Completely Franschhoeked

The lake with the mountain behind it.

Long, long ago I had a little penpal. She was based in Franschhoek, which in those days was a charming, sleepy little town in the Winelands. Not much happened there besides the annual harvest but the town had beautiful old buildings which had stood there since the Huguenots sought refuge from religious persection in the Cape in the late seventeenth century. Many of the farms had been in the same families for generations. The Dutch didn't much like the thought of a French settlement to rival their own, so separated the new settlers into isolated farms in an attempt to break the use of their mother tongue. The town was called Olifants Hoek back then, to honour the elephants which travelled along ancient trails around and around the craggy Franschhoek mountains.

But the Huguenots brought their winemaking skills with them and found that the vines flourished in this mountain-ringed,windless countryside. They left their legacy in many of the handsome, olive-skinned, dark-eyed faces, in the surnames in the area and the 300-year-old wine farms, many of which are today the property of big corporations or foreign investors.

My little penpal told me none of this however. I learnt it all many years later on subsequent visits. She and I communicated with one another in different tongues, as I was an immigrant much like the early Huguenots and had to learn this peculiar language called Afrikaans. She, on the other hand, had to brush up on her English. it was nevertheless a charming correspondence and we learnt much about one another. Perhaps the blood of Huguenot ancestors flowed through both our veins.

Subsequent visits showed how Franschhoek was changing and evolving. It was still sleepy in the early 80s, when my sister was married in neighbouring Stellenbosch and had her reception at Boschendal, but by the millennium it began to be a major tourist destination. I stayed there in 2003 during the Cricket World Cup in a pretty B&B and saw the explosion of restaurants and big-name wine estates. There was a view of the mountains from every angle of my upstairs room, and I became aware that this formerly sleepy town was now prime real estate for retired couples, or those who wanted to leave the rat race and open yet another guesthouse. Pseudo-Frenchification was everywhere in the town - much to the early Huguenots' delight I am sure.

My next trip was part of a media trip for the new Schwartz jewellery store in the town; obviously big money shopped there. We ate non-stop, starting with fabulous fish restaurant Boullaibasse (which has now sadly closed down, along with the town's branch 6f Schwartz, thanks to the recession) and winding up at the chocolate shop down the road. Fortunately there was a great deal of walking involved! We staggered back to our guesthouse, Klein Olifants Hoek, named in honour of those long gone pachyderms, where white Iceberg roses and long stemmed lavender bushes were starting to bloom in the mizzly rain. It was early spring, sit-by-the-fire-with-a-glass-of-good-red weather, and I tumbled into my bed to sleep, straight from a fabulous open bathtub which was positively 18th century. The floors and doors were not quite flush, and I was told the building was an old school which had obviously been built on to.

Franschhoek had clearly lost none of its charm, despite obvious and growing commercialisation, and my latest visit confirms this. This time I am down for the polo at Val de Vie polo estate outside the town. All thanks to Deidre Theron-Loots, CEO of the TCB Group, who sponsored my airline ticket with 1Time Airlines, as a favour to event organiser Edith Venter!

I am staying at L'Ermitage right up on the mountain near the white painted name of the town which greets visitors on the road in. The owner has established a number of self-service villas with an adjoining chapel, popular for weddings of any religious denomination, and built himself a house not far away, with the vineyards of the estate climbing across the mountainside. A gentleman in a bright, harlequin-coloured outfit vaguely reminiscent of the Four Musketeers greets me at the gate and directs me to reception.

It is the perfect retreat. You know when you have reached burnout point when you try to switch cramping feet in the hire car and you hit the brake instead of the accelerator. Thank God this is Cape Town and everyone drives at snail's pace! I need a refuge from the endless traffic, deadlines and bills. My nerves are stretched to breaking point and I am as cranky as a snapping turtle. My room is like the suite in a hotel, it goes on for ever. There is a self-service kitchen, a dining room/TV room, an enormous bedroom, a luxurious bathroom, a garage to park the car and an outside balcony where I can lean over and look at the big dam directly underneath, the mountains and the vineyard where they produced a label called Fransch Hoek. It is so peaceful. I sleep that night and the next night with my windows open so the sounds of outside and the fresh clean air wash over me: that deep liquid frog bubble and the ducks quacking quietly.



L'Ermitage ... what a beautiful place.

