Lunch with Saronsberg wines at the Cape Grace

Saronsberg’s winemaker Dewaldt Heyns welcomes us with their crisp and delightful MCC Brut 2009, a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir

This is what we do for a living... well, some of us

The Brut MCC, showing some of the prestigious awards it has received.

We begin the tasting and the tweeting ..

... and the conversation, while the Restaurant Manager, Martin Drotsky, and PRO Nicolette Waterford pour the wines

Dewaldt is extremely knowledgeable about his wines and his terroir and his soils and explained what they are trying to achieve in a very interesting way.

The line up of wines we tasted

Winemaker Dewaldt Heyns with Mariette and Nick van Huysteen, the owners of Saronsberg

We then moved into the Signal restaurant for lunch

Correct glasses for the tasting and some gifts to take home afterwards

The menu and the wines the courses were paired with

One of the wines we especially loved was the Shiraz rosé, which tastes just like a ripe red plum with savoury notes. This pairing of the ripe tomato, baby beets and strawberry sorbet completely echoed that wine and was a brilliant pairing. Tomato is notoriously hard to pair with wine, this is a real find AND is only R45 a bottle on the farm. This dish was originally going to be the starter for the vegetarians among us, but was so successful that they served it to everyone, together with the Smoked salmon trout and prawn starter. That went superbly with the Viognier which is elegant and restrained and not overfull or over wooded.

Mike Bampfield Duggan and Nick van Huysteen enjoying lunch with other members of the media

The main course of tender Chalmar sirloin in a good rich jus and roasted figs went so well with the beautifully made savoury Grenache 2011. The other good wine paired with this course was the Full Circle 2011 which is a Michelangelo Platinum award winning Rhône blend of Shiraz, Grenache, Mourvedre and a soupçon of Viognier and is made to go with meat dishes like this.

Shanté Hutton Of Wine.co.za chats to Christian Eedes

So nice to have the wines served in the correct glasses. It does make a huge difference

Dessert was a poem of textures and flavours. The crisp cream filled choux bun with a crunchy coating was stuffed full with white chocolate cheesecake and accompanied by a nicely balanced slightly sour peach and vanilla paste with a dollop of burnt honey ice cream. Served with the epic 2006Six Point Three straw wines it echoed all those flavours and the wine added more of the same flavours and sweetness the each mouthful. The exciting Brut 2010 was a good counterpoint to the dish, taking away any cloying richness with its crisp beady full palate. 

All in all it was a pretty damned fine tasting and meal with some great wines. Thank you Dewaldt, Saronsberg and Cape Grace chefs.

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014