.: Lunch with Genevieve MCC

A wet ride in 2 buses up the N2 to Bot River

Full of happy smiling media

Warm welcome with a glass of Genevieve Method Cap Classique

Innovative canapés: Mushroom and lemon thyme mousse with humus, served as one journo commented, condom style in a leek

Oyster cream inside a shell of potato crisps dusted with celery salt. But where was the spherical pearl?

In front of a beautiful old house,

a huge marquee was set up for the large party

Cathryn Henderson accepts a top up of Genevieve
while Graham Howe and Yegas Naidoo await theirs

Melissa Nelsen tells us all about the history of Genevieve,
named after the patron Saint of Paris.

The beautiful table decorations echo the flavours and aromas in Genevieve

Lunch is served

First course is a Bouche of really excellent Goats' cheese with yellow beetroot, tarragon pickled almonds and grilled lettuce and topped with crisp noodles

A great selection of bread

Corlien Morris raises a toast

Genevieve 2010 is poured

Chef David Higgs flew down from the Saxon Hotel in Johannesburg especially to cook for the function. He is an old friend of Melissa’s

He tells us about the food pairings

Summer lemons

Genevieve 2009 is poured for the main course

Melissa's partner, viticulturalist Leon Engelke

Waiting for the next course

Quite a few bottles were consumed

Main Course was a Confit of Pork, meltingly tender served with honeyed well baked sweet potatoes, baby carrots of varied colours, a savoury jus and an excellent ginger beer gel. It was topped with pork skin popcorn, a bridge too far for those of us who don’t want our crackling subjected to molecular gastronomy, it had little flavour

Mike Bampfield Duggan of Wine Concepts

Melissa did get to sit down and eat

Now let me tell you...

Dessert was a Macadamia and Halva parfait with pear mousse and a lemon verbena custard and was very rich and sweet . It was topped with thin slices of poached apples and pears and was the best matched dish of the day as it went perfectly with the Genevieve 2008