Driving to the polo is delicious too. En route is one of the most picturesque prisons I've ever seen ... did you get sent to the Groot Drakenstein Prison for good behaviour? There is a half-hearted attempt at barbed wire along the wall but otherwise it is as charming as anything else in Franschhoek. The only thing that is not charming were the hovels along the road that many labourers still live in, a disgrace to one of the richest wine growing areas in the country. Only the Ruperts' farm, L'Ormarins, on the road going out of Franschhoek has rows of neat, modern, white washed cottages with chimneys slightly smudged by smoke. They are on a par with the townhouses which are springing up like mushrooms all over the vineyards.

Val de Vie, scene of the BMW International match earlier this year, is almost too enchanting- and the view! The gods of the Cape's weather smile and send us a beautiful day, along with plenty to eat and some yummy polo players.

The next day it is time to drive into Cape Town for lunch with a friend in the Cape Quarter. In true confusing Cape fashion there are TWO of the above, the older one called the 'old Cape Quarter" and the newer one, well, the "new Cape Quarter". Not only that, but there are two restaurants by the same name in both, so I land up in the wrong place. There is something exasperating about a place that does that, and does not indicate its exit signs properly so you end up driving round and round a parking lot like a nana. All the mountains in the world don't make up for this muddled thinking and Joburgers, with their finger-snapping sense of urgency and efficiency, often can't get their heads around a place where a freeway that just ends in mid-air. What is WITH that? Also the tendency to consult the weather, like the Delphic Oracle, when it comes to deciding where to eat.

????? How BIZARRE.

OK, it was time to get back to Franschhoek. They have parking mafia here too, I discover, thanks to all the tourists but finally find refuge and a well deserved stop for a chocolate icecream under the trees at BICCCS, the recommendation of chef Fortunato, who I later discover has a vested interest, as it's his place!

It's been a stinker of a day so I splash my feet in the swimming pool at L'Ermitage which has a huge fountain in the middle of it and check out the deli opposite. From the top of the road a small channel of water runs down over the cobbles and into a drain, very 17th century. The road back was a veritable pantheon of some of the most familiar and famous names in South African wine-making, as well as the food world. Graham Beck has a big-ass South African flag unfurled outside their imposing, bougainvillea-laden brick and iron gates, the biggest I have ever seen. Plaisir de Merle, La Motte, Grande Provence, Allee Bleue, Allee Bleue ... the names positively tripple off the tongue. I once asked where the old graveyards are in this pretty town; many of the founding fathers are buried on their farms and descendants can go and visit with the permission of the current owners. There is also a beautiful cemetery in the town.

I post on Facebook over my breakfast smoked salmon trout and strawberries, looking out over the dam fringed by white roses and completed by a Rodin-like reclining sculpture (never was there a more beautiful breakfast view) that there can be nothing closer to heaven than this. I can't help wishing I could win the R30-million lottery. That's how much it would take for me to move to this little piece of paradise, or at least buy a wine farm.

A small wine farm ... just like the Huguenots had.



The view from my balcony!

Sole searching for the perfect heel

Years ago I walked into Harrods in London wearing a pair of electric-blue Wellington boots. It had been snowing outside, the snow had melted and re-frozen into sleet which made the London pavements not only even harder on the feet than normal, but also highly slippery. This was no consolation to the blue-rinsed, tweedy county dowager whom I encountered in the loos - she looked me up, and she looked me down, and disapproval bristled up and down her well-bred spine.

I was a small-town South African girl who was unfamiliar with English mores and dress codes (Wellies in the country only, and green ones at that!)and this was the first time I had ever got a ticket from the Shoe Police. I got to know them better in Italy later on, but that is a story for another day. How was I to know this was such a narcissistic, shallow world where you really were judged by your footwear and not by practicality alone?



My first visit to Harrods was a lesson which instilled a lifelong interest and attraction to shoes, though. I love an elegant heel, a perfect shape, a high arch, exquisite details, peeptoes which show off Smartie-painted toes, a classic court, and oh yes!, the perfect boot. I may have left my idealistic girl self behind and become part of the painted, showy universe but, boy, is it seductive to be a grown-up and a lady.



The search for the perfect anti-aging wrinkle cream may continue but doesn't a girl feel fantastic every time she slips on a fine pair of shoes? I spend many happy hours windowshopping for what I can't afford in real life. In Sex and the City a pair of Manolos cost $400, in Johannesburg they cost the equivalent of your rent. Or the rent of a store in one of our fine upmarket malls, to be precise.

