Tuesday, December 22, 2015

John & Lynne's Christmas letter

John & Lynne Ford
60 Arthurs Road, Sea Point, Cape Town 8005
+27 21 439 3169  ●  +27 83 229 1172  ●  +27 83 656 4169
17th December 2015
A mathematician friend once explained that the years pass by so quickly as one ages because each successive year is a smaller percentage of one’s elapsed time. We suspect that this is influenced by the amount of activity one has fitted into the year. John having reached the age of 70 in a year in which we have done an unprecedented number of things (as those of you who read our MENU will know) has seen 2015 whizz by and events of a year ago seem as though we only just did them.
Right now, we are having a short summer holiday in a small self-catering flat a few metres from the beach at Paternoster, on the Cape’s West Coast, enjoying a week of minimal activity, enjoying each other’s company and, of course, enhancing the time with some good food and wine.

We have visited some wonderful places in this country (Bartholomeu’s Klip, The Karoo, Robertson, Stanford, Heidelberg, Elgin, Hemel & Aarde) and had some very special experiences, like having dinner on Queen Mary 2, 
but the highlight was a three week trip to Istanbul and Greece. We flew with Turkish Airlines and had five days in Istanbul before going to Greece for two weeks. The flight was good, but we started our Turkish experience with a small hiccup. John applied for his Turkish visa on the internet and received it in 15 minutes. Lynne was told (by the airline and the Embassy) that she didn’t need one with her British passport. Wrongly. After queuing for about an hour to pass through immigration at 4 am, she was sent back to the beginning of the queue to buy a visa and then had to queue for another hour while John waited. Brits be warned!
We rented a small self-catering apartment 10 minutes walk from Kumkapı, the square which is full of restaurants. We walked all over the centre of the city and used all forms of the excellent and affordable public transport, which uses a similar card system to our MyCiti card and the British Oyster pass. We ate some very good and some fairly ordinary street food and had one excellent lunch at a restaurant called Asitane, which features classic Ottoman cuisine. Naturally, we visited all the palaces and mosques, took a wonderfully enjoyable boat trip on the Bosporus, did most of the “must dos” and took hundreds of photographs.
After a late afternoon flight to Athens, we took a long, slow bus ride to Piraeus and then a very round the houses ride in a taxi to the hotel near the port in which we had booked a room. Early next morning, we walked the distance from hotel to port in less time than the duration of the taxi ride and boarded the (very relaxing) ferry to Santorini. We made a mistake of not checking TripAdvisor when we booked our Santorini accommodation. A long story which you can see in our blog, but it was not great. Santorini was already full of visitors, many of them Chinese, and the narrow roads were clogged with traffic and kamikaze riders on scooters and quad bikes. Santorini is beautiful and we found some good places to eat and some very good wines. We walked on most of the three days, took a boat ride to the currently dormant volcano and rented a small car for one day to see the far end of the island.
You can see the details of this and all other aspects of our trip, if you wish, by clicking on the links at the end of this letter.
After Santorini, we spent two days on Naxos and could have spent longer. It is smaller, quieter and we had wonderful accommodation, which made a tremendous difference. We took a bus ride to the centre of the island to see some of the real, less touristy aspects and walked round the main village and seafront. Next time we will stick to smaller islands. This was John’s first trip to Turkey and Greece, Lynne had lots to introduce him to.
 Then it was on to Athens for a couple of days, seeing the obligatory sights, 
before taking the train to Corinth to visit our friend Terry who lives in the Peloponnese in Diakofto, a village on the shore of the Gulf of Corinth. He has intimate knowledge of the area and its history and took us to places and people we would not have been able to see on our own. We spent several days in Mycenae and visited many of the historical sites, like the stupendous amphitheatre at Epidavros, built with incredible precision over 2500 years ago. It was a wonderful trip and we are very grateful to him. Fortunately, we can reciprocate when he visits us here. (That dot standing in the middle of the stage is me – Lynne).
