Trade Winds Rosé

This piece was originally published by Port2Port. Photo curtesy of Port2Port as well, because if not, why not.

Trade Winds 
Rosé
NV
Western Cape 

My roommate’s favourite movie is Mamma Mia! Without exaggeration, I think she’s watched it once every three months since it came out. I’ve done the maths — that’s 64 times (conservative estimate). Don’t ask me what it is, but there’s something about watching Meryl Streep in dungarees twirling through the laundry of some small Greek island that she just can’t get enough of. Having been in the vicinity of some of these devotional viewings, I have to admit once you get over the fact that one 90 minute movie can contain 18 ABBA covers, I do see an appeal. Camp joy with the Aegean Sea as your backdrop, discovering possible shared genetics with Pierce Brosnan, not to mention the prospect that you too could open a hotel in Greece. Drinking the Trade Winds Rosé is like being transported to the grown up Pinterest version of this aesthetic.

With a nose of grapefruit and purest Pink Lady apples, the Trade Winds Rosé beckons you to lunches under pergolas that gently stretch until long past sunset, while starched sheets idly billow in the breeze. Its palate of white dessert peaches, strawberries and crisp watermelon will have you reaching for your passport and simultaneously googling best seaside getaways. Not needing to be the centre of attention, the Trade Winds Rosé does a far subtler job of being the best possible supporting act, as its savoury, saline core ensures that any dish is enhanced and any mood buoyed.

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡: Your island fantasy, complete with espadrilles and possible wedding, as there’s no true rosé holiday fantasy without some sort of nuptials (yours, or somebody else’s). And if that fails, there’s always your roommate’s favourite musical romcom. After all, what else is Valentine’s Day for?

Kleinood Tamboerskloof Katharien Rosé

This piece was originally published by Port2Port.

Kleinood
Tamboerskloof Katharien Rosé
2022
Stellenbosch

Now, I could be a crazy sniffing wine person wildly attributing aromas to anything that so much as brushes past my olfactory senses, but I am convinced that January has a smell. It’s a mixture of holiday independence, sunscreen encrusted beach bags and pheromones wafting off the tanned bodies of all the Capetonians who have invariably shed their winter cuddle buddies in search of steamy summer flings. In fact, if one could bottle January, it’s unclear on whether I’d wear it or simply huff it with the eagerness of a fourth grader discovering UHU glue.

If you left my January scented bottle uncorked and wafting like a room diffuser, the Tamboerskloof Katharien Rosé is the bottle to take you by the hand and follow me down this rabbit hole. As pure and delicate as its pale ballet shoe colour would suggest, a pink haze of strawberries and red cherries descends, luring you into summer’s endless possibility. Yet, its bracingly crisp Pink Lady apple crunch texture makes it clear this wine isn’t just about flimsy summer dresses and daisy chains, but has the cheekiness to hold its own should the evening move to weightier topics.

Pair with: Endless summer afternoons that make you forget supper time was two hours ago, with chins sticky from giant watermelon slices and ladybirds traversing the backs of tanned thighs.

Spider Pig Bro/Zay Rosé

Spider Pig Wine 
Bro/Zay Rosé
2019
Western Cape 

A couple of months ago, I went to Spider Pig’s warehouse sale, assuring my roommates I would “just buy a bit of wine for the house”. Fast forward a few tastings (read: many, many glasses) and a couple of hours later (read: 2am), a massive bolt of The Fear (a type of fear that only occurs when lying in a horizontal position, usually between 1am-4am, and definitely after four drinks) caused my kidneys to shoot into adrenal overdrive, almost levitating me from the mattress. I made some hasty calculations and desperately scrolled for my latest bank balance, for lo: I had indeed done the thing. The Fear rubbed its hands in glee. While I won’t go into specific figures, I spent the next two days desperately selling off most of the wine I’d bought… and I still had five cases left. Three of which were Spider Pig Bro/Zay Rosé.

So let’s set the scene: 

If James Corden and Chris Pratt had a love child, it would be the Bro/Zay Rosé. It’s a wine that comes with as much peacock energy as it does Peter Pan syndrome… and it’s just so much fun. A full shebang of strawberries and cranberry fruit juice do a little dance on your tastebuds, reminding you equally of rose petals and childhood sweets from the 90s, specifically the foot lollipop you dipped into a packet of sherbet. Then, just when you thought it was a good for good times only kinda guy, that core of salinity just glides on through, reminding you that it will pick you up from the airport any time, just say the word. Yes, it probably gets 10% drunker than it should on a weeknight, and yes, it will probably tie its tie around its head Rambo style, but it will always tell the best jokes at the party, baby. 

Pair with: Dudes playing ultimate frisbee in the park (I’m not entirely sure what ultimate frisbee is exactly, but it sounds precisely like something the Bro/Zay Rosé would commit to 100%, while wearing a matching head and wrist sweatband set). There will be war cries.    

Intelligo Wines The Pink Moustache

Intelligo Wines
The Pink Moustache
(too much fun was had to note the vintage…)
Swartland

The Pink Moustache is that hipster — the kind who uses moustache wax and looks like he just walked off of Portugal. The Man’s Feel It Still music video, possibly still in his white-on-white dungaree ensemble — that hipster. You make eye contact with him across the dance floor and you know. You. Hipster man. Those speedo briefs he’s probably wearing under that white-on-white denim. It. Is. ON. Will you exchange numbers? Names? Unlikely. Maybe it’s that fruit juice colour, or the label that makes you think of the Maybelline mascara you bought in high school, but this is the perfect one-night stand wine you do for the entertainment thrill factor of it all. 

Stick your nose into The Pink Moustache’s glassy armpit, and you’re hit with that pheromone packed muskiness, hints of cologne laced with pink peppercorns and just that slight whiff of natural wine funk. Yet the mouthfeel is unexpectedly fresh and bright, with a crisp acidity prickling with red fizz pop sherbet, cherries, pink lady apples and roses. It’s a wine as nimble as hipster man’s aerobic Birkenstock-clad dance moves.   

While this might have started off as the once-off you did for the anecdote, this is a wine that makes you question your initial — perhaps harsh — judgements. He’s the kind of guy with freshly laundered sheets that makes you breakfast the next day with ethically-sourced artisan coffee and a croissant he picked up at the French patisserie (obviously he lives above a French patisserie). It might not be love, but it sure exceeds the single note you’d anticipated.  

Pair with: The wine you pick up after leaving the hipster’s flat on the way to your best friend’s house to divulge blow by blow details of said one-night stand, strutting down the street à la Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer complete with flash mob and animated bluebird. Or, alternatively, at a theatre bar about to watch some interpretive dance with moustachioed hipster after you agree to extend this to a two, possibly three-night arrangement.