Our Wine Cellar – a hidden member benefit

The South African Wine Society maintains a wine cellar that allows us to assemble our tasting events and to match particular wines with selected dinner offerings. The main objective of a wine collection and cellar is to have the opportunity to select a wine appropriate to the occasion or the meal being served.

We have a variety of buying strategies that are constantly under review and development. Besides our underlying collecting strategy we explore unique buying opportunities which may arise.

We collect and store wines to:

• allow for aging where quality will improve
• provide a wide range of South African varietals
• support vertical tasting events from a single winery
• support horizontal or regional tasting events
• support limited-production cult tasting events, e.g.: organic/biodynamic; one-off blends, etc.
• take advantage of unique offerings, e.g.: Platters 5* South African wines
• tale advantage of consignment offers and direct imports

The optimal collecting strategy is to judiciously buy wines and store them so that we can be assured of having a dependable, convenient supply at hand. These cellar wines are supplemented with currently available LCBO offerings when appropriate.

To taste wine at its most "enlivening" moment might be the soundest rationale for building a wine cellar. The most enlivening moment is when the wine has reached maturity, when the wine is in its most complex and balanced state. At this point, the wines have acquired maturity, but there remain elements of youthful vitality and still the “joie de vie” and hope. Specifically with wine, it is the melding of primary characteristics (fruit, oak, acid, tannin and sugar) and the arrival of harmony and balance. In addition, as the wine further ages, new essences may evolve.

These are the hidden benefits of our wine cellar to the members of the South African Wine Society.