“The Italians have made husk spirit – their grappa – an almost indispensable part of enjoying a good cup of coffee,” says Pieter Cronje, uniWines Vineyards marketing manager. “And with coffee being one of the leading product categories with Fairtrade accreditation, this Fairtrade husk spirit complements the range and the experience offered to consumers.”

Fairtrade is an international organisation certifying agricultural products from developing countries produced in line with the strict social and environmental Fairtrade standards. Annual audits ensure that the employees benefit from the sales thereof as well as ensuring that the workers live and work in safe, hygienic and humane conditions. Locally, Fairtrade products include wine, coffee, chocolate, tea and cotton.

uniWines Vineyards’s Palesa Fairtrade Husk Spirit is produced from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grown on one of its producer-farms in the Breedekloof. After the pressing the grapes, the skins were distilled in a copper pot-still. The distillate was bottled at 43% alcohol. No barrel-aging was done so as to ensure the pure fruit flavour of the distilled product.

Cronje says that husk spirit is gaining in popularity in South Africa. “It can be enjoyed with coffee and even added to the coffee, as is the Italian custom,” he says. “Served chilled, it is also an excellent digestif after a good meal.”

Arianna Baldo, business manager from Fairtrade South Africa, says that new products to the Fairtrade offering are to be welcomed. “In today’s rapidly changing consumer culture a category such as Fairtrade needs new products to underscore the fact that Fairtrade is dynamic and ever-evolving,” she says. “A new innovation, such as a Fairtrade-certified husk spirit, underscores the value our members see in Fairtrade and this helps our organisation to stake our claim in the competitive marketplace.

“And of course, being Italian, I love the concept of Fairtrade Grappa – whoops – husk spirit.”

The Palesa Husk Spirit is available from the uniWines Vineyards Daschbosch winery at R150.

(Article published on Media Vision News)

Thanks to a cold, wet winter, the vineyards are in very good condition. “The cold portions during winter – where temperatures regularly approached freezing – caused the vine cycle to be later than the previous year,” says Gert. “The early vines started blossoming about a week later than last year, but despite rain and cold in October, the vineyard flowered at the expected time.”

According to him, timing matters less than evenness. “So far, bud-break and flowering were exceptionally even, which is very important for a high production area such as ours because it facilitates the management of the vineyard and work schedule, and leads to even ripening,” Gert explains.

The hard work now lies in the suckering and canopy management, elements that are very important to Gert considering he holds a steadfast belief that the key to good quality wine lies in sufficient exposure to light of the vineyard canopy. In other words, the foliage should not be too dense and dark!

“Through suckering we remove the superfluous shoots that do not carry grapes and we retain the right amount of strong shoots that will receive enough sunlight to ripen grapes effectively and quickly,” says Gert. “And it now begins to get hot in our valley – when the berries form, it should be under the right conditions so that they can grow accustomed to the heat.”

As is becoming of a viticulturist, Gert is not easily given to voicing predictions about the coming year’s harvest. As he and uniWines Vineyards farmers know, nature doesn’t simply let itself be dictated to. “Initially things were late to get underway, but it does appear as if next year’s harvest will begin at its usual time at the end of January.”

However, just like cricket, anything can happen in the vineyard…

If you want to know a bit more about this, please visit these sites:
http://www.wine.co.za/news/news.aspx?NEWSID=21063&Source=News
http://www.grape.co.za/users/open_space/blog/2012-08-19-young_wine_huge_cup.html

http://www.fairlady.com/hot-stories/a-list/the-launch-of-estee-lauders-wood-mystique-fragrance

http://www.fairlady.com/hot-stories/a-list/estee-lauder-s-first-ever-unisex-fragrance-launch

Palesa Merlot

But try one with a spicy chicken curry, such as the lightly sparkling Palesa Fairtrade Moscato with its fresh grapiness and moreish 7.5% ABV (around R30), and you might start to understand why “Moscato Madness” has hit the US, where sales have grown by 80% over the past 12 months. Dessert wines are in a different league; so richly sugary that they gloop rather than pour out of their petite bottles, yet so finely balanced by acidity that they avoid being cloying.

The problem with dessert wines is that most of us feel guilty about eating dessert in the first place. The solution? Don`t wait until the end of the meal. Astonishingly  good matches with sweet wines include savory patés, strong cheese, cured meats and creamy chicken or fish dishes -

Joanne Gibson (Sunday Times, 22 July 2012)

- Artikel het in Die Burger verskyn.

