Meerlust Rubicon 30th Anniversary Luncheon
A couple of weeks ago I received an email informing me that I had cracked the nod to a luncheon celebrating 30 years of Meerlust Rubicon. As you should know by now, I’m quite the Meerlust fan and enjoy their Pinot Noir regularly with a good braai.
Nestled tightly between the Diamond Centre & highway
But this was something different. Something I’ve never had the privilege of attending in the past. The problem though was that I thought I would be surround by glass-swirling-sniffing connoisseurs with their noses in the air as they spoke in some secret society lingo while I just downed the good ol’ sweet nectar for pleasure apposed to science. But I was taken by surprise, especially when I spotted a fellow Mo Bro and started chatting to a couple of people from Pick ‘n Pay, the media, Makro and the legendary Solly Kramer (the man himself).
The event was pretty simple and laid back. We basically sat at a long table setup in one of the galleries, each with a range of Rubicon wines and a notepad.
A range of Rubicon from 1980 - sip and comment!
Chris Williams, the winemaker and all round nice guy, then took us on a blind journey through each of the different glasses in front of us. He spoke about acidity, humidity, weather, age, viruses, tobacco, smokiness and of course alcohol levels – a real education!
Spotted another Mo Bro on good form! Go Jeff!
My personal fascination was the fact that each Rubicon tasted completely different, but all of them had a very distinct spicy undertone – you can even taste it in contrasting cups that are 30 years apart…
Rubicon Showdown: 1980 vs 2010
Do you see how the older wine on the left has a brown tinge to it, while the younger wine from 2010 is rich in colour - still fresh!
The remains of the sweet nectar
After we tasted all the wines, we were treated to an excellent lunch. Pure coincidence that they made my favorite meal:
Lunch with a little Chardonnay will you
As someone from “outside the industry” I stimulated several great conversations about wine marketing, the new generation of wine drinkers and how wine makers plan to take on the growing beer, spirit & champagne producers (if they plan to at all).
Neil Pendock, one of the countries leading independent drinks commentators summed it up on his blog post here with the following quote from Solly Kramer:
“SA wine must catch a wake-up and move their marketing departments to Jo’burg. Look at this bottle of Meerlust Pinot Noir 2009. The wine is great but the label is 1920s. When they launched Rubicon in the early 1980s, their black label was out of the box. Now Chocolate Box makes all the running – pure marketing sells wine.”
In between I had to get a pic with the Meerlust men…
Hannes Myburgh, Eddie Turner, Chris Williams & yours truly
I had a great time with great people at a great venue – but the stars of the day had to be the bottles of Meerlust Rubicon from 1980 (the year I was born in too BTW), truly legendary stuff!
Star of the day: Meerlust Rubicon turns 30!
Visit Meerlust and compliment your next bottle of wine with a mouthwatering rosemary balsamic steak marinade!
