When it comes to South African wine, John Hafferty, co-owner of the Braintree wine shop Bin Ends, has a lot to say. But when it comes to teaching people about the region, he keeps it simple.
"For most folks," he said, "they want a quick overview. They want to make sure they're not drinking wine from apartheid or fascist types."
Hafferty lectured on the subject at last week's Ivy League Wine College, a three course wine dinner organized by the Boston wine magazine The Second Glass. Unlike the regular Ivy League, tuition is only $25. The event took place in the stone basement banquet room of Ivy, a downtown restaurant. The basement was cluttered with tables, and the tables were cluttered with wine glasses.
It's easy to get drunk at the Ivy League Wine College. Each course of food was paired with two glasses of wine, which allowed the participants to judge similar wines in comparison to one another, and, through that comparison, to learn a little bit about why certain wines paired well with certain foods. But it also meant downing two glasses of wine with each course, a sure recipe for inebriation that didn't daunt most participants. There were no spit buckets for a reason.
The first course paired two South African whites with mussels and arancini stuffed with fontina and black truffles. After reassuring the diners that the wines had never seen fascist hands—apartheid had supported KWV, an industry cooperative that had destroyed the quality of South African wine—Hafferty described, with relish, the first wine of the evening.
It was a Mulderbosch sauvignon blanc, one of the wines that had first renewed international interest in South African vineyards. Mulderbosch's vinter, Mike Dobrovic, was one of the first to offer estate bottled wine. "He's like a god over there," Hafferty said.
The wine lived up to its praises, evoking, as promised by Hafferty, the flavor of fresh peas, and it overwhelmed its companion, a Klein Constantia Marlbrook white, in the opinion of most diners, who could rank the wines on a preprinted report card using a system of gold, silver, and bronze stars. ("We're going back to elementary school," said Second Glass editor-in-chief Tyler Balliet.)
Diner Jarrett Goetz, a New Jersey transplant with 10 years in Boston, was unimpressed, giving both wines a silver star. "I made kind of a neutral statement, if you can look at three things and consider the middle one neutral."
Goetz is a friend of Balliet's and a body in the impressive Second Glass orbit. "I just did a video for them about how to deal with wine if you have a woman over to your apartment on a date," he said. Goetz had heard about the dinner because of his connections to Balliet, but would have learned about it anyway through the Second Glass Facebook group.
Facebook had brought Lauren Michaud, who knows Balliet (as everyone seems to) through a friend. Michaud had never been to a tasting before, but felt like she knew what she was in for. "I work at Starbucks, and we do coffee tastings a lot, so I feel like I know the whole drill," she said.
Going through the drill with new wine drinkers is part of the Second Glass's mission at these events. Hafferty introduced the second course of wine with a few jokes ("This wine has not seen any oak," he said of a particularly oaky bottle. "Just kidding, it has seen a ton of oak.") before dismissing a few wine myths ("Always drink white wine within the first two years of its vintage").
The menu challenged Hafferty's skills as sommelier. One of the second course dishes was a ricotta ravioli served with asparagus. "Asparagus is the anti-pairing," Balliet confirmed, but the Neil Ellis Stellenbosch chardonnay held its own, at least on Bostonist's palate.
The night ended with a pair of South African reds, served with rare tuna and pork tenderloin. Both reds won gold stars on Bostonist's report card, but, after six glasses of wine (and a little food), we can't confirm that we didn't get a little carried away. At any rate, the night wound up where it began, in the Mulderbosch vineyard, where we sampled a red blend called Faithful Hound. It didn't taste like wet dog.
So, what did we learn at Wine College? "I learned some great ways to describe wine," said Maureen Hautaniemi, a designer."This tastes like a pineapple turnover. This is a puppy."
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