.: Cellarbake@Nitida

At last, a new and innovative way to showcase wine, this time with cake, dessert and other baked goods. You bought an elegant champagne flute and five tokens for R100 and you could do five pairings of wine with a small tasting portion of cake, tart, pie etc. We had one each and we shared the 10 tastings but you could buy more tokens and taste everything and you could buy full sized portions of cakes, tarts, puddings, cookies, bread or ice creams to enjoy with a glass of wine. Well known top artisanal bakers gathered from around the Cape to showcase their signature dishes paired perfectly by culinary connoisseur and Cellarbake Wine Consultant Michael Olivier, with Nitida and Môreson wines. You could also do a huge high tea for only R165. Make a note for your diary next year, we do hope this successful event happens again. Nitida owners and founders of Cellarbake, Peta and Bernhard Veller were thrilled Cellarbake@Nitida was received so well by all who were in search of something satisfyingly new and they look forward to its growth and development as an annual festival.

This was what was on offer at the High Tea

This carrot cake was one of the best confections of the day

Small bites of fruit crumble

Chocolate and fresh fig cake

Strawberry and truffle brioche

Very vanilla cheesecake

Rooibos scones and cream with grape preserve

Mini apple and frangipani tarts

Sitting on the terrace by the lake at Nitida

Cookies topped with jelly

Great baskets were for sale from the Association for the Blind stand

Nitida tasting room manager Inga and trainee winemaker Faith offered tastings of all the Nitida and Môreson wines

Chocolate and different teas were also for sale

Tracy Raphaely of Nomu, her son and their friendly staff on their Nomu stand had lots of interesting cakes made from their excellent new range of boxed mixes

They all looked very, very delicious

And there was live music all day

We then ventured into the crowded tasting room. Lynne is chatting to the Nitida winemaker Brendan Butler

This chicken liver paté from Arugula Bistro was Lynne’s favourite of the day. Neil Swart, the owner, also had some amazing ice cream. His salted caramel was so moreish that we might have to visit the shop to eat some more

He makes good bread too

These, from The Ginger Girl Bakery, went very well with the Nitida Coronata Integration 2012

This was the best match of the day. Stefan Thietz at Cassia restaurant on Nitida paired his Baby apple and frangipani tarts with Nitida 2013 Chardonnay. A complete echo of flavours and textures

The full sized cakes were very pretty and tempting but you could not do too many. The smaller tasting portions are on the left hand side

Beautifully brightly colour icing always appeals

A very popular choice was the extremely rich baked Cheesecake from Whipped Patisserie paired with Nitida’s classic Sauvignon Blanc

Red velvet cupcake topped with a rather crusty ganache

Cakes and tarts to take home with you

Mini and maxi cupcakes

We took a small lunch break and admired two pretty ducks on the lake

Cakepops

Tina, Queen of Tarts' delicious salted caramel tarts and chocolate & berry meringues

John’s favourite and Lynne’s second favourite. A very spicy, and well filled with nuts, moist iced carrot cake from Tables at Nitida which was a lovely match for the Nitida 2012 Shiraz