Where did we get the name from then? Years ago, before uniWines Vineyards were formed, our former winemaker had to do a wine tasting with a wine club who traveled quite a few kilometers to get to us. He decided to give them a special experience because they travelled so far.

They arrived early on a Monday morning, and awaiting at the cellar was their vehicle for the day – a tractor with a wagon. After they were all loaded up, the driver raced of with the speed of light (it`s a tractor but it went pretty fast). He almost lost his load of passengers and after everyone got into their seats again, they continued the journey to the house in the vineyards. When they arrived there, a huge puff adder (‘pofadder’) sailed past the front door. They removed the snake and got the members of the wine club safely inside. When the winemaker welcomed them to the food and wine pairing, one clever old gentleman said, “no, it`s more like welcome to the fear factor tasting”. We kept the name and through the years we changed the food and the whole experience. Since beginning of 2012 we decided to put the (safe) ‘fear’ back in FEAR FACTOR. We already had 4 groups since the 14th of January.The biggest group had 45 members!

We soon realised that this experience is a great type of team building and also fun for the whole family. We can easily accommodate those who chooses not to taste wine. I must however warn you; those with claustrophobia, very bad back problems or other serious injuries of illnesses, might not be able to do the fear factor wine tasting. Just to make it clear, we ditched the tractor and the snakes, but we got a whole range of new, exciting and scary experiences.

If you want to join in the fun, phone Maritsa or Cheran and make a booking. The phone number is (+27) 023 3491110. The cost involved is only R15 per person. If you want to have a little bit more to eat afterwards (team building groups prefers this), we can arrange some catering at an extra cost per person.

Go on, be brave and just go for it! We`re waiting for you! Check out some of the recent FEAR FACTOR wine tastings on our facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/pages/UniWines/202576206480968

SEE YOU SOON!!

But every now and then you stumble upon a jewel, the one that jumps out and surprises you! That was the case with Burma… or Myanmar. Call it what you like, the fact is that it was amazing in so many ways. We decided to spend a week in Myanmar. The fact that there were not a lot of people around to ask information about Myanmar as well as the lengthy visa process, should have been a sign of things to come… fascinating, unexpected! What would you expect from a country that deviates half hours from normal time zones (6:30 GMT – one of 7 countries that uses half hours)?

So we were told to bring $$$ as banking is problematic. Not uncommon advice for travels to 3^rd world, developing countries. Big difference is – there are NO, zero, nada ATMs in the country! The banking system is non-existent. It is impossible to imagine, I know.

Burma or Myanmar for dummies

It is the 2^nd largest country in South East Asia and the least developed as well. It is rich in culture and has some of the oldest civilizations in South East Asia. The government recognizes 135 ethnic groups, so it is a hugely diverse country. It received its independence in 1948, but from1962 – 2011 it saw military rule, which had a devastating effect on the economy with wide spread human rights concerns. Aung San Suu Kyi (Noble peace prize winner) won the 1989 elections, but was not endorsed by the military junta and she has been in house arrest 15 years out of the last 21 years. Myanmar has seen drastic changes in the last year with democratic rule (still to be tested). There seems to be positive signs for the Burmese people on the horizon, so let’s holds thumbs.

Exploring

So we arrived at Yangon International Airport not knowing what to expect. It has been a while since I’ve travelled so unprepared for what lay ahead, but that’s what makes the journey so much more interesting. Steve Jobs said, “travel often, getting lost will help you find yourself”. It is especially true for a country like Myanmar.

We only had half a day to explore, almost old colonial city feel Yangon, as we were keen to experience the annual Taunggyi hot air balloon festival which is in a different province up country. Yangon’s energy is due to the markets and mix of Asians, Indians and everyone in between. We were fortunate to be in town for the most special day on the Buddhist calendar, November full moon, and thousands of people visited the most sacred temple the Shwedagon Pagoda. An awesome sight and just the sheer size of it is overwhelming.

From Yangon we travelled by propeller plane (mini & a little scary) to Heho in the Shan Province. We spent our next 3 days just outside the town of Taunggyi on a wine farm(1^st and one of two in the whole country). The area is famous for Inle Lake, Shan culture, and the various sustainable villages and people that make a living on and from the lake. It was fascinating to experience the floating islands where tomatoes, beans and various other vegetables are cultivated; one-leg rowing fisherman pass you by; villagers living in small communities in stilted houses, travelling by longboat to daily rotating markets to sell goods; and a monastery where the monks have trained the cats to jump through hoops.

