Cape Town - By now you must know about First Thursdays in the Cape Town city centre, when you are meant to go and look at lovely art galleries but end up drinking a lot of wine.
May I introduce you to a new monthly event, Tuning The Vine, that strips the pretence and the intention is to just drink wine?
The third one takes place next Wednesday and it is so much fun I am going again. It works like this: you buy a ticket which gets you a glass, an armband, and a map. At each venue you taste as much wine as you want and sometimes meet the winemakers. Some spots are restaurants or bars serving light meals, so you can eat as you go.
There are hubs with several places within walking distance of each other and if you want to stray farther afield and are lazy and/or wobbly, there is always Uber.
You will have access to about 200 different wines for tasting from 58 of the Western Cape’s best producers at some of the city’s hottest venues. These include repeat participants Charango Peruvian Grill & Bar (which is fabulous I must just tell you), Weinhaus & Biergarten, House of Machines, Publik wine bar, Bocca, Tjing Tjing rooftop bar, Dorrance wine cellar, Signal Hill Winery, The ABC bar at The Reserve and its underground wine vault (which was a happy surprise discovery) and the Twankey. Coming on board for the first time are several venues at the top of Bree Street, spreading the wine love even wider: Jason Bakery, Palma, Culture Club, Bacon on Bree, Door 221 and the new Little Saint. HQ in Heritage Square and Yours Truly in Long Street are on the map too.
At 6.30pm Youngblood Art and Culture Gallery will host a cider master class with Jason Snell and Bruce Jack of Cluver & Jack and The Gin Bar will do Boplaas Port and Honest Chocolate pairings throughout the night. And Culture Club: cheese and wine pairing.
Venues are marked by bunches of balloons at the entrances, also by the people swarming around. Some fun surprises pop up too; when we got to Youngblood to collect our glasses there was a long queue so a very nice man in a fancy costume offered us a free limousine ride down to the Taj instead. One should never turn down a limo, especially when it has flashing laser lights inside.
We didn’t come even close to sampling everything on offer, but we did well at The Reserve’s ABC bar and the Twankey around the corner, which was dedicated to MCCs. A friend was pouring the drinks at The House Of Machines so we Ubered up there to see her and had a rather delicious little hot dog with our wine. Our last stop was Charango to book a table for dinner and found they had Iona’s Mr P pinot noir, one of my favourite wines so that was a bonus.
Events are well-attended and everywhere is busy, but at no time did we feel like it was a bun fight (or wine fight) to elbow through the crowds to get our tipples. I am so excited now and I hope you are too.
Pre-sold tickets are available online for R150 via Quicket or collect a R175 ticket at one of the ticketing stations at Youngblood (Bree Street) or The ABC Bar (The Taj, St George’s Mall). A new ticketing station opens at Palma restaurant in upper Bree Street. Tuning The Vine is on Wednesday, December 9, from 5.30 till 9.30pm.
l See www.tuningthevine.co.za, Facebook.com/TuningtheVine or follow @TuningtheVine on Twitter.
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