LIQUID INVESTMENTS
MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Valuable insights gleaned from famed wine makers
It seems that as long as we cannot fully recognise the value of the Lurton-Long-Freese involvement in SA, we’re not going to value fully the wines they produce here
It was hardly an ordinary day in the winelands. It began with an hour-long tasting and discussion with Pierre Lurton, who heads up Chateaux Cheval Blanc and d’Yquem, and has been an adviser to Morgenster for most of the estate’s modern era. We then moved on to Vilafonte, for a similar exercise with the estate’s co-owners Zelma Long and Phil Freese and the comparative sampling exercise involved a couple of Napa’s cult wines. Lurton comes to the Cape at least once a year, so his presence is less feted than, for example, when Romanee-Conti’s Aubert de Villaine makes the occasional promotional trip. Yet when it comes to the wines of Bordeaux, there has not been anyone like Lurton in the past two centuries — someone who heads up two of the region’s most iconic cellars and who has significantly raised the game at both of them. The same is true of Long and Freese, both legends of the Californian wine industry. Long, who used to be in charge of wine making for Chandon Estates in the US, is ...
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