#finebrandyfusion

In my previous post, I mentioned something about how the Fine Brandy Fusion was a life changing experience but I never got quite to explaining why. So here's the why.

We started the night with the food on offer which is always a good idea when you plan to be drinking a lot. Line that stomach! We were treated to delightfully fancy things at the festival restaurant. Mine was an oxtail something or other and Jeremy  had the  duck. It was pretty darn delicious.

The festival kitchen was a bit of a mismatch, with amazing food served in an almost cafeteria style .So, that was weird, but we were there for the brandy so who cared.

Our first tasting of the night was the Oude Meester 18 year old Sovereign and my oh my was that a way to start. The Oude Meester stall had special timed tastings of their favourite 18 year old and the host Z, was the person who gave us most of the brandy knowledge that I shared a while back.

 Oude Meester 18 year Old Sovereign 

Nose : Cigar box woody, with some dark chocolate and over ripe apricots

Taste: Suprisingly fresh, delicately sweet and as can be expected after 18 years in oak  and decidely velvety.

The next distillery we got involved with was Oude Molen  we tasted their Solera, V.O.V and their Rene Single Cask.

                                             Oude Molen

Solera

Nose: Lightly floral

Taste: Sweet-ish and smooth 

V.OV

Nose: Fresh,  citrussy( kind of like the leaves of  citrus fruit trees), cigar box , chocolate.

Taste: Soft and sweet

Rene Single Cask

Nose: Caramel, toffee, butterscotch

Taste:  Fuller,  Sweeter and  Rougher, a lot more body

Quote from the tasting was : " A hot lady a bite"

And then we got to the moment that changed my life, my tasting from Van Ryn's. All evening I'd been going to the stall but the lady helping said it would be best to wait for the Master Distiller, Marlene Bester and boy was she right. Ms Bester, has the distinction of being one of the few female Master Distiller's, in a predominantly male dominated industry. Talking to her was such an inspiration.

Van Ryn's is something of a gem in the South African Brandy crown, their 12 year old brandy has won the award as the world's best brandy 9 times since 2004 and remains one of the world's most awarded brandies.

                                                Van Ryn's

12 Year Old Brandy 

Nose: Fresh berries, hay , clean laundry , pot pouri.

Taste: Smooth but bodied and definitely improved with a dash of water that just opened it up and added a lightness to the tongue.

And now for the 20 year old. Nearly as old as I am, the Van Ryn's 20 year old was a beauty to behold. As I was about to taste it one of the tasters from a  well regarded Cape Town restaurant, mentioned that industry insiders often referred to it as a , "Panty dropper". And man are they right. 

20 Year Old Brandy 

Nose: Plummy with a light fruit tree blossom, a hint of vanilla and basically, just a confluence of smell. It has the balance of the ideal perfume, soft, delicate with surprising notes of freshness. It was pretty much the best thing I've smelt in my life, ever.

Taste: It's so smooth, so much body and so much flavour, holding the lightness of water whilst maintaing depth, character and a velvety smoothness. There's  also this seamless meeting of rich indulgence and refined simplicity. It was , "just-so," nothing could be added or taken away, a taste that holds all flavours in perfect harmony and balance. In short it was life changing.

Now the real honest truth is that you're probably not going to find these brandies at your average corner store but if you do happen to come across them , your life will be just a little bit better.

Ok before I even start this I have a confession to make. Alright not one, maybe two confessions; I may have potentially taken more than my allocated one glass home and my ticket for the event was free. So there you have it. I am a cheapskate who likes festival glasses.

On Friday the 23 May, I had the privilege of attending the Fine Brandy Fusion event hosted by the South African Brandy Foundation and I'm not going to lie it was kind of amazing. I went to the festival with my friend Jeremy Bingham (he’s the guy responsible for all the pictures you'll see from the event), and had a pretty life-changing experience. I admit it sounds a little far fetched, but I feel that being introduced to a whole new world of excellence totally counts as a life changing experience.

Until this event, I'd never really considered brandy as a real thing to get involved in. My sister spent a year living on the same road as one of the best brandy distilleries in the country and I never so much as batted an eyelid. I was all about wine, all the time and maybe some gin if I was feeling festive. But I was wrong and wrong in a big way because there is something uniquely beautiful about brandy. I learnt way too much to put into one post so we’re gonna take this step by step.

Before we get to the nitty gritty's here are a few brandy basics to help understand what brandy's about.

Brandy is made from  grapes. The harvest for brandy grapes starts a little earlier in the season than for wine grapes because the grapes need to have a lower sugar content and higher levels of acidity, allowing more flavours to withstand the distillation process.

In South Africa, brandy is predominantly made from Colombar and Chenin Blanc  grapes .

I may be wrong here but what I was able to gather was that distillation for brandy is basically cooking the fermented grape juice, to separate the  good alcohol from the bad and increasing the alcohol content.

When you use barrels to age brandy just a bit of it evaporates and that is what's called the angel's share .

  Now for the Tasting Part:

Look at the colour.  The longer the time spent in oak barrels, the richer and deeper the colour. New oak barrels give a darker colour but because brandy ages for such a long time, housing it in new wood for that entire period would leave you with a  Coca Cola looking substance. So whilst the first few years may be in new wood, brandies often move house at least once as they get a little older .

Never twirl your glass.  In wine tasting, you normally have to do that thing where you like all fancy and swirl the wine in your glass to aerate the wine a little. This is not how it works for brandy. Whilst swirling the glass, does open up the  brandy the high alcohol content  means that most of what you're "opening up" is the smell of liquor. Don't do it, I looked like a complete fool swirling 20 year old Brandies.

Bring the rim of the glass to your bottom lip and slowly work your way up until it's just below your nose. It's that high alcohol content again, diving your nose into a glass of brandy could very well burn your little nostrils, so be classy and take it slow.

If you still can't smell anything then suck the air up through your mouth before taking a sip and that should help you identify the flavours.

Now for the tasting, if it's good it should be quite velvety and smooth. Concentrate on  where it tingles as you swallow.

Water works with brandy  but remember to not go past 1 part water to 3 parts brandy

  * Extra fun: If you want to improve the smoothness of the brandy in your mouth, try smoking a cigar or cigarillo and blowing the smoke into your glass. It unlocks all kinds of delicious flavours and from personal experience, can make a 5 year old brandy taste as smooth as one that's 15 years old

                                          Being a Mix Master

Brandy is often known as Karate Juice because of its alleged propensity to  start bar fights. But it's not the brandy talking it's the brandy and coke talking. Whilst brandy and Coke is a super popular South African drink, it doesn't really work that well with your body because as the alcohol is trying to bring you down, the caffeine and sugar in the coke are pumping you full of energy leading to feeling that can only inspire Karate chops.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't mix brandy because brandy is an excellent base, you should just try and mix it with things that have less sugar, like tonic, soda water, lemonade or some ginger beer.

Less sugar means you get so much more of that delicious brandy flavour.

That is pretty much all that I can fit in one blog post but this weekend I'll be filling you in  on all the brandies we tasted...