New spring menu at Joostenberg - lunch with Susan & Christophe Dehosse

After breakfast at L’Avenir’s Lodge we did some cheese shopping at Parmalat’s Simonsberg cheese factory shop in Stellenbosch and then drove through to Joostenberg, where Susan and Chef Christophe Dehosse had invited us to join them for lunch to try out their new menu in their recently refurbished restaurant. It was lovely to discover that Hartenberg cellarmaster Carl Schultz and his wife Karen had also been invited, as well as co-owner/winemaker Tyrrel Myburgh’s wife Anette. Tyrell was in the USA, marketing their wines. We had a very gemütlich lunch with lovely food, good wine and wonderful company – all the ingredients of a wonderful meal

Enjoying a glass of Joostenberg wine with Christophe and Susan Dehosse

A view of the restaurant before it filled up

Our lunch menu

Banting seed biscuits with Pork Rillons, chick pea and feta dip, aubergine paté and smoked salmon trout tartare were our appetisers.

The rillons were crisp, sticky and moist and superbly flavoured

Carl Schultz, cellarmaster at Hartenberg

The chef, Christophe Dehosse who, like us, is following the Banting regime and is finding it a great success

A seafood nage (broth) with very fresh silverfish and tiny pearl pickled onions. So enjoyable and so redolent of the sea. This is one dish that needs a nice piece of bread to mop up all those juices and sauce, but we resisted.

Long and slow-braised lamb – Christophe cooked this overnight for more than 12 hours - on a herby minty tabbouleh topped with a red pepper compote and a meaty thyme jus

Susan and Carl chatting about the industry

The perfect Dehosse dessert: Properly made vanilla ice cream with no shortcuts, with fresh seasonal strawberries topped with a crisp caramel almond tuille. Might just become a Ford family favourite. “Simple well made food using perfect ingredients is the way to go” says Christophe. Enjoyed with the deliciously golden Joostenberg Noble Late Harvest

Chatting over a bottle of Joostenberg’s wonderful Noble Late Harvest dessert wine, made from Chenin Blanc, after a lovely relaxed lunch. A place to meet your friends and family, eat a good meal and ‘kuier’ (visit)

 Christophe’s Chef Garth Bedford,

 who cooked our meal so that Christophe could be with us

What we drank with our meal: Joostenberg Family Blend, Joostenberg Fairhead 2011, Joostenberg Syrah 2013 and the Noble Late Harvest. All match the food so well and all are available to drink in the restaurant or to buy in the Deli next door, which has a lovely selection of foods made by Christophe and his team. We really recommend his classic pork pies and his Pork Rillette, amongst many other good things

and, while were having fun, the restaurant had filled up with hungry, happy customers

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

Luxury in the Guesthouse at L'Avenir

L’Avenir have wanted us to come and stay at their Lodge for a while and this was the perfect occasion to do so, as driving back to Cape Town after their tour de force wine tasting, which finished rather late, was not an option. We were given one of the best rooms in the Lodge and had a superbly comfortable stay

There is a bright and sparkling pool at the entrance, with lovely views over the lake

A covered verandah for breakfast or just for relaxing on warm days

The rooms are all named after wines. Our room “Grand Vin Pinotage” had a huge bed and a sitting room area, where we were able to work producing MENU on our laptops

A huge bathroom with deep relaxing bath and a rain shower

Our own private terrace with plunge pool, outdoor shower and loungers

and a view of the vineyards

Another of the rooms, “Grand Vin Chenin blanc”

Another view

Lots of space in another room, “Chenin Blanc”