The annual hot air balloon festival in Taunggyi can only be described as mad and chaotic! On this occasion people enjoy fun and merriment through firework-launching competitions, eating, drinking (lots), gambling (even the monks), etc. There are also hot air balloon competitions during the day and night. Day balloons are usually in the form of Pagodas (temples), and animals such as elephants, dragons or ducks. The night balloons are either candle balloons (huge elongated paper balls with small lighted multicoloured paper lanterns hung around their sides) or fireworks balloons (looks like traditional hot air balloons, but instead of a basket at the bottom there is a container that holds all the fireworks). This event will definitely not pass any health and safety inspection in SA!!!! Thousands of people scatter when fireworks go astray or a balloon struggles for lift-off and the fireworks have already been set alight. For outsiders like us, it was awesome and definitely a highlight to experience something so cultural and not knowing whether it will be around for much longer.

Our next stop was Bagan, the capital of Buddhist temples and Pagodas. There are 2 200+ temples scattered across a beautiful plain within a 40km² area. An earthquake in 1975 destroyed a lot of the temples which once had more than 5,000 temples during the political height. Most of them date back to 11^th - 13^th century. We wondered through the valley on bicycles and the majority of temples and places we had to ourselves. We felt a bit like Indiana Jones at times. Upon arrival in Bagan our taxi driver told us that we were fortunately as our accommodation was opposite a temple, which has festivities on for the month. We didn’t have the same take as the taxi driver on being fortunate… How we hated it as the monks praying over a megaphone, howled all through the night… all good fun and memories to take with you.

Asia has all the colours, flavours, personalities that you can dream of. It is certainly not a drive-by destination and the more time you spend the more there is to learn. It reminds me of my travels through the African continent – simple people with big hearts and lots of stories and experiences to tell.

Like someone once said. You (the West) created the watch, we have time……

A – The A-Team with BA, Murdock and the rest came to mind first, but if one look around to the people sitting next to you, your colleagues and yourself, this is the uniWines A-Team now.

B – represents “Bottles and Branding”.  With almost 1300 tons of bottles (glass), uniWines packed his wine and send it all over the globe.

C – stands for “Class”, because when uniWines do something, they do it with “class”, just look at all the new labels and trophies.

F – stands for Family, during 2011 two of our colleagues became parents for the first time.  The latest one was born, Monday 5 December. The “family” of uniWines is growing!!

I – stands for Innovation. Imagine a “valley just a little left of centre” with a brand called: ankerman, with a tug of war team on the label – this is innovation and this is one of uniWines newest brands.

J – stands for Jobs (meaning Steve Jobs).  He was a man with vision, someone that uniWines learned a lot from this year.  He said: Life is to short, so don’t waste it; while living someone else’s life!!!

M – stands for Moscato, if you haven’t tried it yet, you are for sure poorer.

O – meaning  One.  One is to small a number to achieve greatness.  uniWines are a team and there are no ‘i’ in team.

Q – meaning Quit (never).  This word is not part of our vocabulary, if the going gets tuff the tuff “DOES NOT” get going.

U – stands for uniWines. In this year our corporate branding under went a change in look and feel.  We were proud to incorporate the crest of Sir William Rawson (founder of Rawsonville) into our new look.

W – meaning Winners.  Our winemaking team made us proud this year with all the trophies they brought back home from the Young wine competition.

X – meaning X-factor. Earlier this year Emmanuel Kelly took part in X Factor – Australia. Emmanuel told his story were he and his brother were found as babies in a shoebox by a nurse, today his mom, during the war in Iraq. After listing to his story you start feeling sorry for the guy, then he sang Imagine and the tears just ran.  Just another reason why we can never give up, does not matter our situation.

 Z – stands for Zzzzzzz – the sleeping giant. When Ferdinand thinks of uniWines he sees an iceberg in the sea.  You are only privilege to see a small bit, but the biggest part is still hidden.  The uniWines known today is only the beginning; watch this space because the BEST is still to come……..”You ain’t see nothing yet!!”

SUMMER IS HERE – ENJOY IT!!