Cheers to a great weekend with
NEIGH! Neigh! The countdown to The Mercury Wine Week 2017 has begun with KwaZulu-Natal’s premier wine show opening its doors in a little over six weeks time and returning to the iconic Greyville Race Course with its cityscape backdrop.
It will be an opportunity to celebrate a significant milestone for the province’s leading morning daily newspaper, as in November The Mercury chalks up 165 years of reporting the news and capturing history for its decisionmakers.
This year’s Mercury Wine Week, on August 30 and 31 and September 1, promises to match the stately elegance of this beautiful racing venue. An estimated 60 of the Cape’s premium wineries will descend on Durban to offer wine lovers an insight into this season’s releases – and an exciting addition this year is the Bubbly Bar, where patrons can sip some of South Africa’s award-winning Methode Cap Classiques (MCC), the sparkling wines made in the traditional French method where the bubbles form in the bottle.
In concentrating the bubblies in a central space, visitors can raise their own toasts in honour of The Mercury’s birthday celebrations while comparing the different styles, fine mousse and thrill of the drink French military and political leader Napoleon Bonaparte deemed worthy in victory and essential in defeat.
The event is also the ideal chance for everyone seeking to expand their wine knowledge by challenging the winemakers while trying out the new labels seen, but not yet purchased. It is a chance for everyone wanting to learn about wine culture to dip their toes into the water in an informative and fun fashion. Another coup this year will be the innovative Ernie Els Wines Food and Wine Pairing dinner being held at The Hilton Hotel’s Big Easy restaurant. The South African golfer, known on tour as “the Big Easy” for his easy-going manner, has a passion for Bordeaux-style red wines, and his Stellenbosch estate produces among the country’s top blends under the capable leadership of cellarmaster Louis Strydom.
The event will be another occasion to join The Mercury in celebrating its 165th anniversary, and happens the night before Mercury Wine Week opens. Tickets will be on sale to the public, so diarise Tuesday, August 29, for a sensory experience as the introduction to the week’s wine festivities.
However, it is also key to remember that, beyond the frivolity and wine experimentation, The Mercury Wine Week has always had, at its heart, the benefit of raising funds for The Mercury Hibberdene Children’s Holiday Home.
Situated on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, this project provides underprivileged, often orphaned, children with the experience of a seaside holiday.
The home has been a haven for young minds since 1935, making a difference in the lives of those who visit by providing them with a free holiday they will remember forever.
“The camps, typically hosting children between the ages of seven and 13 years, are expressly designed to be an abundance – of food, entertainment and education, while having fun – so these children can have an insight into a life beyond poverty and deprivation.
We want to show them they do not have to stay in their current circumstances as there are opportunities to build better lives for themselves,” house mother and home administrator Charmaine Barnwell says.
Emotionally difficult for her is watching the children take photographs of their beds – because it is often the first time they have slept in a bed alone, not sharing with several other siblings or cousins.
“I have experienced former campers return to the home – some more than 50 years after their holiday – and still know in which bed they slept and indicate their lives were changed because of the opportunities they experienced here. I want to make that a reality for everyone,” she says.
A significant amount of the money raised annually is donated to the project to ensure these children can play in the waves, build sand castles and be enriched by memories of a holiday because members of the public enjoyed an evening of wine-tasting.
Tickets cost R120 a person if purchased in advance by iTickets (opening July 31), or R140 at the door. Show times are Wednesday to Friday 5.30pm to 8.30pm.