Geeks and wine

A notable feature of my recent social events seems to be the common theme of geeks and wine. Could this be 2009’s cheese and wine?

Last night was no exception when Delheim wine was served up at the bi-monthly GeekDinner. A delicious Merlot 2006 (and I am not typically a Merlot fan) as well as Sauvignon Blanc/Chenin blend. I am a bit of a glutton for red wine at the moment, so I stupidly forgot to taste the wine - will have to remedy that soon.

The list of geek-friendly South African wine seems to be growing: Stormhoek, of course: Perdeberg (not sure why they don’t sponsor GeekDinners any more but hooray for Delheim), Moreson has turned up now and again, and now Delheim.

Nice.

In my opinion Geek dinners are the black horse of the current Cape Town social media circuit. Always incredibly fun - and funny, you have to witness the slideshow karaoke at least once - and with the widest variety of topics at a dinner/networking event I have come across.

Last night was no exception, with Mandy Watson taking impromptu to a new level and testing out her new presentation pointer, slide mover thing in front of a live audience. It’s called an Apacer Wireless Presenter. You can see why she is queen of the tech reviews with her astute observations and questions about the technology’s capabilities.

Next up was Wessel Venter talking about Aspergers syndrome. Discussing it later, Kerry-Anne and I agreed that we live in amazing times where increasingly there is no normal.

Wessel was followed by poster child for “Saffers taking the world by storm with a pocket full of VC money”, Vinnie Lingham. Vinnie, head of Synthasite … I mean Yola, held a lively question and answer session about his move to Silicon Valley and observations on what’s up in SA. I am not sure he is totally convinced that Silicon Valley beats Silicon Cape Town hands down though.

And of course the ever-present Springleap team provided the geek schwag for the evening.