Open tasting of the range of Cabo Esperança Wines

La Vie en Rose with Kyle

Kyle Martin has long been a business friend. He used to sell us wine when we had the shop and has remained a personal friend ever since. Recently, he started up his own wine business, Cabo Esperança Wines representing, initially, four good wine producers: Blackwater Wines, Keermont, Oak Valley and Vondeling. His inaugural trade tasting was held at La Vie Café Bar, on the beachfront at Rocklands, on Monday evening and we tasted some really special and two very unusual wines

La Vie put up a good selection of sushi made by their sushi chef as well as some other canapés

Francois Haasbroek talks about his BlackWater wines. He is also consulting at some other wine producers, including Bloemendal in Durbanville

Some interested tasters of his wines. We loved his very different wine made from Bourboulenc grapes, the first to be made in South Africa from this ancient varietal

We met Alex Starey, winemaker at Keermont, Stellenbosch for the first time and tasted the Keermont wines. They are on the same road as De Trafford, to whom they supply grapes, and there is a huge similarity in the intense flavours of these wines; the terroir also shows .  Previously, they exported all their wines, so it is good to see these now available for the local market. Several people were interested in putting them on their lists

Straight from their holiday in Swellendam and then the Elim Festival are Louise and Mark Herd of Sunset Beach Wine & Deli, seen here with Christopher Rawbone-Viljoen of Oak Valley

observed by James Pietersen

Sue Proudfoot of Wine Concepts talks to Jane Eedes on the Vondeling table, while winemaker Matthew Copeland chats to other members of the trade. They had their Methode Ancestral for tasting and it was very popular

Francois Haasbroek with Rian du Plessis of Pick n Pay, Waterfront

A merry band of wine people: Jane Eedes, Kyle Martin, Matthew Coleman and Lynne at the Vondeling table

The Cabo Esperança wine list

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Text and Photographs © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014