I wrote a story for Elle magazine a few years ago about women's obsession with shoes, which had gained the name of "Bootism". One thing which fascinated me was the Italian shoemakers and how they could engineer something within such a small space which could carry the weight of a woman on at least four inches, while pampering her back and feet.

Two years ago, you will be happy to hear, I went back to Harrods and headed straight for the shoe department. And what did I find there?!! Wellies, gumboots, or whatever you care to call them, wall-to-floor, flowered ones, sexy gold ones - and even an electric-blue boot or two. The gumboot was now the hottest thing of the season. Where was that disapproving Englishwoman now, I wondered? It seemed that my shoe choice had been an idea before its time.

My second time I wandered around looking at all the latest styles but was particularly mesmerised by the craftsmanship and design of the Louis Vuitton shoes. They were tres, tres elegant with the most interesting heel design I had yet encountered. I carried this interest home with me and regularly pop into the Johannesburg LV store to see their seasonal stock. I have also watched with interest what Louis Vuitton has been doing on the ramp with their recent collections (eg the African sandals produced for their 2009 Spring/Summer collection). It's art on a foot.



I have always loved the Louis Vuitton steamer trunks and vintage luggage but now a new seed is sprouting in my heart, a love of their witty, inspired, creative and very charming footwear.



It was Giselle Hon, the PR manager for Louis Vuitton South Africa, who told me about the latest developments in the LV shoe department. Most people know that Marc Jacobs took over as artistic director at LV but how many people know who Serge Alfandary is?. He's the Shoes Department Director based at
Louis Vuitton's Fiesso d'Artico plant near Venice. So, even though LV is a French label, the decision was taken in 2009 to establish the plant in Italy, in an area renowned for its shoe-crafting skills from as early as the 13th century.

Visiting the plant would be a dream come true, and Giselle has made the pilgrimage ... it's designed very simply, like a Louis Vuitton "shoe-box", with a steel screen enveloping the building, making it opaque from the outside. A big plus is that the plant is also environmentally green, with insulated walls, solar panels and a geothermal heating system.



One of the most attractive features of the plant is the contemporary artwork: which consists of, guess what, three outsized, shoe-shaped sculptures. The first to greet visitors is a white pump shoe sculpture by Jean-Jacques Ory, with a portrait of Botticelli's Venus within. It's not so much the Old Woman in the Shoe, more like an upscaled version of something Princess Di would have worn to Ascot.



Then, you can't miss it, on the lawns is a 4,70 metre glittering fish-scale stiletto called "Priscilla" by Joana Vasconcelos.



The whole place is a shoe fetishist's paradise and the piece de resistance inside the cloister is Nathalie Decoster's L'Objet du desir.



There is also a library inside dedicated to books on shoes. Oh my lordy, does that not sound like a dream come true? And there are orgasmic displays of shoes on the walls ...





There is an unbelievable amount of work that goes into making just one pair of shoes at the Fiesso d'Artico plant from painting of the edges with a brush, to bias seams and buffing. Each pair takes on average two days to make and demand between 150 to 250 operations, depending on how complex the designs are. Many operations are performed by hand, a real labour of love.



LV clearly believes in pushing the design envelope and, Giselle tells me, Sofia Coppola (of Marie Antoinette fame) is now designing a line of handbags and clutch bags, especially for the working woman.

It's all a long way from my blue Wellington days and hopefully my love of shoes can only flourish and grow the more I find out about them. No more shoe police for me!

ALL PICTURES COURTESY OF LOUIS VUITTON

Let's hear it for the redheads

Life after the chrysalis ... a redhead's greatest friend is green.

I can pinpoint the day when I realised that I was a redhead. I was ten years old and my school mates started chanting delightedly: "You've got red hair!! You've got red hair!!!" - as only spawn of Satan ten-year-olds can when they find a suitable target. I went and had a look as soon as I got home - and saw a definite lightish ginger colour. It was totally traumatic to be even more different than I already was, so I burst into tears and wept inconsolably for days. It didn't help that my face was one huge freckle. I was a monster, the ugliest girl in creation. There was no hope for me. Why couldn't I be like all the other pretty little girls?

