Ex Animo Wine Co.

A (very) quick update with regards to South Africa entering into prohibition 2.0. More soon...

Today on the podcast we have Michael Fridjhon. With his wine career now entering its sixth decade, Michael is one of the true doyens of the South African wine industry. His current interests are the Reciprocal Wine Company, an importer and retailer of fine wines; WineX, the biggest wine show in South Africa; the Old Mutual Trophy, one of the key wine competitions in South Africa; he writes on wine...

Today on the podcast we have Andrés Rosberg, President of the Association Sommelliere Internationale (ASI). The ASI runs many activities, the most notable being the Best Sommelier of the World contest – and all of the associated regional competitions. Andrés is from Argentina and a such is the first President of the ASI to come from the southern hemisphere. I first met Andrés in 2019 while he was...

Today on the podcast we have Maho Tamai of Société Raffiné, a Japanese-based wine importer, specialising in South Africa. Maho is based in Cape Town as Raffiné’s local representative and acts as a producer liaison. Japan has quickly become an important market for South African wine over the last few years and this is what I wanted to talk to him about. We discuss how the business first entered int...

Today on the podcast we have Master of Wine, Cathy van Zyl. Cathy is the Associate Editor Platter’s Wine Guide, the most comprehensive wine guide on South African wine, which is produced annually. We originally planned to have her husband Philip on this episode also, who is the Editor of Platter’s, but he was feeling ill. I will have him on at a later date. Cathy is an energetic cheerleader for th...

Today on the podcast we have Marc Kent, the Managing Partner and Technical Director of Boekenhoutskloof in Franschhoek. Boekenhoutskloof is one of the huge success stories of the new South Africa – it not only has the Boekenhoutskloof range, it also has Wolftrap, Porcupine Ridge, Porseleinberg and there is a new project in the Hemel-en-Aarde. I would think that virtually everyone interested in Sou...

Today on the podcast we have Dom Nocerino of Vinifera Imports, based in New York. A bit of a change of pace for the podcast today. Dom isn't professionally involved with South African wine, but he has been involved with wine his whole life as his family has been importing Italian wine into the US since the 1970s. As you will hear Dom is an articulate, knowledgeable wine lover – and can also grow a...

Today on the podcast we have Richard Kelley MW. Richard currently runs Dreyfus Ashby, an importer based in the UK specialising in South Africa and regional France, with a particular bias towards the Loire. After Richard earnt his Master of Wine, he spent many years in the South African wine industry in the mid and late nighties working for Vinimark. He returned to the UK in the 2000s and has conti...

Today on the podcast we have Eben Sadie of Sadie Family Wines, based in the Swartland. It is difficult to overstate how important Eben is to the modern reputation of South African wine. Put simply, he is among the most influential people in South African wine, ever. I wanted to talk to Eben about his journey in wine, from his days at Elsenberg, through the Spice Route experience and making those f...

Today on the podcast we have Callie Louw of Porseleinberg in the Swartland, a property owned by Boekenhoutskloof. I first met Callie in 2008 when he was still at Tulbagh Mountain Vineyards (now called Fable) and he was the first Afrikaans person who I met who swore as well as an Australian. If you are not familiar with Porseleinberg the wine, I suggest you pause this, find a bottle, drink it, and...

Today on the podcast we have Catherine Miles of The Sorting Table, a wine importer based in New York. Previous to starting with The Sorting Table, Cat spent 20 years with Broadbent Selections and in that time helped them expand their South African portfolio consisting of Warwick and Vilafonte to include such names as Alheit, Badenhorst, Beeslaar, Beaumont, Sadie, Savage, Storm and others. Cat has...

Today on the podcast we have an old friend of mine, Evan Milne of Stockonhand wines, based in Torquay, on the surf coast south-west of Melbourne in Victoria. He sells the South African wines we send to Australia alongside his much bigger business of wholesale for a number of high-quality boutique wine brands from Australia and New Zealand. Evan has an unbridled enthusiasm for food and wine. He is...

Today on the podcast we have Corlien Morris, owner and operator of Wine Menu, a boutique wine retailer in Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city. Corlien was originally from the Western Cape and worked in hospitality before moving into wine retail. She moved north to Johannesburg about 5 years ago. I wanted to chat to Corlien about the wine market in Gauteng and that carried us off in a few dif...

