The Parlotones Wine

Palate Cleansers and Parlotones

Posted on 28 Sep, 2009 in Latest, News

Neil Pendock: Giant Mistake a smart blend that hits the right coffee and mocha notes.

Jabulani Facude

With electrons travelling at 300000km/sec, it’s becoming harder and harder for dead-tree media to deliver scoops.

When Kahn Morbee, frontman of indie rock band the Parlotones, was filming a video for the band’s new wine in the Wellington vineyards of Jannie Bosman, his Twitter unleashed an avalanche of fans jamming the Woolies switchboard. As Jabulani Facude, Woolies’ wine category manager recalls: “We hadn’t nailed down all the details of the deal yet, so we had to deny everything.”

With the deal put to bed and wine in the bottle, Travel & Food was offered the media scoop, so I started off with the Parlotones’ Wikipedia entry, to discover “the band is due to release their very own wine. Named after their number 1 hit single ‘Giant Mistake’ it will be available in September 09.” No scoop, but at least I got to taste it along with the team that put it together: Woolies’ wine consultant Allan Mullins and winemaker (and Kris Kristofferson look-alike) Pieter Walser from BLANKbottle, a value-for-money négociant tracking down bargains when not surfing at Pringle Bay.

According to the Platter sighted wine guide, Mullins is the best winemaker in SA as his Woolies blends account for 10% of the guide’s five-star stunners for 2011. After tasting Giant Mistake 2008, it’s hard to disagree. For this blend is consummately commercial (”smart” in winespeak) and with popular coffee and mocha notes, will appeal to the Parlotones fan club. The wine is rich, with generous soft tannins and an edge from the 11% Cabernet Franc component which hails from the Simonsberg in Stellenbosch. As does the 23% Shiraz.

Pieter Walser

A four-way blend (just like the band), Cabernet Sauvignon (54%) and Pinotage (12%) hails from Bosman’s Bovlei vineyards where Corlea Fourie is winemaker. Husband Bertus invented coffee Pinotage at Diemersfontein, a recipe he took over to KWV in Paarl with Café Culture, today a 1.5-million litre behemoth. His latest Starbucks sally is called Barista, made at the Val de Vie golf, polo and wine estate for plutocrats in Paarl.

Fourie is more of a Killers fan and will have the US band performing at his winery in December. Although with Killers front man Brandon Flowers a teetotal Mormon, perhaps Giant Mistake would be a more appropriate brand name for his Barista brand than the Parlotones, who look like they know how to party.

Allan Mullins

Priced at R79 a bottle, it was cheaper than any starter on the blackboard at La Colombe restaurant on Constantia Uitsig, the venue chosen for a sneak preview of the Giant Mistake. Mullins started with the kudu tartar but was stumped by the choice of palate cleanser: lemon and celery or orange and Cointreau, as he was worried about clashing with Mistake’s vibrant fruit.

I assumed palate cleansers were complimentary (they’re not and are billed at R30 a pop) in spite of being told PCs are not PC by Michelin three-star chef Johnnie Boer at dinner at Rustenberg in June. “In Europe we stopped serving palate cleansers years ago as the flavours f-up your palate” (well he is Dutch). Another Giant Mistake at a wonderful lunch.

Originally posted at The Times.