Singita Game Reserves Sommelier, Chris Ford, was selected as one of only 20 participants to attend the prestigious 2010 Wine Judging Academy hosted by Wine Magazine and leading wine critic Michael Fridjhon in Cape Town recently.  Ford, who joined Singita in 2006 as the very first candidate of Singita Premier Wine’s Sommelier Trainee Programme, is the second Singita Sommelier to be selected for this honour and to have passed this tough exam with flying colours. In 2008 Francois Rautenbach, who is responsible for Singita’s Sommelier Training Programme and who heads up Singita Premier Wine Direct, was the first Singita candidate to be selected to attend the Wine Judging Academy.
Launched in 2007, the key objective of the Wine Judging Academy is to increase the number of competent judges at work in the industry, thereby raising the standard of local judging. With that, the 20 annual participants are selected on merit every year, as determined by the organisers. This year the two and half day course included intensive tasting of over 250 South African and international wines.  Specifically ‘spiked’ samples of control wine were also tasted to highlight a variety of faults occurring in wines, covering both its causes and organoleptic evaluation.
Singita Game Reserves is known as one of the most influential buyers of wine in the country, and although it is primarily recognised internationally for providing ‘the best safari experience in Africa’, it is equally renowned for its superb wine collection and a wine list that encompasses approximately 200 labels.

Wine is a key ingredient of the Singita guest experience, featuring the Singita Premier Wine Boutique at Singita Sabi Sand, as well as trained Sommeliers and extensive wine cellars on site at each Singita lodge, showcasing a premium selection of wines, including some of South Africa’s most sought-after private reserves and limited release wines. Indicative of this, to date Singita is the only hospitality organization in South Africa to have had two members selected to participate in the Wine Tasting Academy.

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