The Good Value Guru

Description

Take two adventurous wine-lovers, a few thousand kilometres through ten South African wine regions and enough newly-discovered vinous gems to fill a transport truck, and the Good Value Guru has what he would call “a pleasant sort of journey”.

In this maiden publication of The Good Value Guru diaries in book form, Neil Pendock continues the journey he and his fellow Guru crusader set on in 2008 and which subsequently achieved a cult following among readers or The Sunday Times, South Africa’s largest newspaper for which Pendock has been wine correspondent for the past two decades. Like Pendock, his fellow voyager The Guru is a seeker of good, unpretentious wine best enjoyed in unique surroundings close to the vineyards from which the tipple is made along with good food and the conversation of various South African wine characters.

The result is one part informative travelogue, one part alternative wine and food guide and a chatty introduction to wineland characters whose hospitality, wit and warmth represent the unique humane heart beating beneath the South African winelands.

Areas traversed during this 10-day journey in the winter of 2009 include the big-hitting wine regions of Stellenbosch, Robertson and Groot Constantia to the wakening giants of the Swartland, Wellington and the Little Karoo. Extraordinary wines of exceptional quality and forgotten good value are unearthed and shared with the reader, and along the way Pendock guides one to similarly hidden gems in the accommodation and dining apartment.

Inspired by his travelling partner’s irreverent wit, sharp tongue and sharper memory of what the wine world of yesteryear looked like, The Good Value Guru is packaged in Pendock’s characteristically humorous observations and light-hearted prose. From the discovering in Stellenbosch of a bottle of Riesling from the cellar of Adolf Hitler to the rigours of judging in a Lamb Chop Barbecuing Competition on a Durbanville wine estate, Pendock encapsulates the unique charm of the South African winelands and unearth gems both vinous and of the human variety.

Pendock and The Guru also make a point of maintaining their independence whilst making the diverse observations. All visits to wineries were unannounced, all hotel and restaurant bills paid in full and all comment is free of undue outside influence.

The array of tales and memories are accompanied by illustrations from Stellenbosch design studio Fanakalo, maps and contact details of places that the Guru would not want you to miss.