Last Tue eve I joined the WineGems wine tasting club at &Union once again for an evening of wine, wine and more wine.

This time we got to taste 6 wines which are either specially made for or only exclusively sold at &Union.  Which makes them pretty damn special really.  They are only available in limited numbers and another awesome thing is that they’re all priced under R100.

These exclusive wines can be bought directly from &Union either to have there or to take home.  To identify these wines always look out for the “happy smile” sticker on the bottle (cause that’s what you’ll be doing as you’re enjoying these babies):

Aaaah, it makes me feel all warm & fuzzy inside…

First we tasted a 75% Roussanne & 25% Chenin white blend by wine maker Adi Badenhorst with a very interesting name:  Papegaai!  Papegaai is Afrikaans for “parrot” and not “frog” like my friend Dani thought even though there’s a huge bloody parrot on the label.  Nice one Dani.

The interesting thing about this wine is that it is aged in cement eggs – no wooden barrels in sight.  You’d think that it would mean it tastes a little weird.  But in fact, it’s absolutely beautiful.

We then moved on to some fiesty reds:

From left to right we have:

• Tamboerskloof 2008:  A 88% Syrah & 12% Mourvedre blend.  Which in SA means you can label it 100% Syrah. 
• Jemma 2008 by Painted Wolf Wines:  A Shiraz, Pinotage, Merlot, Mourvedre & Grenache blend.  The really awesome thing is that profit made from the sale of these wines go to the conservation of the African Wild Dog.  I just love drinking for a good cause.
• Shazam! by Adam Mason: A blend of Shiraz, Pinotage & Cinsaut (actually pronounced “sin-so” – a wine variety which got a bit of a bad rep becuase it was being used for dooswyn, but is actually really tasty).

Then the two last reds we tried were:

• Eagle’s Nest 2005 Merlot:  From the smallest wine farm in Constantia sitting on the steepest slopes in SA.  This one was my favourite by far.
• Newton Jonhson 2010 Trident: A blend of Grenache, Mourvedre & Syrah from the Hemel-en-Aarde region.

I ended up getting 2 bottles of the Papegaai, 2 bottles of the Eagle’s Nest Merlot, 1 bottle of the Jemma and 1 bottle of the Shazam.  It was only the Tamboerskloof & Newton Johnson which I opted to skip.  Not because they are not a great wines, purely because I felt they were still quite “young” and you’d have to leave them to age for a bit longer.   Wine does not age at my place, so that just doesn’t work OK.

You might be thinking – geeze, how do you still stand up straight after a tasting like this?  Well don’t forget, you can stay behind and get a food regmaker like this sausage awesomeness on a plate:

Boom!

To be part of these wine tasting evenings which take place every Tue & Thu at 6pm, simply RSVP to gemma@gabrielcollective.com to secure a spot.  It’s free!  And follow them on Twitter on @andUnionWine to keep up to date with what wines will be featured at upcoming sessions.

xxx