Wine · Bot River
What the glass cannot tell you
A wine is a series of decisions made by a person you have never met. Here is how to taste those decisions.
Johan Botha · 28 February 2026 · 5 min read
Every glass carries the fingerprints of a hundred small decisions: pick date, stem inclusion, ferment temperature, barrel age, time before bottling.
You do not need a qualification to notice them. Texture tells you about lees and time. Grip tells you about stems and skins. Freshness tells you about the morning the fruit came in.
Once you start tasting decisions rather than descriptors, wine stops being a memory test and starts being a conversation.
Taste the choices, not just the fruit.
- Wine
- Tasting
- Bot River
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