Why this reaction, you ask? Aren't redheads a special breed, set apart from the common blonde herd? Don't we all have an ethereal Julianne Moore quality, all alabaster skin, soulfulness and sun-kissed freckles? In truth the metamorphosis to becoming a butterfly is the same for all: egg, larva, pupa, adult. Many a redhead, even Julianne Moore, will tell you that they were perfectly hideous as a child and in their early teens (the larva and pupa stages). Which was probably not true but perception is nine tenths of reality when you are young and sensitive.

Yeah, you try being a ginger, a "rooikop" or any of the other names dreamt up by your mean schoolmates and you'll see it's much better to blend into the herd. The worst name I got called at my co-ed school was "Red Rat" because pale-eyelashed and gooseberry-green-eyed me was friends with a girl who had white blonde hair and no eyebrows. Naturally she was "White Rat".

You see, I was born blonde. To be precise I was born with one ginger curl, teeny little eyes and very sticky-out ears but developed butter blonde curls. Much more socially acceptable. Little did I know that the ginger gene was ready to make its big comeback. While my family and I travelled through France as a child my hair began to resemble the ripening wheat fields which greeted us on the cyprus-lined roads down to the fortified medieval city of Carcassonne. And still no one spoke out ... except for my granny, who drew my mother aside and told her never to dress me in pink as I had red in my hair. And it just got redder and redder and wouldn't go back to being blonde.

Here are a few things you probably didn't know about redheads:

1. Red hair is a recessive gene and is usually a sign of ancient Celtic influence. Many people carry the redheaded gene and then are very surprised when their babies turn out to be, well, redheads.
2. The sun is a redhead's enemy. Sunblock was invented with redheads in mind. All redheads need to vigorously avoid the sun. The red pigment is an inadequate filter of sunlight and their skin is more susceptible to sunburn, skin cancer and wrinkling with age.
3. Being a redhead is not just a physical manifestation. It is also an attitude.
4. Redheads bleed like stuck pigs. Doctors know this when they deliver the babies of a redhead. You wouldn't think that white skin contained so much pigment underneath. This is due to slightly different clotting factors in the blood.
5. Red hair does not turn grey, the colour just fades away from blonde to white. As my father once told me, my hair would turn the colour of "tom cat mange".
6. Redheads are very sexy and sensual but they are also spiritual.
7. Red headed women are seldom attracted to red headed men.
8. Red heads are said to have one layer of skin less so they feel everything more, including pain. When your hair is the colour of molten lava you also have a helluva temper!
9. Redheads have very thick hair but have less hair on their head then anyone else.
10. Redheads have a secret bond with all other redheads. Kinda like a secret society.

At around fifteen and three quarters my ginger locks, which had been in a pudding bowl style but were now long, became what my admiring art teacher liked to call "strawberry blonde". Everyone started to rabbit on about pre-Raphaelites, bank managers stared at me and strange men tried to chat me up in the street. The mean kids told me my hair was now "orange". I realise now that they were probably very jealous.

Growing up in Africa as a redhead wasn't exactly a picnic. There were very few of us around and the lascivious rays of the burning African sun is not condusive to being outside, playing sport or cultivating a golden tan, which is what most sixteen years of my acquaintance were doing. So sitting on the beach swaddled up to the eyeballs with sunscreen, long sleeved shirts, hats and umbrellas I was an anomaly, a freak, an oddity of nature. I hated the beach and still do. In Turkey they took one look at my passport's place of birth, then looked at me, and said in tones of disbelief: Kitwe? Zambia?

Oh how I yearned to be a brunette, preferably Elizabeth Taylor in her heyday. So nice to wake up in the morning with healthy whites of the eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes and deep brunette hair. Oh and I wanted violet-coloured eyes. I didn't listen to anything that anyone told me, like my mother who said I had "apple blossom skin". Human beings always want the exact opposite of what they have.

It was only when I went to Ireland that I finally accepted myself as a gorgeous redhead. Ireland was truly the Kingdom of the Redhead, from palest red to deepest auburn. It was my spiritual home and I LOOKED LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. They all had puckish faces, pointy chins, gummy smiles, pixie ears. It was heaven. Irish men turned around 360 degrees in the street when I walked past them; this had never happened to me in my life before. It was an epiphany. Turned out the red hair had come down to me from my mother's side. There had been several redheads on the distaff side, some with deep auburn hair. It was all DNA after all, not cosmic torture. My relatives loved my red-gold hair and said they couldn't get over how Irish I looked. I even met a cousin years later who also had red hair. She and I were so alike it was uncanny.



