Lately we have discovered a store that makes a speciality out of obtaining end-of-run export wines -- wines originally destined for the foreign (mostly European) markets and up-market stores, but which doesn't make it there for one reason or another. They sell these off really cheaply, so we've been buying some really great red wines for under R20/bottle (around EUR2!) Tonight's little surprise -- Mountain Shadows 2005 Pinotage is a bit of a disappointment, but, at the price, who's complaining?
The label on the back of the bottle:
"Nestled in the shadows of the majestic mountains of the Cape, flourish some of the last and rarest of the botanical species Mimetes. Endemic to this region, the last bastions of this most beautiful and endangered species weather the timeless onslaught of nature and man. In the shadows of these same mountains, grow the vineyards,..."The fucking gall of these people! The vineyards are the precise bloody reason the fynbos is being wiped out! The Aghulas Plain -- last remaining bastion of all five types of Fynbos -- is rapidly being covered in vineyards, completely wiping out the richest and smallest floral kingdom in the world. Table Mountain, despite its being in the very heart of a major city, is home to more plant species than the entire island of Great Britain!
It's one thing if a wine-maker is shamelessly unapologetic about wiping out incredible areas of land, many of them the home to beautiful plants found nowhere else -- not even elsewhere in the Cape! -- well, there's an honesty to that, though of a pretty disagreeable sort. But to lament the loss of these plants, whilst simultaneously extolling the virtues of their vineyards... Words fail me!
I bought the bottle in ignorance. Please don't repeat my mistake. Its pretty crap wine anyway.
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