Leopard's Leap Wines

Increased Chinese market present at Vinexpo

A chateau in Bordeaux. Image by Charl Young via Compfight

At the 2011 Vinexpo, the large annual trade fair held in Bordeaux, 1 in 3 of foreign visitors were Chinese. According to The Winespectator: '...the trade fair is often perceived as a predominantly French event, (but) its organizers and its host region have been trying out some different accents to stay fresh and relevant in the global marketplace.'

While the largest number of visitors came from France as usual, China ranked second. “The attendance from China doubled compared to 2009,” said Vinexpo chairman Xavier de Eizaguirre. “We expected that to a certain extent, but we were still quite surprised by the size of the delegation.” 

The expo catered to this new market by hosting several seminars targeted at Chinese wine buyers, including one on pairing Sichuan cuisine with different vintages of sweet French wines.

At the lavish closing dinner, held at Château Lascombes in Margaux, Chinese Terracotta Army-style statues flanked the dining pavilions, the menu was written in French, English and Chinese, and the classic red Bordeaux pairing of lamb was accented with a nori crust.

Mid-market wines the future for Chinese consumers

Image by Thomas Hawk via Compfight.

A leading importer has said that Chinese consumers will move away from 'image hunting' expensive wines and buy more mid-range wine from the New World, Decanter reports.

Ian Ford of Shanghai-based company Summergate says that in five years' time wines like Conca y Toro's Casillero del Diablo will be top sellers.

‘The professional middle classes are constantly expanding their knowledge. They are going to start buying wines they enjoy to drink and that are produced in quantities that can sustain that level of export.’

According to figures from International Wine and Spirit Research (IWSR) released in January this year, consumption of wine by China and Hong Kong increased by over 100% between 2005 and 2009, from 46.9m to 95.9m cases.

SA writing celebrated at Sunday Times Literary awards

 

Two authors were honoured in both the fiction and non-fiction categories at the prestigious Sunday Times Literary awards, held in Johannesburg. As a proud supporter of South African literature, Leopard’s Leap is pleased that two publishers whose events and launches they regularly sponsor, namely Jacana and Kwêla, were responsible for publishing the winning books.

Former minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils was honoured with the Alan Paton Award for his memoir The Unlikely Secret Agent (published by Jacana). The book is based on the life of his late wife, anti-apartheid activist Eleanor Kasrils.

The fiction prize was awarded to Kwazulu-Natal native Sifiso Mzobe for Young Blood (published by Kwêla). Set in Umlazi, Kwazulu-Natal, the novel centers around a youth caught up in the underworld of car theft and hijacking.

“I am sure it must have been an extremely challenging task for both judging panels to select a winner for each award,” says Tymon Smith, books editor of the Sunday Times. “To select two winners seem so unfair, as each writer has made an important contribution to the South African literary landscape.”

Leopard’s Leap is excited by the new South African voices and stories these publishers champion, and will continue to be a frequent sponsor and supporter of local literature.

 

 

The chemistry behind researching wine health benefits

A recent article in Chemistry World discusses the latest scientific advancements of studying resveratrol and other compounds found in red wine that are believed to have health properties. But although much time has been spent studying resveratrol (found in the skin of grapes), not much research has been conducted on resveratrol's oligomers (a molecule with few units). The reason for this is the cost and time involved in processing hundreds of kilograms of dried plant material that often yields only a few milligrams of a single product.

Now, Scott Snyder, Andreas Gollner and Maria Chiriac at Columbia University in New York have shown how a variety of resveratrol oligomers can be selectively produced, some in quantity, which will enable a much more focused and systematic study of their potential as medicines.

Sharon Rossiter, a medicinal chemist at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, says that the Snyder group's approach 'has enormous potential both for the synthesis of other complex architectures and for evaluation of these exciting natural products in drug discovery'.

 

Site Visit

We are hard at work completing Leopard's Leap's new home in Franschhoek.

Above is a picture of the Leopard's Leap team, including owner Hanneli Rupert-Koegelenberg, CEO Hein Koegelenberg, associate architects Riaan Steenkamp and Jani Truter from Makeka Design Lab and interior designer Christo Barnard visiting the site. Leopard's Leap Vineyards will open in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Speaking out at the Afrikaans Festival in Amsterdam

Image: www.stellenboschwriters.com

As is widely known, Leopard’s Leap Wines is a staunch supporter of literature in South Africa. At the recent Afrikaans festival in Holland, the Afrikaanse Skrywersunie (Afrikaans Writers Union) called on international writers to voice their opposition to the South African government’s proposed Protection of Information Bill.

