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Introduced to wine at a young age, through a thimbleful of sweet muscadel with Sunday lunch, Winnie’s immersion in the fruit of the vine deepened during her student days at Stellenbosch University and later through frequent travels to international winegrowing areas, and widened to include brandy and husk spirit.
A qualified physiotherapist and biomedical scientist, and holder of a PhD in Education, she is a Cape Wine Master, and regular judge at several local and international wine and spirit competitions.
Winnie also loves books, opera and experimenting with cocktails with her wannabe mixologist son.
Raised in the industrial town of Sasolburg, northern Free State, Hennie was a stranger to wine culture until he first set foot on a winefarm as a Stellenbosch University student.
The wine passion culminated in several local and international wine qualifications and a mild obsession to taste as many different wines as humanly possible.
When he’s not nose deep in a glass of wine, he enjoys running in the beautiful mountains of the Cape – often with a celebratory bottle of grenache, baguette and smelly cheese in his backpack.
He judges occasionally for various local competitions and publications.
Greg is an architect by day, and a wine devotee after hours. A casual interest in wine tasting at a social club snowballed, leading him to qualify as a wine judge in 1996 and a Cape Wine Master in 2000.
He was runner-up in Wine magazine’s inaugural New Wine Writer competition, after which he contributed regularly to that and other wine publications.
In 1999, Greg settled in the Cape, first to establish a new wine estate in Hermanus, and later as a specialist consultant in winery construction.
He has judged for Veritas, Diners Club Winemaker of the Year, Nederburg Auction and several magazine panels, and has been a taster for this guide since 2010. Greg doesn’t like pretentious wine or arrogant wine-people, or arrogant wine or pretentious wine-people for that matter.
Joanne has been a journalist, specialising in wine, for over two decades.
She received her Level 4 Diploma from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust in 2003 while working as a feature writer for Harpers Wine & Spirit magazine in London.
After returning to South Africa in 2004, she worked as deputy editor at Good Taste and then Wine magazine before going freelance in 2009.
Winner of both the Du Toitskloof Wine and Franschhoek Literary Festival Wine Writer of the Year awards, she has also been shortlisted no fewer than four times in the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards.
As a sought-after freelance writer and copy editor, her passion is digging up nuggets of SA wine history, from legendary Constantia to Oom Koos Mostertpotjiewyn.
Tim, a Cape Wine Master, is an established and multiple award-winning winewriter, contributing freelance to local and international publications and websites, most frequently nowadays to Winemag.co.za but also a regular column to the London-based World of Fine Wine magazine.
He is also SA consultant to the World Atlas of Wine. Tim’s book, Wines of the New South Africa: Tradition and Revolution, was published in 2013.
He has been a taster (and associate editor) for this guide for many years.
Serendipity led to Angela’s interest in wine. She met her husband, Mark, within three weeks of arriving in South Africa in 1970 and shortly after attended tastings organised by the Wine Tasters’ Guild, of which Mark was a member.
Her enjoyment began with SA semi-sweet whites, soon joined by reds. Today, her enthusiasm for wine extends worldwide; orange wines are a current fascination.
Angela, with 33 editions our longest-serving tasting team member, believes keeping an open mind can lead to many exciting wine discoveries.
Cathy hails from Yorkshire, UK, and after completing her degree in English at Cambridge University, she joined Adnams Wine Merchants, passing all the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) exams, culminating in the Level 4 Diploma.
She came to South Africa in 2001, and opened and ran The Nose Restaurant & Wine Bar, selling it after seven successful years.
Cathy now concentrates on tasting, writing for local and international publications, and, increasingly, on wine education and edutainment events.
She was the first WSET Approved Programme Provider in Africa, and was named WSET Educator of the Year 2015. She started studying for her Master of Wine qualification last year.
Travel is said to broaden the mind, and Fiona, former editor of Wine magazine for eight years, has had her wine mind broadened by having been a long-serving jury president of several international wine competitions: International Wine Challenge, International Wine & Spirit Competition, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles and, now, Decanter World Wine Awards’ regional panel chair for South Africa.
Initially trained as a news journalist, she got into wine by happy accident, helping to organise The Mercury Wine Week in between reportage and newsroom management as the night news editor on that Durban broadsheet.
Currently freelancing, Fiona edits Cheers magazine, and contributes to a range of publications and websites.
Encouraged to follow his father into accounting, Gregory instead found himself on a journey into wine and food, first as a winemaking assistant at Mukuyu, one of the handful of wineries in his home country, Zimbabwe, and later as a Cape Wine Academy student in Gauteng.
Currently he heads the sommelier team at Cape Town’s 12 Apostles Hotel & Spa, oversees an awarded winelist, and judges for several local competitions.
Holder of the Wine Judging Academy and UCT Wine Business Management qualifications, Gregory is enrolled in the Court of Master Sommelier and University of South Africa BComm programmes, his aim being to become a wine economist.
He is also founding chair of BLACC, a new organisation reaching out to black Africans interested in furthering their wine knowledge.
Christine’s love affair with wine started when she joined the then Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery after a Johannesburg FMCG marketing career.
Enrolling in the Cape Wine Academy, she achieved her Cape Wine Master qualification in 1986; left SFW to run the CWA for seven years; and has since been occupied with consultancy work, wine-judging, -lecturing and -writing.
She has been a taster for this guide since the 2003 edition. Christine has a wine column in Die Burger newspaper, writes freelance for other publications, and has published two editions of A Guide to the Winelands of the Cape.
Technical director of Michelangelo International Wine Awards, she travels widely, serves on various local and international juries (including panel chair at Veritas and International Wine & Spirit Competition, and looks forward to working with wine for years to come.
A taster for this guide for two decades, Dave has over the years consulted to restaurants, game lodges and convention centres, taught wine courses and contributed to radio, print and other media.
He is co-author of One Hundred Wines – An Insider’s Guide to South African Wine, and drinks contributor to Posh Nosh.
Dave is a long-standing member of the International Wine & Food Society, the South African consultant for its Annual Vintage Chart, and cellarmaster of the Cape Town branch.
A psychiatrist by day, he’s intrigued by language in general, and the lexicon of wine in particular.
Cathy started her wine journey on a bicycle: she asked her husband to ride SA’s famed Cape Town Cycle Tour with her; he accepted if she attended a wine course with him.
She has since notched up more than 21 tours - and passed the prestigious Master of Wine examination. Previously chair of the Institute of Masters of Wine’s education committee, she is now a member of its Council.
Cathy judges locally and internationally, and is the SA contributor to Le Grand Tasting app by Bettane+Desseauve.
She occasionally contributes to wine journals and websites around the world, but spends most of her wine-time as associate editor of this guide.
The Cape winelands lured Meryl away from her legal career and, more than 20 years later, she remains firmly under their spell.
She has conducted wine presentations abroad on SA wine on behalf of Wines of South Africa, lectures for the Cape Wine Academy, tastes and writes about wine, and judges for various wine competitions and magazines.
Meryl qualified as a Cape Wine Master and has graduated with distinction from the Wine Judging Academy.
She ensures, however, that the vinous learning curve continues by visiting wine-producing countries, combining some of her other passions, food and travel.