The entire Hemel & Aarde valley celebrates Pinot
Noir each year for three days in February. You really have to be in the know
however, as they only sell 150 tickets but for the princely sum of R1800 you
can spend Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday at farms tasting
Pinot Noir, attending comparative, vertical, horizontal and foreign tastings
and eating superb food. We did hear it said that they would like to widen the
audience in the future and we hope they do. We certainly would like to
experience more Pinot Noir, but were delighted to be invited to Creation’s event
on Saturday evening where we tasted four vintages of their four different Pinot
Noirs and had an excellent dinner.
A lovely welcome with inventive
canapés and glasses of either the Creation white blend of Sauvignon &
Semillon 2014, served with a mini clam and asparagus tart and tomato, basil and
pepper on a parmesan shortbread or their excellent 2014 Chardonnay, which is
soft and buttery and full of citrus. It went very well with the smoke butternut
soup and the smidgen of crayfish with avo and aioli on a tiny toast round –
messy but divine
Time to take our seats inside for the
tasting at this very well attended function
Waiting for proceedings to begin
Carolyn Martin opened the evening and
gave us background on their pinot noirs
A view of the vineyards and a cottage
that overlooks Creation
Harvest has just begun and the vines
are heavy with grapes
The Creation Pinot Noirs for tasting and the menu
We
started with the 2013, the Reserve 2013, the Creation Art of Pinot Noir 2013,
Emma’s Pinot Noir 2012 and the Reserve Pinot 2011. The 2013 has gentle fruit
whiffs of brandy and smoke and concentrated sharp red cherries with long
flavours. Needs time and will mature beautifully. The 2013 Reserve has incense
wood and vanilla ice on top of cherries jubilee. Smooth as silk with red and
black cherries long warm flavours. Drinking well now.
The Art of Pinot Noir 2013 is their
best wine, full of perfume, violets and wood on the nose. Its made to last and
has forest floor notes, chalky tannins, and darker fruit than the others more
rhubarb with the cherries. Its the most elegant wine too and will age superbly.
Emma the Martin’s daughter made this
wine when she was 10 in 2012 and it is full of soft brûléed fruit, lots of cherries,
very approachable and enjoyable.
The Reserve 2011 shows what the 2013
will become. Cherries and vanilla, rich and similar to the 2013 just smoother
with nice wood support. Still toasty with a little liquorice on the end.
Winemaker/owner Jan Claude Martin
talks us through the tasting
He has a passion for Pinot Noir
Carolyn then ended the tasting by
telling us we could order more of the wines to drink with supper and also any
of their other wines should be care to. We also were given a taste of their just
about to be released Art of Creation 2014 Chardonnay which has herbal notes and
full of golden apples, crisp citrus and elegance
Laden vines
Car park in the vines!
Remington Norman was enjoying the
tasting
This is a special boxed set of their two
Art of Creation wines, the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay, available on the farm
Supper arrives and it was the best
duck we have had in years in the Cape. Apparently it is sourced from Wild
Peacock and is free range. It was accompanied by red cabbage (classic with duck), a beetroot puree, pinot noir grapes and a cranberry jus and served on
Boulangere potatoes and shiitake mushrooms. Such a good match for the Pinot
Noirs.
Dessert was a savoury panna cotta, a
strange shiitake tuille, goats milk cheese hard and soft with roast figs, pomegranate
aruls and a blueberry soup. The figs were delicious with the slab of panna
Cotta
The sunset down the valley is always
a slight worth seeing
Carolyn and Daniela checking the tweets
We had a long chat with the Chef Warwick
Taylor about his food and the pairings
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