My cousin Siobhan and I ... when she takes out of its plait her hair is like a river of fire!

By writing this blog I aimed to exorcise the mean names I was called growing up. Because it is only when a redhead embraces her crowning glory that she can be truly beautiful in her own skin. My red-gold hair is tribute to my Celtic heritage, along with many other aspects of my personality, and I celebrate it every day. Red hair is currently the hottest thing around but unless you are born with it no bottled colour can ever recreate it. Hairdressers should say in awe: "Is this your natural colour?" as they pull it through their brush, shake their heads and add: "You can't get colour like this out of a bottle". What possessed Nicole Kidman to lose her strawberry Celt-fro and turn to icy blonde I will never know. I found a website on the Net called www.redheadandproud.com which might convince her to change back! The author Dale Dassel talks about "Celtic women, with all of their fire-tressed, wraith-like glory".



OK, OK, I ain't no wraith, but the hair is all mine!

DJ Bacchus rocks Soweto Wine Festival

Bacchus style ... The red wine flowed in the VIP area which was sponsored by a different company each night.

Soweto has a different vibe from the rest of Johannesburg. Driving into this famous township there is a palpable heartbeat which thumps louder as one approaches from the south of the inner city. I am on my way to the sixth annual Soweto Wine Festival, which is about to transcend any wine festival I have ever been to in terms of sheer festivity.



New tastes and sensations ... in Soweto.

I'd been to a race day at Turffontein ealier in the day and drove past the Calabash (aka Soccer City, aka FNB Stadium), scene of the World Cup final, a moment of goosebumps. Although the racetrack was a stone's throw from Soweto a minibus seemed the most sensible way to get there, as I did not want to drink so much I could not find my way home again! So I drive to Sandton and there at Grayston Drive's Town Lodge pile into a small bus with several exhibitors who are going in early in readiness for the 3000-strong crowd which is expected. A young American couple comes on later.

We take the road south out of Sandton. A bling-bling momma in sunglasses and a Hummer surges past us, as I stare at the yellow-and-tan minedumps of the south, those honest reminder of the city's origins, adorned with the odd tree and a sparse tuft of grass. We pass the factories and the enormous billboards next to the highway which still celebrated the World Cup. The closer we get the louder and more insistent the music in the taxi grows, beating in time to the heart of this enormous city which has nurtured so many of South Africa's most famous folk. Am I in unfamiliar territory? No, I am a South African, of no particular colour. After the World Cup many of the invisible walls which tore South Africans apart came crashing down and I feel neither out of place nor unwelcome.

Entering Chris Hani Drive and the huge sign which read "Welcome to Soweto" I am struck by the energy of this city, its hustle and bustle, and apparent affluence unlike so many other townships. The taxis buzz up and down in their natural element, the roadside car-washes are doing great trade and the roads are choked with traffic. Soweto has become a destination for those who live in the leafy suburbs of the north to come and party at the weekend. Do the tourists see the huddled, motionless figure at the side of the road, covered in tattered rags? Is he dead, or sleeping off the night before?

Baragwanath Hospital, one of the scenes of what the papers are calling "the most bruising strike in South African history", looms up on both sides of the road. It is crowded and busy, no sign of protesters beating up nurses and doctors who dare to arrive for work.

And then suddenly we are at the University of Johanneburg campus. DJ for the three-nights Bacchus, who is also the Roman god of wine, had not yet started his shift and the revellers have yet to arrive. Later on it will get so packed you cannot turn around but for now I have time to look around outside and inside.

I talk to Marilyn Cooper from the Cape Wine Academy about the kind of wine drinkers the festival is attracting. Her three daughters and husband are running around getting everything done with super-efficiency so she has a bit of time to sit with me in a big green sofa outside, near the boerewors rolls stand, although she still fends off calls and sends someone off to deal with the DJ who is being a little over zealous a little early on (Bacchus at work again).

Marilyn tells me that this festival was "the face of the future", which thrills her as she is "an educator". The Soweto wine drinkers are becoming much more discerning and knowledgeable and ask for a specific vintage which they have encountered. Some are there just for the jol, like my delightful new friend "Angel" Palesa who wears a frilled, violet-coloured dress to match her mauve Blackberry. "What have you tried so far?" I ask her. "Oh everything," she waves, "the whites, the reds, the creams, the sherries ..."

