Wine Appreciation 101 with Linley Shultz

from the Food & Wine notes of Renzie Baluyut.

“This place is very innovative,” says Linley Shultz, admiring the interiors of Cav. “What they’ve done with the wine bar is very innovative. I think it’s very good with breaking down barriers. Somebody can take a very small amount of wine and they’ll be confident to order a glass or a bottle. I think that’s fantastic innovation. The interior is quite contemporary. The menu looks wonderful. The wine cellar is beautiful, very elaborate and with lots of very good value for money as well as the most expensive hard to find wine.”

As some of you already know, I've just attended a wine-tasting lunch event at Cav (at the Bonifacio High Street), hosted by our good friends from Future Trade International. Our special guest for the afternoon was Linley Shultz, internationally-renowned winemaker, and general manager of Distell, Africa's leading producer and marketer of fine wines, spirits, ciders, and ready-to-drinks (RTDs).

And no, I didn't have Africa at the top of my list when wine comes to mind.

South Africa, actually. Turns out that some of the better New World wines come from Cape Town in South Africa. “The cold breeze flowing up fom the Antarctic and the Atlantic Ocean help cool down the whole of cape," Shultz explains. "This unique climate is what gives South Africa a much better quality grapes than you might expect from a lot of latitude vineyards. And climate is very important. Cooler climate tends to produce more delicate, more aromatic grapes.”

Shultz brought with him seven different South African wines for us to try out that afternoon: the Fleur Du Cap Chardonnay and the Fleur Du Cap Merlot Unfiltered, the Nederburg Pinotage, the Nederburg Sauvignon Blanc, and the Nederburg Special Late Harvest, and finally, the Two Oceans Semillon Chardonnay, and the Two Oceans Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot.

Naturally, we helped ourselves to those fine wines, swishing them about and comparing how each one tastes, and actually putting words to our wine-drinking experience. Much of that note-taking and experimenting continued well into lunch, as the good people of Cav have prepared for us an exquisite four-course meal, which was carefully put together for us to appreciate with our wines.

Schultz had even gone as far as suggesting that you don’t always need to pair your reds with your meats. Indeed, half the fun of wine-tasting is discovering which foods go well with your Chardonnay, or with your Merlot. And yes, as it turns out, there actually is a difference.

"And it's not always about price too", as Stewart Dovey of Future Trade International was quick to point out. He explains that wine is a very personal thing. An expensive bottle worth Php200,000 might taste like piss to one person, who might actually praise a Php175 bottle as the best wine he's ever tasted.

Which is what a place like Cav is all about: you don't need to get an entire bottle for yourself right away. At Cav, you can get a modest sampling portion, just to see if it goes well with your individual taste. Then you can go ahead get more of that wine, or go ahead and sample several others from their innovative wine dispenser (that runs on specially-designed prepaid cards).

Overall, it was a memorable afternoon, very much deserving of praise and appreciation. Special thanks to our hosts for the afternoon: Stewart Dovey, Eric Kahn and Sally Co of Future Trade International. Much thanks to Jeremy Cheah and Linley Shultz of Distell, and Chef Markus Gfeller, and the staff of Cav.

Also gotta thank Maripet L. Poso, whose article on The Daily Tribune has helped me fill the gaps in my own notes.

Cav is located at the Bonifacio High Street, right across Mag:Net Cafe. Not only is it a great place to try all kinds of wine and immerse yourself in wine culture, it's also one of the better restaurants in town, with excellent food, and a comfortable ambience perfect for hanging out with old buddies, or for making new friends.

For the wines we had that afternoon with Linley Schultz, you can go right ahead and get yourselves some wines from the Two Oceans, Nederburg and Fleur du Cap labels from Future Trade International. FTI has a wide range of wines that can sell as low as P175 per bottle to as much as P17,500 per bottle. You may call them up at (+632) 671.8694 or 671.8434, or you can check out their website for more information.

Cheers, everyone!