.: Sue Anderson’s trade wine tasting at Burrata Restaurant

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Sue Anderson’s trade wine tasting at Burrata Restaurant

Sue Anderson’s trade wine tasting at Burrata Restaurant in the Old Biscuit Mill precinct was held on Tuesday. Neil Grant, formerly the sommelier at Rust en Vrede, opened this restaurant with a Southern Italian theme recently, in the tunnel which leads to Luke Dale Roberts’ two restaurants. The head chef is Annemarie Steenkamp, who has spent the last 5 years at Quartier Français. We were served very good canapés and some slices thin crisp and smoky pizza during the tasting so it is definitely a place to try if you like good Italian food and great pizza. We might be tempted to have one for lunch when finished working at the Neighbourgoods Market on Saturdays. If we are not watching carbs...
Sue has a nice compact list of wine farms and it was a delight to start our tasting, as we love to do, with a bubbly, in fact three from Colmant in Franschhoek.

We especially loved his seriously sauvage Blanc de Blanc which spends 45 months on the lees and if JP could afford to leave it there, would spend a great many more. His lovely Brut Rosé has intense flavours of caramel strawberries and would be amazing served with dessert.

Then on to have a laugh and a chat with Duncan Savage of Cape Point and to familiarise ourselves again with some of our favourite Cape wines. The 2011 Sauvignon Blanc has just been released and completely lives up to its reputation as one of the best. It needs a little time to settle but now is the time to buy it.

The 2011 Reserve Sauvignon Blanc, full of grapes, figs and blue cheese nuances, was made in very old barrels so wood is not apparent. Their Chardonnay 2011 is just to our taste, being lean, mean and has great minerality. It certainly needs some time but we loved the crisp fruit and melted butter notes.

And then there is the Isleidh 2011. It is, without doubt, one of the best white blends we have tasted this year. It has a shy figgy nose, crisp and creamy fruit with well balanced acidity of limes and lemons and lovely almost jelly-like glycerols from the Semillon that so beautifully finish this elegant wine.

John asked Lynne lately why he hadn’t yet heard those magic words “Birthday wine” and she said she would have loved to have asked for a case of the Stork Shiraz from Hartenberg, but the price is just out of our range. But Isleidh is her definite choice for 2012 and John has now placed an order for 6.

We tasted Howard Booysens’ 2011 Riesling again and still love it. We are delighted to see that he is being stocked by Caroline.

Joubert-Tradeau have a good woody chardonnay, not shy at all; its good acidity and complexity make it a good food match.

We think one to watch is the R62 white blend, which has white peaches on the nose and is a bit unsettled at the moment but, when everything finally comes together, may be a very good wine. Their 2008 Shiraz also shows aging potential.

We found Andreas Shiraz full of flavour, deep and full of sweet fruit, spices and black pepper it is long and hot with a peppery end.

Finally to Louis Nel’s excellent wines. His 2011 Sauvignon Blanc is full of fruit and lean acidity with a classis Sauvignon end.

The Black Forest Cab Merlot blend is very good value at an average trade price of R60 and friends in the trade tell us they sell lots of this popular wine. We found sweet and sour fruits with chalky tannins and green mint in the Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend and the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon has lots of cassis, expensive wood on the nose and the cassis stays on the mid palate as well as leaves of the black current plants. It is still young and needs to meld a bit more but is turning into a very good wine.

Stephen Digby and Morné came all the way from Manuka at Southey's in Somerset West