Neil Pendock on the Philosophers' Stone (among other things!)

Neil Pendock is one of the most fantastic wine writers on the planet. If you don't believe me, check out his fantastic replies to the irresponsible comments of UK wine writer Jane "burnt rubber" MacQuitty here. A while ago, Neil wrote a great article about the Philosophers' Stone (among other things!), which has a good poke at Jane MacQuitty's comments.

Here is an extract from the the article below from Neil's wine column:

"Great ideas come to people in the most unlikely places, with the bath popping up quite frequently. It was the venue for Nicky Oppenheimer's idea of delisting De Beers and taking it private and, famously, where Archimedes came up with his neat trick for measuring volumes.

Quite where Johnny Nel came up with the name Philosopher's Stone for his crackerjack blend of Shiraz and Merlot from the 2003 vintage is not clear. Since it's in the current edition of Platter (rated 4.5 stars by Christine Rudman with a retail price around the R50 mark, making it one of the best value-for-money Shiraz blends available), it must have been before the KWV flavourant scandal. The philosopher's stone was a mythical substance which could be used to transform base metals into gold, with green peppers the Paarl interpretation.

Alchemists get a bad press today, as the two KWV winemakers dismissed last year for attempting to transform insipid Sauvignon Blanc into show medal gold using a philosopher's stone fashioned from green peppers, will confirm. But it wasn't always so. Sir Isaac Newton spent far longer looking for the philosopher's stone than he did unraveling the laws of physics. In fact all that fiddling around with mercury is suspected of damaging his sight to such an extent that he missed discovering the wave nature of light, plumping rather for the 'fiery particle' theory.

Perhaps Johnny's inspiration came from reading Harry Potter, in which case author JK Rowling won't be pleased as the target audience for the Potter series should still be teetotal. Or perhaps he is a fan of Van Morrison with a song of the same name on the album Back On Top. Or perhaps he had seen an announcement for a conference entitled Philosophy and Wine: from Science to Subjectivity, which was held at the University of London in December...


...With such heavyweights weighing in against pseudo-scientific wine appreciation, with its dissertations and exams, faux-academic 'qualifications' and non-reproducible wine ratings out of 100, perhaps sanity will return to the art of wine appreciation hijacked by Robert Parker, Wine Spectator and a band of sensory accountants determined to condense a glass of wine into a score accurate to the third decimal point.

The only problem with this campaign against the tyranny of wine ratings is that philosophers are a dying breed, with 2004 an especially bad year for them. In October Jackie Derrida, the founder of deconstructionism, died, or as AOL put it in baby talk: 'cancer claims snowy-haired philosopher.' The big C also did for Susan Sontag, the brain of Manhattan, in December. But with wine on the curriculum in the Philosophy Department, student numbers should be up strongly this year, with the Philosopher's Stone from Camberley Wines prescribed drinking for the course. - Neil Pendock"

Great Review for our Philosophers' Stone from Southern Hemisphere Wine Co.

Always interesting to see where your wines turn up! Here is a review we discovered about our Philosophers' Stone form the Southern Hemisphere Wine Co.

"Here’s another interesting wine that we were able to source out on our South African venture earlier this year. Our reference point was through the 2006 John Platter Wine Guide, where the Philosopher’s Stone was referenced as, “Changing base metals –into gold. Or at least powerful, impressive wine.”

The review sparked our interest and then we took it from there. The 2002 was the maiden vintage so this is just the third wine produced under this label. Situated in undoubtedly one of the world’s most beautiful wine regions, just outside of Stellenbosch high up on the Helshoogte Pass, think visually in terms of Yosemite with vineyards Camberely is a small operation, around 7 hectares, from which around 2000- 2500 cases of wine are produced, all red, in which the Philosopher’s Stone is one of several compositions. The varietal mix seems to change from vintage to vintage, this, the 2004 vintage, contains 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Cabernet Franc and 15% Merlot, respectively.

Offering ripe fruit and serious concentration this is extremely user friendly and should be enjoyed over the next 3-4 years. On the nose there is a slight hint of mint and a subtle leafiness that one associates with the Cabernet family, but no aggressive green characteristics are evident, with dark red berry fruit coming forth, currant, cherry and plum surfacing through.

Although packing 15% alcohol the palate isn’t heavy or jammy, but it has nice warmth to its medium- fuller frame, backed with some ripe, smooth tannins on the finish. Not powerful or gripping this offers lots of sweet forward fruit, fleshy texture and softer, ripe tannins and warmth in the palate that makes this a real crowd pleaser. "