Wellington harvest festival

On Sunday, we hied off to Wellington for their festival, saw some lovely people and drank some lovely wines. First stop was  Diemersfontein,

where we were welcomed by a very trim David Sonnenberg, enjoyed the full tasting, ate a little sushi and left with a couple of bottles of Carpe Diem Chenin blanc, quite glorious. Then, off to Bovlei

where Bubbly and Oysters were on offer –

our friends and John demolished 12 each (at a bargain R7 each) in very short order, while we tasted some of the wines and bought a box of their inexpensive Gewürztraminer to serve with winter curries and some of their good white grape juice for our teetotal friends. We left with a wicked packet of slap chips, BAD. Down the valley to Dunstone, where we had a quick tasting and ate nothing.

Then to gorgeous Nabygelegen to admire their restored ancient tasting room, which was a ruin when we were last there. James McKenzie has done a great and sympathetic restoration.

We tasted the wines and Lynne bought a case of their really good Merlot, which doesn’t show any green stalkiness or mint and is full of sweet ripe fruit and some chalky tannins, pointing to a short life in our cellar before drinking. We could also not resist the prawns, calamari and mussels they were serving, so had plates of those, well-matched with a bottle of the Lady Anna chenin sauvignon blend for the three passengers. The problem with the grazing on each farm is that you spend quite a lot of money, but in this case it was really good value and worth it. Yes, they came with more chips. Not a vegetable in sight in Wellington... Our final stop was at Welbedacht where we chatted with Rob Gower who is working there at the moment and also Schalk Burger senior, his winemaker son Tiaan

and, of course, Mugabe the shar pei (Schalk says he is planning to take over the farm)

while we tasted through the wines. John bought a box of the barrel matured Chenin. Stormers captain, Schalk junior, who is recovering from an injury sustained in the first Super 15 match of the season, had the afternoon off. What a friendly place Wellington is.