Today on the podcast we have Julien Schaal, winemaker and owner of Julien Schaal wines. He is based in Alsace and exclusively works with Grand Cru Rieslings there. He first visited South Africa in the early 2000s when he worked as a cellar hand for Bouchard Finlayson. During that time a friendship developed with Gordon Newton-Johnson and an opportunity to produce his own South African wine was pro...

Today on the podcast we have Bernhard Bredell, winemaker and owner of Scions of Sinai – he made the first wines from the 2016 vintage and is based in southern Stellenbosch. The Bredells have been in the shadow of the Helderberg making wine for seven generations, and their port-styled wines are legendary. Unfortunately the farm was sold before Bernhard had a chance to take over and he went to work...

***NB*** We are in the middle of a government enforced lockdown here in South Africa where the sale and movement of wine is, at least for now, forbidden. So to keep ourselves busy we have decided to release a new podcast episode every day during lockdown. Today on the podcast we have John Seccombe, winemaker and owner of Thorne and Daughters – a wine brand based in the Walker Bay District in the C...

Today on the podcast we have Master Sommelier Nicolas Clerc. Nico is originally from the Savoie area of France (in the French Alps, north of Marseille) but has lived and worked in the UK since 2003. A former UK sommelier of the year, he is currently working for Armit Wines as a brand manager after working for Fields, Morris & Verdin as a prestige account manager. He is also a board member for the...

***NB*** We are in the middle of a government enforced lockdown here in South Africa where the sale and movement of wine is, at least for now, forbidden. So to keep ourselves busy we have decided to release a new podcast episode every day during lockdown. Today on the podcast we have Tegan Passalacqua who is based in California and is the director of winemaking at Turley Wine Cellars, a producer s...

***NB*** We are in the middle of a government enforced lockdown here in South Africa where the sale and movement of wine is, at least for now, forbidden. So to keep ourselves busy we have decided to release a new podcast episode every day during lockdown. Today on the podcast we have Lukas van Loggerenberg, winemaker and owner of Van Loggerenberg Wines – a wine brand based in Stellenbosch which, w...

Genesis of Genevieve with MELISSA NELSEN. We are in the middle of a government enforced lockdown here in South Africa where the sale and movement of wine is, at least for now, forbidden. So to keep ourselves busy we have decided to release a new podcast episode every day during lockdown. A quick note on the quality of the audio, we are in lockdown at the moment in South Africa and we are relying o...

***A quick note on the quality of the audio, we are in lockdown at the moment in South Africa and we are relying on the internet to record these podcasts, and they don’t always behave. We have done what we can to make it listenable as possible.*** Kalmoesfontein: vines, vermouth, parrots, rooibos, agave and Abruzzo with Adi Badenhorst Today on the podcast we have Adi Badenhorst, one of the Swartla...

We are in the middle of a government enforced lockdown here in South Africa where the sale and movement of wine is, at least for now, forbidden. So to keep ourselves busy we have decided to release a new podcast episode every day during lockdown. (5 Apr 2020) Today on the podcast we have Chris Williams – winemaker and co-owner of The Foundry – he produces single vineyard wines from Stellenbosch an...

A zoom chat with Jurgen Gouws of Intellego Wines. Specialising in Swartland Chenin Blanc and Syrah (although Cinsaut, Mourvedre and Viognier are also used), Jurgen is one of only a handful of people making natural wines in South Africa. We don't really talk about each wine specifically, it was more of a chat about his philosophies, approaches, and opinions. We also chat about the wine he makes for...

A quick catch up with Maryna Calow, Communications Manager at Wines of South Africa (WOSA), "a not-for-profit industry organisation which promotes the export of all South African wine in key international markets". I chatted to her to get an update on the current ban on wine exports put in place as part of the nation-wide lockdown due to the covid19 crisis. WOSA is part of a wine industry task for...

A chat over Zoom with Niels Verburg about how Luddite Wines got started, his famous Shiraz (and why he doesn't call it Syrah!), his love of Australian flora and NO mention of coronavirus - not sure how we did that. Enjoy one of the real characters of the South African wine industry - he can make some handy wine too :)