Speaking from the stage at the festival, prominent Afrikaans writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach (pictured above) said for the first time since Apartheid, South African writers are being threatened by state censorship.

Currently legislation is being proposed that would control media and publishing content, and this legislation will have far-reaching effects for writers criticising South African politics or politicians, he said.

The Afrikaanse Skrywersunie - which is made up of emanate Afrikaans writers, publishers and academics - would endeavour to raise awareness about and speak out against the “draconian legislation”, Breytenbach said.

In addition to calling on support from international writers, the Afrikaanse Skrywersunie would mobilize local Afrikaans writers to publicly speak out against censorship.

 

Wine climate conference discuss new plans for change

The Wineries for Climate Protection Conference in Barcelona last Friday was attended by over 400 delegates, mainly from Spain. More than 20 scientists, climate change experts, viticulturalists and politicians from around the world gave an impassioned plea to the wine world last week – follow our example and save the world. Speakers included the former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos, now the UN Special Envoy on climate change, and some of the most senior figures in the wine world.

Detailed assessments of their environmental strategies were discussed. These ranged from new packaging technology - in Champagne 37% of the carbon footprint comes from packaging, Gouez said – to pyrolysis, breaking down organic materials without oxygen, to the extensive use of geothermics, harnessing energy from depths of 100-400m to both heat and cool wineries.

Gioia Small of Penfolds said it was certain that climate change played a part in ‘vintage time and compression’.

Shipping wines in kegs instead of bottles

Some U.S. wine producers are taking a tip from their European cousins and are shipping restaurants and bars wine in kegs, instead of bottles. For consumers it should mean better wines at cheaper prices. Winemakers in the Napa Valley in California now use  19-liter, stainless steel kegs to serve wines at tasting rooms and to ship them to restaurants.

To push the wine from the keg, both producers use a blend of nitrogen with “just a scoosh” of carbon dioxide, the so-called Guinness blend. “All CO2 would make it get too fizzy. This way the wine is kept at an equilibrium,” said one winemaker, adding that the kegs are reusable.

Jean-Charles Boisset, whose family owns vineyards in both France and California, is using a traditional container, French oak wine barrels, to ship wine directly to consumers as well as restaurants from both his DeLoach and Raymond Vineyards.

The barrels contain a plastic bladder, much like box wines, that can hold up to 10-liters or nearly 70 glasses of either Pinot Noir or Cabernet Sauvignon.

Whether keg or barrel, the larger formats eliminate the risk of a corked bottle, protect against oxidation and reduce both packaging and the carbon footprint, according to the wine producers.

Heavy lifting for Canadian wine bottle weight limit

Canadian province Ontario is leading the move toward lightweight bottling by setting a maximum weight on the wines it approves, an article on www.decanter.com says. The state-controlled Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) has said it will not stock any wines packaged in a bottle weighing more than 420g from 1 January 2013.

The board said, 'Given the environmental impact associated with producing, shipping and recycling glass, we’d ideally like to see all of our containers come down in weight. While we do not anticipate the development of a standard maximum weight for CAN$15 or over wines at this time, favourable consideration will be given to product offers that are lower in weight'.

With more South African wineries becoming eco-concious of their bottles and packaging, and the success of local products like Backsberg's PET-bottles, lighter bottles across most brands cannot be far off.

 

Climate change not responsible for rising alcohol levels, study says

According to a recent article on www.decanter.com, a report from the American Association of Wine Economists, analysed climate data from1992-2009 and found that the heat index in most wine-making countries grew less than the rise in alcohol, and could not be attributed as the major factor driving the steady increase.

The heat index was created by averaging the daily high and low temperatures over the relevant growing season in the various countries sampled. The research indicates, the authors say, that the average alcohol content in wine has increased by 1.12% over 18 years, from a mean of 12.7%.’ This, they say, is considerably higher than would be expected when set against the heat index, which predicts an average rise of 0.05% in alcohol per year. ‘It would take a whopping 20 degree Fahrenheit (6.67 Celsius) increase in the average temperature in the growing season to account for a 1 percentage point increase in the average alcohol content of wine.

Other factors that could have influenced the rising levels have been cited, including changing consumer and market preferences.