A sea of smiling faces, glorious weather, a stunning sunset, 200 wines to taste and some seriously hearty food to soak it all up – if the first Gugulethu Wine Festival is anything to go by, then this is the recipe for a successful event. From the moment we entered the tent – our extreme punctuality giving us away as foreigners not yet living on African time – we knew this wasn’t going to be a typical wine event. After spending the afternoon soaking up a little too much sun, I’d been craving a glass of bubbles, so made a beeline for the J.C. Le Roux stand, positioned conveniently a mere metre or three from the entrance, and lingered there while the media jumped on what was the first cork popped, the first fizz sipped and who knows – maybe even the first wine poured (we really were ridiculously punctual).
Soon I was the very picture of happiness – a glass of MCC in one hand, a very generous pour of slightly-too-sweet “˜Naughty Girl’ pink bubbles in the other – and I knew that my plans to spit more than I sipped were going to be little more than good intentions (props to my better half for taking on the role of designated driver). The tent soon filled up and the music started – not the classical notes you usually hear at a wine event, but bass-heavy dance music that set the vibe for the evening. I love wine events – love getting dressed up and listening to music normally reserved for dinner parties and traffic jams, but sometimes I wish things were a little more relaxed, a little less reserved, a little more like beer festivals. And that’s exactly what Gugs delivered.
Things started quietly and it wasn’t until Western Cape Premier, Helen Zille, arrived to officially open the proceedings that the party really got going. Seeming genuinely thrilled to be there (and sporting the “˜Naughty Girl’ sticker everyone who passed the Alvi’s Drift stand received) she praised organisers Mzoli Ngcawuzele and Lungile Mbalo, claiming ‘there’s only one thing that I would have got out of my bed for today’. With the ribbon cut and the party officially started, Nederburg’s Taste Theatre opened – for me one of the highlights of the event.
Presided over by Nederburg wine maker, Tariro Masayiti, the tutored food and wine pairing session gave just the right amount of instruction, condensing wine tasting technique into a few sentences before moving on to the plate of nibbles each taster had before them. Responses ranged from casual sipping to furious note-taking, but the general reception seemed awesome and provided a great intro to wine for many first-time tasters (and a fun refresher for anyone else).
Over in the food tent, the usual staples you munch with wine were absent, replaced by burgers, chops, pap and a lamb spit roast that lured many but disappointed most. Not because it wasn’t good – we managed a mouthful of the perfectly seasoned meat and, oh my God – it was good! Alas it was the star of an all-too-brief VIP after party that saw all those in attendance pounce on the meat whose aroma had been slowly driving them mad all evening. Still, the small piece I managed to swipe (think hyena after the lions have moved on and you’ll get the entirely humiliating image of this foreigner hoping for a taste of Mzoli’s famous marinade) was totally worth the jostling. Speaking of the marinade, in a brief interview Mzoli hinted that sometime soon his secret recipe could be bottled and sold in select stores – one of many projects that this perpetually busy businessman has up his sleeve.
If you missed out on this year’s festival, don’t worry – it will be an annual event, with sponsors already lined up for the next three years. In the meantime keep your eyes peeled for other rooftop parties at the Gugulethu Square Mall. ‘We designed it so that we can have various events here,’ Mzoli told me, a plan praised by Helen Zille who gushed over the design of the mall, lauding it for being ‘the only mall I have seen which is built the right way round “¦ the only mall that hasn’t got the parking on the top where the view is, but actually has a space for people to socialize on the roof.’ As the sun set over Table Mountain and I sipped a glass of Mzoli’s Merlot, I silently toasted the finer points of mall planning before heading back inside to the new friends I’d made. The only downside to a crowd this sociable was that I spent half the night chatting and failed to taste many of the wines on offer, though my head thanked me for that the next day.