The early part of the year is when our friends from the Northern Hemisphere visit us and we were very happy to see and entertain several of you this year – and look forward to seeing even more in 2016. With the collapse of the Rand through the dreadful mismanagement of our economy by the government and, especially, our embarrassment of a president, we have become a very affordable destination.
The year has been marked by the arrival of a new great nephew, James, son to Richard and Candy, and grandson to brother Bill and Stephanie. It has also, very sadly, been marked by the loss of old friends, especially John & Bill’s childhood friend Harry Robertson in Hawaii. We celebrate the arrivals and mourn the departures. Another sad premature departure from kidney failure, was the demise of Hamish, our beautiful ginger cat, at the end of last year. This was followed by the happy arrival of another full-of-character ginger, Rory with the magnificent tail. It is hard to believe that the tiny kitten who arrived in January is now this long, elegant creature, who is as soft as butter and so affectionate.
John’s 70th birthday last month was an occasion for great festivity, with Bill and Stephanie coming from Johannesburg to join us for the weekend. We had a small family dinner, followed by a lunch party the next day for a couple of dozen friends. Lynne made some wonderful food and a few of our best wines in our cellar played their part.
Just a few days after his birthday, John had a truly life-changing experience: a second cataract operation. His right eye had a new lens implanted in 2011; now it was time for the left eye. After wearing spectacles for 60 years, he is now able to see clearly without them, thanks to a very good surgeon and lenses from Mr Zeiss. You will only know the sense of freedom when you’ve lived with the restriction. After years of being short-sighted, he now uses reading specs when the light is a bit dim. Lynne is steeling herself for the same procedure and is still not quite persuaded that the procedure is as quick and as painless as it is. (I am a coward and will wait for the last possible moment and lots of tranquilizers. L). We are both very fit and active with just a few indications of age creeping up on us, like stiff bones in the morning). The only medication we take is Omega 3 oil capsules and fresh fruit and veg. We could be slimmer but look what we do for a living: eating and drinking professionally is rather a challenge and this year we had five months of events with canapés and both put on about 5 kilos more.
We have made an important change, one for which our country’s infrastructure is partly responsible. When we closed our shop nearly 6 years ago, we took the business on-line. This worked quite well until the Post Office started to disintegrate. It has now reached the stage where one cannot rely on orders reaching customers in good time – and the costs have doubled at the same time, making them disproportionate for small orders. So, sadly, Main Ingredient has all but expired. We still take special (fairly large) orders for food items which cannot easily be accessed by some of our customers, but we are concentrating on writing, photography and tours, which keep us very busy and which we are enjoying. MENU, our weekly newsletter, is reaching a wide audience and the associated blogs are being read by upwards of 15000 people each month, over half of whom are outside South Africa. The Main Ingredient website (www.mainingredient.biz) is now the home of MENU
Next year might well see more travel and we plan to make changes to our house, such as the installation of a photovoltaic electrical system. The capital expense of this is more than justified by the rising cost of electricity, not to mention possible unreliability of our supply. Lynne’s British pensions have given us more cash to achieve things we have planned for a while, and the travel.
So life trots merrily along and we are thoroughly enjoying these senior years, thankful for being able to enjoy them with good health and the means to be comfortable.
We hope that you will have a very good and happy Christmas and that 2016 will be a year in which life brings you health, comfort and a lot of well-being

                        Aegean Odyssey. Day   6: Piraeus to Santorini
                        Aegean Odyssey. Day   8: Santorini. The Caldera and the Volcano
                        Aegean Odyssey. Day   9: Santorini and Naxos
                        Aegean Odyssey. Day 10: Naxos. A bus ride to the interior and a storm
                        Aegean Odyssey. Day 13: Athens to Diakofto
                        Aegean Odyssey. Day 14: Diakofto
                        Aegean Odyssey. Day 15: Ancient Corinth, Mycenae
                        Aegean Odyssey. Day 16: Epidavros
                        Aegean Odyssey. Day 17: Mykine (Mycenae) and its wines