"You must come out and listen to these guys from Savika playing old-style Soweto jazz," Marilyn says, pointing her head at two oldsters with swanker, two-tone shoes. "They're about 80 in the shade but they're amazing." The jazz oldies are spryly moving the beanbags around to make space. They later get the party moving outside as the saxophones flood through the night air.

"You'll meet my co-founder member Mnikelo Mangciphu later," Marilyn tells me. "He comes in at around 8 - dressed to the hilt!"

Besides the well known estates like Boschendal, Dalla Cia, Douglas Green, Rupert and Rothschild, Saronsberg, Spier, Nederburg and many others there are 12 BEE farms who are participating in this year's festival. Tukulu is 51 percent owned by black shebeen owners, I am told, and M'hudi Wines is the first black-owned wine farm to produce wines in South Africa.



Greetings ... from a pourer from Vendange.

I set off to talk to some of the owners. First up is Vivian Kleynhans from Seven Sisters whose Bukettraube Odelia NS won a Double Gold in America. Thanks to Heritage Link Brands CEO Selena Cuffe, who distributes South African wines in the States, Vivian's Sauvignon Blanc Vivian 2009 is the only South African wine served on Atlantic Airlines. Despite her wines being sold in 41 states in America Vivian still needs to get her wines onto local shelves and is negotiations with Checkers to that end.

I look all over for Hannes Myburgh from Meerlust, who never misses a Soweto Wine Festival. "Look out for a tall handsome man with grey hair,"" his assistant from Meridian, Annie van der Bijl, tells me. She gets the tall and handsome part right, but Hannes is more on the bald side (unless his hair is really, really short). Turns out he is sitting right behind me in the VIP section under the Sowetan stars while the snacks (crumbed chicken strips, spring rolls and mini vetkoek with mince) are going around. We search for a quiet spot as the visitors are by now flooding inside in an unstoppable tide and find some chairs upstairs. Some curious stares from fellow wine drinkers who perhaps think that Hannes and I are up to no good behind the curtains ...

Hannes has started up a BEE wine store on Meerlust with shares owned by the workers who also own the land. The farm which has been in his family since the eighteenth century is close to Stellenbosch off Baden Powell Drive (yeah, the Boy Scout guy). The wine store forms a storage facility and other estates are coming with their wines. "It's pretty groundbreaking. Some BEE ventures are not that successful but this looks like a winner.

"I love coming to Soweto," he says, "the enthusiasm is so infectious. There is a consciousness about drinking wine too which defines an evolving society. This is such an occasion ... all the girls dress up. I also like the fact that the lights keep going on and off. It gives me what you call in Afrikaans 'n riem onder die hart".



Pretty packaging ... inside the arena.

Inside the arena the stands are looking gorgeous. The usually barebrick walls with banks of plastic chairs for the students upstairs are tonight transformed by different decor in each area. The JC le Roux wine lounge is pimped out for the night with a stuffed cream couch as high as an elephant's eye and stools, and a cute bartender behind a bar featuring enticingly up-lit bottles encased upright in ice. I stop and linger over the Naughty Girl roses, charmingly bottled with pink polka-dot necks. I have a choice of stickers to put on my jacket and choose: "I'm Naughtier Than My Daughter". The roses are everywhere, including at the 4th St Stand ... is that to be the tipple of choice? KayaFM and City Press also have stands, as does DStv with an upstairs VIP section full of their clients. The technological side is not neglected and the latest Samsung mobiles are on display. At the far side of the hall is located a satellite branch of Norman Goodfellows as the visitors like to buy bottles and take them with them immediately.



There are also "saints" and angels from The Saints wine lounge circulating with pink fluffy haloes which they distribute to visitors. Looking down from the VIP area all I can see is a sea of bobbing pink fluff with sparkly bits.



In seventh heaven ... nothing wrong with a few saints and angels at a wine festival!

Inside again I bump into my young American couple whose teeth are stained with the tannins from South African reds. They are starting to weave slightly. They are not alone, one oldie jazzster is staggering merrily through the throng and great peals of laughter are coming from the crowd. It's packed to the rafters and visitors constantly Facebook themselves and their friends.