Its bathroom

Each of the front rooms has its own private terrace. That was ours on the left

The lake view

It is a short walk to the tasting room and the wine cellar

The magnificent Stellenbosch mountains in moody Spring weather

Here comes a rain squall

The breakfast buffet bar

Superb freshly baked French pastries

The Lodge dining room

It was a very damp grey morning, so we ate inside

Lynne’s classic cooked English breakfast

John’s bacon and cheese omelette

L’Avenir’s resident grey heron

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

Vertical pinotage tasting at L'Avenir with Francois Naude

To have the opportunity to go back to 1996 and taste all the eight L’Avenir Pinotages which have reached the top 10 in the ABSA Top 10 Pinotage competition over the last few years was a very special opportunity. We were very fortunate to have Mauritian-born former owner Marc Wiehe with us. He bought the farm in 1992. It had been growing grapes for Nederburg in Paarl. Pharmacist Francois Naude, who had more passion for making wine than for pushing pills, was hired as winemaker and a legacy was born. By 2004, no Pinotage had been named in the top ten in the annual Top Ten Pinotage Competition as frequently as L'Avenir, with seven out of eight vintages in the Top Ten.

Marc Wiehe sold the farm in 2005 to French winemaker, Chablisien Michel Laroche. In 2010 Laroche merged with the Jeanjean family and L'Avenir fell under the umbrella of the AdVini group, one of the largest wine producers in France.

We started with the 1996, which still shows soft fruit, soft tannins and has the Pinot parent peeping through, more than the Cinsaut. It still has some time to offer! It’s an old style, but has lovely fruit. We then tasted through 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 & 2011. All these Pinotages were made by Francois Naude, who guided us through the tasting, with the exception of the 2011, which was made by the current winemaker Dirk Coetzee. You can see the progression of these wines as the vines aged and matured and the change in style as the years went by and more was learned about how to treat this difficult grape, in the vineyard, in the cellar and in the bottle. L’Avenir produces great Pinotage.

The tasting was held in their tasting room and it was followed by supper on the terrace – thankfully with lots of space heaters. The food had been catered by Bertus Basson’s staff and was delicious.

Pieter Louw welcomed us with a glass of the new L’Avenir Blanc de Blanc Methode Cap Classique or the better-known pinotage-based Rosé

The wines we tasted

Tables all set up in the Tasting Room

Current winemaker Dirk Coetzee introduces Francois Naude, who joined Marc Wiehe when he bought the farm in 1992. It was Francois' first wine job; he was trained and had practised as a pharmacist, but wine was his passion. He inherited a 50 year old block of bush vine Pinotage on the farm and had to learn how to work with it. They also planted new pinotage vines. The old vineyard has now gone. Francois was also able to plan the farm as he wanted and has played a huge part in the style of L’Avenir’s wines. He made the first pinotage in 1994.

Mark Wiehe who sold the Farm to La Roche in 2005. It is now owned by Advini

Francois tells us about his time as winemaker at L’Avenir. He is now a consultant to the farm. He says he looks for good balance, good fruit and consistency in wine

We began with the 1996

The tasting proceeds. We could see the progression through the years as the vines matured and the new pinotage took centre stage from the older one. The description of warm sweet fruit kept recurring. 2000, 2001 and 2002 are showing really well. The 2000 is almost Cabernet-like on the nose, but big, intense, spicy and plummy on the palate. Lynne scored the 2002 18.5 and her description is: Violets, macaroons, raspberry and cherry on the nose. Very elegant, pretty and quite French in character. It shows some forest floor, warm sweet fruit with lovely spice and pine nuts. Elegance and depth. Very close to a good Pinot Noir with some cassis on the end. (And this from a cautious Pinotage drinker)

Sales and Marketing Manager Barend Barnard

The line up

Christian Eedes, Co-owner and editor at Winemag.co.za with Francois

Time for dinner. The menu

Another L’Avenir wine for tasting with dinner, their excellent 1992 Cabernet

Chef lines up the food to go out

First course:  a well flavoured steak tartare topped with radishes beetroot , pickles and spicy nasturtium leaves

Dinner was set up on the terrace

Barend brings us more L’Avenir wines to drink with dinner. Thank heavens we were staying the night in the Lodge

Francois with photo-journalist Samarie Smith

We all get to know each other

Dessert was a vanilla pannacotta topped with zesty lemon and orange ice cream

Winemakers discussing the wines at the end of a great evening

M. Wiehe in fine fettle

and comparing stories of the old and new

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014