Blog

Well, sometimes a picture tells a thousand words… this one was courtesy of one of our esteemed Guests, Harry Haddon, who also posted some AWESOME notes and observations on his blog here. Check them out! Our lovely Guests convened on the lawns of... 

January was supposed to be the month to travel through the winelands, visiting Estates, enjoying long lunches, due to the usually slow nature of the month. Well, this was not to be as the whole of South Africa seems to suddenly want to drink wine! Luckily... 

Under the Influence had the pleasure of hosting a Pinot Noir exploration yesterday evening at the Roundhouse tasting room. A selection of Cape Town’s beautiful people arrived to assist in this deconstructing of Pinot Noir. Now Pinot Noir is certainly... 

An interesting article cropped up in the Wall Street Journal, entitled “The Bogus Business if Wine Ratings“. Tis the season for wine guides such as the Platter Guide and newly released Peoples Guide to hit the shelves as the ideal Christmas... 

James (the distinguished gent with a ‘tache) takes us through the Marco Paulo evening: The Derivco wine tasting evening took place at Marco Paulo.  There was a good response from the wine tasters of Derivco and we ended up with a record 38 people... 

We had the pleasure of hosting an event for Investec in Pietermaritzburg and conducted an Under the Influence of Flavour wine experience. This was a journey of flavour, from unwooded white wines, to wooded white wines, light red wines, medium bodied red... 

We had the real pleasure of hosting an Italian food and wine evening at Marco Paulo restaurant in Durban yesterday. The number of Guests swiftly rose from the 30 from the Derivco team and settled on around 80 hungry and thirsty Durbanites. The first thing... 

Under the Influence had the privilege of talking a little bit about First Growths and taste some with with John Fraser and the Friday Forum on Classic FM. Allister Kreft spoke passionately about the First Growth wine Estates and the wine in general and... 

Our friends over at www.thecru.co.za “dove tailed” the expensive wine list and put together their own list of top 10 most expensive cognacs in the world. Cognac is essentially brandy from the Cognac region in France, so think of these as Klipdrift...