Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Stanford Wine Route Launch: Boschrivier

The Cape has its 21st Wine route - In Stanford
Every now and then we find ourselves at the beginning of something exciting. A new restaurant, new wine release, a new B&B, but this was something different, the launch of a whole new wine Route. About a year ago we decided to go an explore the Stanford area and to be frank it was not a huge success as while there have always been some excellent wine farms to visit in the area, they were not organised. The winery was open but the restaurant wasn't. Some closed mid week and also in the winter because of lack of visitors or customers. How things have changed. Now that they have an official wine route it should encourage people to take that short trip from Cape Town to just the other side of Hermanus to discover a new area, an area which produces some great wines beer and some very good food and produce.
We were invited with some other media to come on a 3 day trip to discover Stanford's new wine route and signed up with alacrity. Little did we know how much we were going to enjoy ourselves.
They organised a bus with a trailer to take all our luggage and we met outside the Aquarium in the Waterfront
We drove over Sir Lowry's Pass into the spring green wheat fields of the Botrivier area, where the dams are full in a year which has seen very little rain. You can get to Stanford by going through Hermanus; we came on the N2, turned off at Caledon onto the R316 and headed for the R326 to our first stop
and there are vistas of wheatfields with the mountains of the Southern end of Africa in the distance
Our first stop was at Boschrivier, which is owned by a Paediatrician, Theo de Villiers who, with his handsome son Laing, runs this small wine farm, making a four star Shiraz, a Cabernet, a Sauvignon Blanc and a new Rosé made by consultant winemaker Mike Dobrovic
This is the tasting room and coffee shop, where you can stop and buy their wines
The oak trees were just bursting into green leaf
And the spring barley was becoming fat and ripe
They drove us all to the top of their hill for the most marvellous views of he valley and beyond

And the lovely staff from the tasting room were there to serve us the wines
Klein Rivier cheese were there to give us a tasting of some of their 14 products. They have recently changed hands and it will be interesting to see what changes, if any, they make to the cheeses. The Gruyere has been renamed Gruberg at the request of the EC as the name Gruyere is protected. The new owners are the Baleta family. Peter and Maggie who run Klein River Cheese with the help of their three adult children Hannah, Nicholas and Matthew, and a longstanding team of committed employees
You can buy slices of these cheeses 
or for special occasions, the whole rounds
Also at this event were all the new members of the Stanford Wine route. This is Tariro Masayiti General manager and winemaker of Springfontein, who is the Chairman of the Wine Route with Reinhard Odendaal of Birkenhead Brewery
Tariro introduced everyone and told us about Stanford and all its attractions, which we would be visiting over the next three days
Everyone enjoying the good weather, the wine and the cheese next to the dam
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

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