Cape Town, My City.

I had the most amazing wine the other night. A friend of mine came around and knowing my penchant for pretty wines, kindly brought around a bottle of Diemersfontein Pinotage 2008. What a wine! I classify myself as a wine appreciator (as opposed to a wine aficionado) and consequently I normally take a dim view on people who claim to smell all manner of trendy nuances on a wine’s nose. So, when Andries said that the wine has the most amazing chocolate nose, I was quite prepared for just another glass of red.

I am very happy to report that I was proven thoroughly wrong. It did indeed have a chocolate nose with cigar box and ground coffee undertones (at the risk of sounding like the old farts that I normally pull my nose up at). Suffice it to say, we proceeded to drink that bottle of wine in precisely the manner that you are not supposed to drink a good bottle of wine – fast.

Hangover aside, I nevertheless felt it necessary to sing the wine’s praises to my mother the next day as we sat on the stoep in Riebeek Kasteel, idly chatting about the week gone by. My mother then proceeded to chortle and explain that the distinct chocolate flavor is the result of a combination of chemically-treated woods the winemakers at Diemersfontein use in the initial preparation phases. This little trick is used by every cellar you can think of, even Franschhoek wine is not what it seems. She knows this because she works as a representative for a large chemical corporation that supplies (amongst others) the wine industry.

Jeez, what a downer. I am a big fan of the ‘ignorance is bliss’ school of thought and I don’t like being disillusioned when it comes to certain things. For instance, I choose not to realise that the amazing Quidditch stunts in the Harry Potter movies are the result of clever computer graphics and those wire things they have the actors do in front of a green screen. I also did not need to know that Vin Diesel’s voice is the result of steroids he took when he was younger (in my head he still remains all that is man). Other things I would like to un-know include:

• There really are ghosts, despite what my mother told me when I was four.
• Not all people are created equal, especially not if there is money or status involved.
• Milk is made for little calves and is really bad for humans (consequently pulling the rug beneath the whole ‘Got Milk’ campaign and taking the pleasure out of the consumption of cheese, ice cream and yogurt).
• The very air we breathe is the reason we age (Google ‘oxygen and free radicals’ and see for yourself).
• The feeling we experience when we are in love can be attributed to a number of really interesting chemical reactions in the brain that were designed to get us to procreate.
• Blond hair and blue eyes are the result of recessive genes (despite what Nazi propaganda would have us believe), effectively rendering my whole family genetically inferior.
• The prettier the Labrador, the weaker the hips and the more painful the aging process.
• Parents are actually real people who are prone to selfishness and mistakes, just like the rest of us.

I think life is tough enough without reducing the beautiful things we encounter to a mere sum of their parts. Does this make me immature or naïve? I hope not. I choose to think it makes me hopeful.