Thursday, December 10, 2015

This week's MENU - Tourism Awards, Alto Wine blending fun, Franschhoek Magic of Bubbles , Thelema Boland Braai, New Nuy tasting venue, Tasting Steenberg wines, Sir Ian Botham walks Kumala wines, Beetroot cured Salmon Gravadlax

A baby owl at Steenberg
To get the whole story with photographs, please click on the paragraph title, which will lead you there. At the end of each story, click on RETURN TO MENU to come back to MENU.
By the end of this week we will have driven to the winelands five times and been transported to the Nuy winery the next day. But our working year is drawing to a close and we are off on our first ever Cape summer holiday together, after 15 years. We have always been working right up to Christmas but, this year, we have managed to book a week on the coast and cannot wait to relax and not think about work. Of course we will post a story on our return.
We hope you will all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, Hanukkah, Yule, Zarathosht Diso or Kwanzaa, or just renewing relaxation, if you are not celebrating the festive season. We are taking a short break until early January and look forward to catching up with you all in 2016.
For those of you who asked, John has made a very quick recovery from his cataract operation and now has almost perfect sight - without the glasses which he has worn since he was 10. It is almost miraculous what they can do nowadays.
Great Wine Capitals & Cape Winelands District Wine Tourism Awards     Last Friday, we were off to Marlenique in Simondium, a conference and wedding venue which was new to us, for the celebration of the awards in these two competitions. The Best Of Wine Tourism awards celebrate innovation and excellence in wine tourism throughout the eight greatest wine regions in the world. These were the awards for the Cape Winelands, which were announced in November. The CWDM Mayoral Tourism Awards celebrate the achievements of tourism businesses in the Cape Winelands tourism industry, showcasing outstanding performers, products and service excellence  ....>
Wine blending fun at Alto Estate, Stellenbosch     Can you blend wine? You can learn to at Alto. Last Saturday, we were invited to join the large group of people who had won the Alto wine blending competition held at the many Hussar Grill restaurants. Some of the Hussar owners and staff were also there. After a meet and greet with a glass of Alto Port, we all went into the cellar to learn how to blend wine. We were met by winemaker Bertho van der Westhuizen, who took over from his father in May this year, and is only the fifth winemaker in the estate’s 80-year history. He took us through the whole process. If you are interested in doing this, contact Alto, Apparently these blending sessions will take place on Saturdays over the season but you need to book  ....>
Sunday at the Magic of Bubbles Festival in Franschhoek     This very popular bubbly festival is always held in what seems to be the hottest time of the year so we were relieved to find the temperature still in the 20's on Sunday. The theme this year was Black and White with a touch of "Bling!" and we must say people did dress accordingly with some very smart attire. They had moved the stage back and there were thankfully lots more tables and umbrellas. We tasted many new releases and a couple of very different Methode Cap Classique bubbles and a couple of classic French champagnes as well  ....>
The annual Thelema Boland Braai     Held at the Thelema manor house every year, the Webb family and their team entertain the wine trade, sommeliers, hoteliers, restaurateurs and some media friends. It is informal and friendly and one of our favourite events each year, but the scary thing is that it seems only a few weeks ago since we were at last year's braai. All the Thelema & Sutherland wines are there for tasting and Gyles Webb gave us a guided tasting of older Sutherland white wines in the spacious lounge  ....>
Opening of the new "On The Hill" Nuy tasting venue     To Nuy for the opening of their new Tasting room. What vision! And what a lovely spot they have chosen for this modern and airy tasting room, deli and restaurant. In the past to get to Nuy (which is at the end of Worcester on the R60 to Robertson) you had to turn off the main road and drive another 7 kilometres to get there. Not many people did. Now you cannot help but see this very well designed building on the hilltop alongside the road and be tempted to stop and enjoy the wines, food and the magnificent view  ....>
Tasting new wines at Steenberg     It was extremely exciting and quite moving to be able to stand one metre away from a just fledged downy baby owl. We were invited to a tasting of Steenberg's new wine range and were served a superb charcuterie platter with the owl perched on a branch just above us.
