• Under the Influence Online Wine Videos are launched! Click here to view
• Under the Influence Joburg Wine experiences in April. Click here to view
• Our course material goes online! Click here to view
• Article and pictures from the Riesling festival. Click here to view
• The Trevor Manuel wine ensemble. Built with the recession in mind! See below.

We have placed ourselves in front of a reluctant crew of camera people and will now be presenting ongoing tastings, tutorials and interviews on our blog. Meet the Wine Bandits! These videos compliment our taste experiences and ensemble course topics, they are designed to be entertaining with a sip of wine knowledge. Any feedback will be welcome! Click through to our Videos section to have a dabble.

 
Under the Influence has the great pleasure of presenting two fantastic taste experiences in Joburg next week. One is our wine discovery mini-course, where we explore flavour and terroir of great wine in South Africa. The second is a component tasting of De Toren Fusion V! This tasting only happens twice a year at the farm, and now we are presenting the third. A rare opportunity to taste each blend component of the Fusion V. To attend please visit our Tastings page.

 
Every month we send out course material with our wine ensembles to give accessible and entertaining wine knowledge to compliment the wines. These are now open to all of you to enjoy and use. Click here to view

 
The Riesling Festival was a resounding success. Guests were chauffeur driven down in style by Lexus, treated to beautiful pairings with local and international Rieslings and then reclined on the lawns of the Roundhouse for a picnic dinner and MORE Riesling. Have a look at the pictures and article of the event on our Events page. We are looking forward to hosting many more events.

 
The Trevor Manuel Wine Ensemble is a way to stock up on a superb selection of South African wines, all from our top Estates. We know that you still want to enjoy great wine even with the crunch upon us, so will be packing some of our wine ensemble extras into mystery 6 pack cases, 3 red wines and 3 white, all good stuff, for R495, delivered to your door, in our wooden cases! So, if you need a boost, take a tip from Trevor, and get one of these ensembles now! Email info@undertheinfluence.co.za now.

 
We look forward to seeing you soon at one of our tasting events. Please keep an eye on your inbox for invitations to the Roundhouse and Johannesburg tastings. Have a superb day. If you want to be kept informed of further tastings, please email info@undertheinfluence.co.za or join our Facebook Group!

Right, since we are so besotted about this incredible grape and most people have never tasted it, it is time to uncover a little bit about Riesling in one of our Mini Courses. Have a dabble!

This is our latest course material to be sent out with our Mixed Wine Ensembles. Click Here to find out more!

The Wine Enthusiast Magazine unleashed an article on the Riesling Celebrations recently held in Cape Town. Angela Lloyd reports… Click here to view the full article.

Guests were welcomed by “ridiculously good looking” Lexus Chauffeurs and driven down in style in the GS range of vehicles. David Donde, pictured above, was keen for some back seat action on the day in his GS450.

Many thanks to Dylan and the Lexus team who did an incredible job getting the Guests down to the Roundhouse from Kloof Nek in style and comfort. As head parking attendant, I was pleased to report that the only hiccup I encountered was “cloudy weather” sunburn.

Upon arriving at the Roundhouse Guests were welcomed by a bevy of friendly and fantastic ladies… and our Austrian MC, Ferdinand. With Lexus glass in hand, complimented by a “hands free wine glass neck holder” (there is certainly a better name for that), Guests ambled down to the Under the Influence stand for their first taste of Riesling. The grape that keeps on giving!

No Rob, that is a Spatlese, not a Trocken Riesling.

It really hit home for me whilst doing some light reading after the festival. Hugh Johnson rates Riesling as the peak of evolution when it comes to white grapes. Their electricity and purity are unparalleled and so are their ability to speak of the place from which they are grown. In his Chapter on Riesling he starts off talking about Egon Muller, who coincidentally was pouring Riesling for Guests at his stand at the festival. Jorg Pfuztner did an incredible job of getting the likes of EGON MÜLLER, ERNST LOOSEN, PHILIP WITTMANN, HERMAN DÖNNHOFF, DIRK VAN DER NIEPOORT, WILL BRÜNDLMAYER, WERNER MAYER-NÄKEL,ROBERT WEIL REICHSGRAF VON KESSELSTATT to join the premiere South African Riesling producers.

Making your way from stand to stand you were inundated with beautiful international and South African Rieslings, all paired with canapes prepared by Harald Bresselschmidt of Aubergine, Bertus Basson of Overture, Peter Tempelhof of the Collection Group and PJ Vadas of the Roundhouse.

All of the dishes were designed to pair with the crisp Rieslings. We were witness to this day of preparation 2 weeks before where an extended tasting by the Chefs ended up with a raiding of the superb Raith butchery in the garden centre for “research purposes”. It was well worth it, have a look at some of the food creations here.

After the food and wine pairing exercise Guests literally spilled onto the lawns of the Roundhouse to enjoy a picnic and more incredible Rieslings. Ice buckets were filled with international wines and local greats like Jordan, Paul Cluver, Thelema, Klein Constantia, Hartenberg, Buitenverwachting and Jack and Knox.

Guests had the opportunity to recline and count the 12 Apostles as the Riesling flowed until the lawn was lit in a more romantic fashion.

Sitting on the top of the Roundhouse roof in the late evening was a great vantage point to see the Festival unfold below. South Africa has incredibly beautiful locations, warm weather, top Chefs and incredible wine. On this day the combination came together and we look forward to many more Under the Influence Wine Festivals ahead.