A sophisticated, silky-smooth L’Avenir red is recommended next to a crackling fire
It might be assumed, particularly given his generation, that the brawling, bullfighting, big-game-fishing, larger-than-life soldier and Nobel Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway smoked.
But in the biography Papa Hemingway, which focusses on the last decades of his life, A.E. Hotchner tells us Hemingway gave up smoking while still a young man, because it interfered with his ability to appreciate wine.
Stopping smoking is no easy task; there are so many triggers, and not being able to smoke while having a drink just seems depressing. Especially beer, and whiskey. So instead, I decided to move to wine, particularly as wine and cigarettes never paired well for me, so there was no association.
I can attest, Hemingway was on to something. A week or so without a smoke and the taste buds started coming back to life, opening up a new galaxy in that glass of wine.
Of course, this upped the ante: no more shopping on the bottom shelf. Plus, the money saved not buying smokes could be invested in the better stuff. It was thus I came to look up and bring home a bottle of L’Avenir Stellenbosch Classic. I could now afford (or at least rationalise) spending the R154, and it had a sticker on it that said it won a gold medal somewhere.
Whoever was handing out the awards knew what they were tasting, and probably never inhaled even a half-gram of any combustible material in their life.
Although I have appreciated wine in theory, my smoke-addled palate has never been able to detect the myriad flavours that lie within the grape, and they probably have a lot of recovery and training ahead of them before I can swirl a sip around and proclaim there’s a hint of roasted almond and a smidgen of cayenne pepper in the mouth. However, with a bit of a nudge, the flavours become recognisable, and I agree with the tasting notes on the L’Avenir website that say the palate offers “seductive notes of red and dark fruit and a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg”.
The notes on the bouquet are even more accurate: “Attractive notes of blackberries, plums and cherries, complemented by earthy and savoury notes with a hint of sweet spice.” Certainly, I vouch for the blackberry and plum, and that this is a sophisticated wine with “a lingering finish”.
Each vintage is slightly different, of course, and we were lucky enough to pluck out a 2019 bottle. I’ve since noticed that it is mostly the 2020 vintage you’ll find in the shops, but I believe it’ll be just as good.
Apparently winemaker Dirk Coetzee was mentored by Stellenbosch’s “Pope of Pinotage”, Francois Naudé, and aims to make L’Avenir the leader in Stellies Pinotage, so we’ve got our eye on that.
To clean lungs and rejuvenated papillae.
Our monthly wine columnist, Sadé Allcock, was unfortunately not able to get away from pressing work arrangements involving multi-million-rand wedding events for Anne Mann Celebrates, which is why you have this old smoke-addled writer standing in.