Shew! Finally Team SA has arrived and is reunited – in Paris! - after various separate journeys.
Day 1 of the prelude to the World Wine Tasting Championships was celebrated in the City of Love with Champagne on the banks of the river Seine. Not even lack of sleep and tired, jet-lagged bodies could contain our excitement – which was amplified at the foot of the Eiffel Tower as we sipped more Champagne.
A whirlwind tour of Paris, culminating in dinner at the eponymous Philippe Faure-Brac restaurant – one of the few restaurants in the world where you find this rare share of traits, Philippe being both owner and wine advisor/sommelier.
The documentary crew from Red Obsession joined Team South Africa at dinner, at which they observed us training and tasting our way through wines from Savennieres, Chateauneuf-du-pape, Barossa and even some SA favourites from Stellenbosch and the Swartland (shout-out to the Mullineuxs!). Even with our lack of sleep catching up with us, we made our team captain, Anita, and our coach, Jean-Vincent, proud.
We missed Team Zimbabwe who was stranded-in-transit in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, following a flight delay. They managed to have a whistle-stop tour of the capital, even tasting some Ethiopian wines along the way!
From Tinashe Nyamudoka (Team Zim): 'It's been an awesome day in Addis. A difficult city to navigate around because of traffic but still full of history. We managed to visit the museum, the African Union headquarters, Lion of Judah and of course, drank some wine from the Rift Valley.'
We look forward to have them join this amazing journey today (10 October), as we make our way through Champagne and to the Mosel.