Friday, February 24, 2012

Inner City Lovin Recommends - Haut Espoir Gentle Giant

I love wine. LOVE. 


Not just the actual drinking of the wine, but the finely tuned art of creating wine. The flavours and cultivars, the effort that goes into a single harvest. The passion that the farmers have for their land, soil and grapes. The traditionalism, and the cutting edge, brand spanking new technology that is behind each sip. 


A few weeks ago I met Rob, from Haut Espoir Wines. He came to give a wonderfully informative talk on their wines at my workplace. What a gent! Just by talking to him, I could feel the love he has for his craft, his farm and his wines. It was also so lovely to speak to someone about organic wine making; at Haur Espoir they reserve some of the land for fynbos to grow naturally, and also don't used any nasty chemical pesticides on their vineyards.


I got home from work this evening, tired, a bit over this week, and walked into my kitchen, where my bottle of Gentle Giant was sitting. It's one of my most favourite wines at the moment, I always have a bottle of it on the wine shelf. Yay!


The tasting notes suggest that "Warm spices [will] dominate the nose, the pallete is smooth and rich with ripe berries and crushed black pepper." And that's exactly what I get. A lovely smooth, juicy wine with a hint of peppery spiciness. It feels as if ripe berries are bursting in my mouth! There's a delightful smooth, swishyness to each sip. With seven cultivars one would expect it to be a complex wine; but it is so easy to drink, so smooth and delicious!


Rob says that the name "Gentle Giant" is in honour of the gentle giants of Franschoek, the elephants. Lovely!


So do yourself a favour and go buy a crate now! 


Haut Espoir also have many other wines, for more info check out their site here.


Most pics taken off the Haut Espoir website, design by Inner City Lovin.






Xxx Til next time lovers!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks love that wine!!!!!