you visit a wine estate by showing them how to tell the different vines apart by their leaves. The study of vine leaves is known as ampelography, and that alone is a pretty cool quiz-night fact to know.
But now that we’ve got that technical word out of the way, we’d like to keep the rest of this article as simple as possible. Below, we’ve listed all the wine grapes grown at Wildekrans Wine Estate, and tried our best to describe the different leaves in the easiest way possible, and included pics for easy reference.
One thing to note is that each vineyard almost has its own personality, and becomes so familiar the winemaker / viticulturist that it is difficult for them to describe. They just instantly recognize the varietal, and whether everything is well, or not, with the vines.
Each vine, and leaf is slightly unique, just like a thumb-print. You learn to recognise them just as you would a loved one in a crowd, yet to describe them to others becomes somewhat difficult as it’s difficult to capture the ‘essence’ amongst the slightly dry sounding visual characteristics.
We’ve added some literal descriptions to ours to make it easier to remember, as no-one wants to read a textbook on a wine estate website!
To start, one quick interesting way to distinguish whether the vine is a red grape vine, or a white wine variety is to look at the overall shape. In most cases, red grape leaves have an almost classic “maple leaf” shape, while white wine grape leaves are more rounded.
Then a few other things to look out for are the lobes and teeth on the leaves. If the leaf were a hand, the lobes would be the fingers. Some leaves have prominent lobes, other leaves have none. The teeth are the serrations on the outside edge of the leaf. Some are jagged and sharp while others are rounded.
You will see us mention sinuses a fair amount below. This has nothing to do with hay-fever, but rather a term for the spaces or gaps between each leaf-lobe. To be specific, there are two main kinds of sinuses to look out for on vine leaves:
Petiolar sinus – Refers to the empty spaces surrounding the stem from the leaf (so the ‘main’ sinus at the ‘top’ of the leaf).
Lateral sinus – deep notches between the lobes (the rest of the sinuses that separate the lobes).
Let’s take a look at some examples below:-
Cabernet Franc
Dark green 5-lobed leaves, slightly open and overlapped with sharp, pointy teeth on the tips. Think of the maple leaf on the Canadian flag if you will.
Cabernet Sauvignon
Mid green leaves with 3-5 lobes with u-shaped sinuses between the lobes. The lobes overlap slightly, giving the sinuses the impression that they have been cut out. Jagged, uneven, slightly rounded teeth on the tips. Think of this one as the leaf with bullet-holes.
Chardonnay
A medium sized leaf composed of five lobes that give a pentagonal shape to the leaf. Very shallow sinuses and short, broad teeth. Think of this one like a cross between and ivy leaf and the Castle of Good Hope…
Chenin Blanc
Medium-sized, round leaves, generally three-lobed and dark green. Resembles jagged angel wings.
Grenache
Medium-sized, mostly entire leaves with a shallow main sinus. Lateral sinuses are narrow and U-shaped. Teeth are short and sharp, and the upper leaf surface is very smooth and waxy. This one looks a bit like a flapping angel.
Hanepoot
Dark green, medium-sized five lobed leaves that are almost entire. Rounded, jagged shape with a very narrow main sinus. Smooth, frilly, dark are the key ingredients to this appearance.
Merlot
Large-sized 5 lobed leaves with well-differentiated lobes that are slightly overlapped. Pentagonal shape with a deep, rounded petiolar sinus. Another maple leaf, but with the texture reminiscent of a mint leaf.
Pinot Noir
Medium-sized, pentagonal shaped leaves, consisting of 3-5 lobes which are slightly overlapped. The lobes face each other towards the lower side of the blade in a coxcomb shape, with short teeth, and a twisted, strongly blistered leaf blade. A bit like a flapping butterfly this one.
Pinotage
Wedge-shaped, oblong large thick leaves, with five lobes, open sinuses with a fairly frequent tooth inside. Short teeth on leaf edges with straight sides. Finely blistered leaf blade with undulation between the veins. The chewed maple-leaf… this one looks like someone has feasted very neatly in the sinuses, and almost left the shape of two bunny ears behind.
Riesling
Small 3 to 5-lobed leaves with lobes often overlapping to appear entire. Closed U-shaped sinuses. Blistered leaf surface, and short, rounded teeth. Think of a pretty frilly rosette when you look at this one.
Sauvignon Blanc
Contorted, medium-sized, leaves with a rounded shape. 3-5 lobes only slightly obvious, with convex leaf that does not lie flat, but is rather ruffled at the edges. Leaves have rounded teeth. U-shaped petiolar sinus. This one is very definitely disc-shaped and frilly…
Semillion
A medium-sized, round leaf, with five lobes. An open or slightly open petiole sinus, short teeth compared to their width at the base with straight or convex sides. Leaf blade is slightly twisted and very regularly blistered. This one looks a lot like a surprised face with a beard!
Shiraz
Medium, mostly 3 to 5-lobed leaves with reduced inferior lateral sinuses, U-shaped petiolar sinus and short, sharp teeth. Leaf surface occasionally blistered and puckered near petiole junction. This one almost looks like a set of angel wings, albeit clumsily asymmetrical at times.
Tempranillio
A large-sized leaf composed of 5-7 lobes which are slightly overlapped, forming a pentagon. Large, sharp teeth. The flame… This one reminds us of the fire emoji.
One of the handiest tips to keep in mind while impressing your friends (and learning) is if you walk around long enough, you’ll eventually find the signage for the particular vineyard block, proudly displaying the varietal and age of the vines in each block. A good way to double-check!
Tim Atkin’s South Africa Report for 2020 has just been released, and we are thrilled to have received Medals of Excellence for 4 of our wines. These medals are given to producers with wine scores above 90 points. Our wines which have done so well are as follows:-
