Our wine group consists of some 25 members, and we like to have at least 6 participants with a maximum of 8 for a session to be held…….the ladies generally organize a restaurant for themselves and are there to drive their husbands safely home………!
We generally have a wine tasting each month, hosted by a club member who selects six wines to be blind tasted, and arranges the evening at his home.
There is a nominal charge (usually about 20 francs) towards the cost of wine and light snacks.
Much fun is had by all.
Contact Gerry Swart if you want to join this group.
Notes and some history by Terry Gale
So where does the word ‘wine’ come from? Various origins suggest the ‘Old English’ word ‘win’, or from the ‘Latin’, ‘vinum’ or even the ‘Greek’, ‘oinos’ from the Greek god of wine, Dionysus.
Sometime in 2007 a group of ‘retirees’ of different international backgrounds, got together and formed the ‘wine-tasting’ group. Its purpose was to sample wines locally; to reach out to Europe and finally to sample wines world-wide; to get together once each month; for participants to volunteer to become ‘hosts’ with a small financial token offered to help out with the provision of the wine. Wives were also encouraged to ‘sortie’ together, dine in style and drive us safely home! Timing was adopted to begin the evening at 7pm and usually end around 9.30pm.
Our first organizer was David Knewstubb, and Rudi Pluss was and still is an active member along with Brian Allardyce.
As the group became popular, wine evenings were held each month of the year. A limit of 6 bottles randomly labeled A – F was to be sampled; 6 wine glasses were needed and a maximum of 8 persons could participate.
An interesting anecdote to the history of our winers; somewhere, somehow, sometime a tradition became part of our history. Hamish McCombie must have been frustrated one day as host,
and decided to cover the labels of each bottle. To this end he cut up 6 beige socks and used them as such……..they are now part of our heritage and their use is ‘obligatory’ at each of our sessions!
Another tradition has been that we sample only red wines, but as the regions are so diverse and traverse the boundaries of the world this has not been a problem. However, one evening our host covered the labels and asked us to guess any one of the six reds on display…….of course they were all the same and only one member managed to recognize this !
An evening might be as follows:
| Wine Label | Country | Vintage | Grape | Alcohol Content | Price |
| Septima | Argentina | 2019 | Malbec | 14% | 13.95 |
| Jacob’s Creek | Australia | 2019 | Shiraz Cab. | 14% | 9.95 |
| Casi Del Diablo | Chile | 2018 | Cab. Sauv. | 13.5% | 12.95 |
| Kadette | South Africa | 2019 | Pinotag | 13% | 10.45 |
| Kangaroo Ridge | SE Australia | 2020 | Shiraz Cab. | 14% | 8.95 |
| Kleine Zalze | South Africa | 2018 | Pinotag | 14.2% | 14.9 |