The "Platinum Arena" features some of the bigger names of the wine world. Marilyn tells me that she installed this to create more space as the visitors are now outgrowing the venue. She nods at a Turbine Hall lookalike building across the road and says she wants to hold the festival there next year.

But it's time for me to pay a visit to the Pick n Pay Taste Theatre where Erick Sikhosana, the sommelier of the Hyatt Hotel were earlier presenting with Jacob Pea from Jacob's Quest winery. I queue with Angel and her friends for the next experience, charismatic chef Citrum Khumalo from Asidle Gourmet Catering who takes us through the marriage of food and wine, and South Africa's first black winemaker Ntsiki BIyela from Stellekaya who shares her passion and knowledge.

The bursts of merriment from behind the white curtain reach fever-pitch, interrupting the talk, and Citrum jokes: "Are they doing a strip tease back there?" It;s a far cry from many wine festivals of the past where everyone dresses like they were off to Dullstroom for a flyfishing weekend, and looks super-important while they tell the winemakers that they have over-oaked their Chardonnay. Like snobbish hippos huddled together in a pool, those kind of festivals constitute an ever-shrinking market.

In between learning about which foods go best with the Pick 'n Pay wines provided Angel adeptly loads UberTwitter on my phone and sorts out my Blackberry messenger. They should clone her...

Marilyn is worried that her crowd will not leave but the four burly bouncers at the door have the situation under control. "Monitoring the situation,"" they bark into walkie talkies. A tidal wave of visitors suddenly pours out through the doors, en route to their cars. One reveller weaves his way down the path, and meets a tree. He very politely tries to negotiate its branches which refuse to get out of the way. There is great joie de vivre in the air although the Metro cops are waiting just around the corner, dying to pounce."I love you!" someone shouts out of their window at me as the music pumps out over the campus. The party animals at the braai area outside (not Marilyn's problem) are only just getting started. "WE WANT MORE!WE WANT MORE!" they begin chanting.

Bacchus would have been in seventh heaven, this is the stuff that his festivals were made of ...



Party Central ... the pink halo chicks get their groove on.

ALL PICTURES BY HEATHER McCANN PHOTOGRAPHY

August rush to the BMW Polo

A panorama of the West Stand at Inanda. The place was packed!

The BMW International Polo at Inanda in Johannesburg was posh-but-relaxed and the early spring day turned out to be superb. A great crowd turned out to see Chile play South Africa and the BMW marquee held a record number of guests. The marquee was beautifully decorated in black and white with accents of fresh zesty green and many of the guests followed suit. The WASPy crowd of days gone by has dissolved into a more rainbow reflection of our nation and the black diamonds who flocked to the polo were of 24-carat quality.

Everything was going champion Chile's way until South Africa turned the tables and beat the visiting team 7-5. It may have been the presence of polo's whizzkid Jean du Plessis on the team!



Chile bites ... Giving our boys a good run for their money.



Isi-stickwork! Trying to give the ball a good clobber



Pattern of behaviour ...Each of the tables was beautifully decorated.



Even though the days of stomping the divots are over these three still found the time to see and be seen.



Bay watch ... or should that be 'babe'?



Close to the action ... picnic'ing pologoers enjoyed the game in style, despite the dust.



The big cheeses ... Moetetsi Mbeki, BMW PR Guy Trefoil and Bodo Donauer, the MD of BMW South Africa, with Shenila Mohamed.



Hats for Africa ... Pallu boutique owner Peta Eggieth-Symes with Michael de Pinna and Carolyn Steyn in matching pistachio-green hats.



A bit of posh ... better than a Panama!



More of the interior of the BMW marquee.



DJ Mr Edwards and Idols singer Graeme Watkins.



Lerato Ngwane, Zama Ngwane and Linda Makhanya.



In camera ... taking the photographer's picture!

ALL PICTURES BY SHAYNE DOYLE

This one ain't no Hollywood Hijack story!

Oliver Schmitz at Cannes.

It was a moment of absolute magic at this year's Cannes Film Festival ... when South African born-and-bred Life, Above All got a ten-minute standing ovation at the Cannes World Cinema Showcase. A seasoned yet appreciative audience of critics called it a "heart-warmer” and a “tear-jerker”. Their response was a really big deal and boded well for the film's future.

Life, Above All is the story of a young girl (newbie actress Khomotso Manyaka) who plays 12-year-old Chanda, who has to battle against the gossip, superstition and lies which are poisoning her small village near Johannesburg. Her baby brother dies suddenly and the community of Elandsdoorn gossips that this is because her mother has HIV. So she goes on a journey to restore her mother’s dignity. The movie is based on the international award-winning novel Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton.

South African filmmaker Oliver Schmitz is no stranger to Cannes, this was his third time there. He took Mapantsula to Cannes in 1988 when it was selected for Un Certain Regard. He is also known for his movie Hijack Stories and a directorship in iconic movie Paris, Je T'aime.

Oliver was recently in Durban to promote the movie at the Durban Film Festival, held at the Suncoast Centre. I caught up with him there ...

My first questions to him were:

Q: Is there life ahead for Life, Above All? What now? What reaction did it get from South African audiences?

"Even though the Durban audience, was a lot more laid back than at Cannes the reaction was great. People were very emotional and responsive and the audience was appreciative."

Q: Any chance of an Oscar?

"Yes, I do hope Life Above All will be nominated for an Oscar. In terms of quality it should be taken seriously. The distributors in South Africa are NuMetro and there will be screenings next month (September) to qualify the film for the Oscars. Already there are three of four lobbyists in the States working towards this. Lobbying for an Oscar is treated almost like a political campaign."

Q: Is local more lekker? South Africans telling their own stories and using their own actors?

Oliver believes it is important to fight for projects that are genuinely South African and that he has always been a very strong advocate of this. "The story told will carry that film. There have always been stories that were validated by that response and it is possible to do this on a world platform. Some of the best movie critics such as the New York Times and Time magazine gave the film reviews that couldnt be bettered.



The cast of Life, Above All at Cannes.

"The critics said that young actresses Lerato Mvelase, Khomotso Manyaka and Harriet Manamela 'stole the show at Cannes', even though the buzz at the South African parties was around Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard for their role in the Winnie movie. Life, Above All was not even mentioned and it upset my actors at the time."

Q: What of the "Hollywood Hijack stories" though? That's South African stories made by big American directors using their own stars ...

"This is not necessarily good for the South African acting fraternity," Oliver told me. ""It is often an awkward mixture, although Clint Eastwood did a good job. It is important to use South African actors although this is not an easy route financially. Internationally the debate is not that important of course. But local funders need to step up."

Q: So it is patriotic in terms of filmmaking to use South African actors? Even young relatively unknowns, such as in Life, Above All, and Gavin Hood's cast in Tsotsi?

"South African actors are starting to make a name for themselves, take Hijack Stories for example. It's the same calibre of movie as my new one."

Q: So why does he live in Berlin now, working for German TV, and not in South Africa?

"If only I could live off my South African films ... but I need to work, learn my trade and make a daily living. I am going back to Berlin to start pre-production work on a TV movie for next year. I haven't stopped working for ten years!"

Q: What lies ahead for the movie?

"I am hoping that South African audiences are sitting up and taking notice. I believe that the film will do well."

The Durban Film Festival was the first introduction of Oliver's new film to South African audiences and from everything I have heard this movie will blow local and international audiences away .... watch out for it on your screens ...

PICTURES BY NADIA NEOPHYTOU

Joburg's cityscape in pictures

More and more Joburg's inner cityscapes are being converted into canvases where graffiti artists display their colourful art. This kind of edgy street art is encouraged by local municipalities and is being featured in advertising billboards more and more. These photographs were taken by Kevin Friedman on Louis Botha Avenue alone.

Steven Sach, the head of Arts and Culture for the City of Johannesburg told Kevin that they "did not know what to do with Louis Botha" and had given it over to the graffiti artists, three of whom advertised their website in the images. This is in keeping with many other large cities which are also favouring graffiti artists.



The universality of graffiti art is adhered to in both the figures and the text but Joburg's graffiti is a reflection of its community. Graffiti art owes a lot to hiphop culture and this comes through as well. Who knew our streets are so colourful? Next time you pass a wall which looks decrepit, devoid of paint and covered in graffiti, take another look.



Your local street artists have been working overtime, and maybe next week, who knows? These images may have been painted over ...



The artists use every bit of available space, like this clever use of a door.









And then there is "tagging", without which no respectable graffiti artist can look at himself in the mirror ...







Who knew an outside wall, or the wall of your house, could look so great?



Sometimes the images look a little scary ...