After you get through the extremely impenetrable security at the front gate, you find yourself in an oasis of green and calmness. We met Caroline van Schalkwyk, the Marketing manager, on arrival and she first took us on a short tour. Steenberg has taken over the running of the Spa, the restaurant and the accommodation and if you want a wine tasting with nibbles, a platter or a meal, you head to Catharina’s restaurant  ....>
Sir Ian Botham walks the rainbow nation and Kumala launches wine range     Sir Ian Botham is in SA to lead some sponsored walks. We were invited to The Table Bay Hotel (Sun International is one of the sponsors) to tweet about another of the sponsors, Kumala wines, with winemakers Ben Jordaan and Bruce Jack, before meeting Beefy Botham and hearing about his walks and to hear about the four causes to which the money is being donated after the walks. It looks as though at least half of the Barmy Army will be walking with Sir Ian ....>
Rank sewage on the coastline affects us all     If any of you saw Carte Blanche last weekend, you will know all about the huge sewage outfall problem in Table Bay, Mouille Point and other points round our coastline. The city puts all the city and Atlantic seaboard sewage out into the ocean. This also happens in other areas like Hout Bay. Besides the smell, the toxic chemicals, medicines, dangerous bacteria and microbes in the sewage are really causing major problems and could be a serious disease and long term health hazard for all ....>
A lovely stay in the area recently was marred by the awful stench of sewage. We didn't write about it then, as it was not the fault of the venue and we didn't want to lose them business, but now that it is out in the open, we do hope that the people of Cape Town will rise as one and demand a solution to this dangerous problem from the Council, the Province and the Government. We need an efficient land-based sewage plant; we have to stop polluting our ocean and our beaches with millions of litres of sewage pumped into the bay. They have always ducked this, saying it is too expensive. The population of Cape Town continues to grow enormously as people from other countries and provinces flood in. How expensive is our health, loss of tourism income and our marine life, on which many people depend?   See sense, no sea sewage. Please.
This week's recipe: Beetroot cured Salmon Gravadlax is something Lynne made for John's birthday and would be a great starter for Christmas or New Year celebrations. Gravadlax is not difficult to make and you don’t need a huge quantity of salmon. We did two large 200 x 140 cm salmon fillets, but one fillet would be plenty for about 8 to 10 people. If you use two, put them face to face, covered in the cure and compress together. The key to gravadlax is to decide whether you like a salty or a slightly sweeter cure. This year, Lynne altered the proportions of salt and sugar and we loved it. She also used grated fresh beetroot, which gives the salmon a wonderful ruby-like colour but doesn't affect the taste very much. It was incredibly popular. You need to start making this about three days before you want to serve it. ....>
1 oblong fillet of fresh salmon, skin on, about 800g - 2 T rough salt - 3 T pale brown sugar - 1 fresh beetroot, peeled (approx 200g) - 3 juniper berries - 2 T finely chopped fresh dill - 1/2 t ground allspice - a good grinding of black pepper - 50ml Aquavit/dry gin/vodka
Pin bone the salmon, place it on a large piece of cling film (enough to completely wrap it later) and put into a deep oblong (non metallic) container like an ice cream box or Tupperware. Put all the other ingredients into your liquidiser and blitz till you have a nice, slightly rough red paste. (You might want to use gloves for the next bit!) Cover both surfaces of the entire salmon with this and then wrap it up. Put some heavy weights on top of it and put in the fridge. You will need to turn this one every 12 hours for about 2 to 3 days. Lots of liquid will come out; you can pour it off. Just before you want to serve it, remove from the fridge and brush off all the rub. This will leave you with a glowing piece of salmon gravadlax which you can thinly slice off the skin (using a very sharp knife), sprinkle on a little freshly chopped dill and accompany with some creamed horseradish sauce. Left overs - if there are any - will keep for a couple of days in the fridge.
Lynne found a great solution for the weights by wrapping two concrete garden path bricks in cling film. They will be used again!.





9th December 2015
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Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters and our blogs are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast! ® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.
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Rank sewage in our bays affects us all

If any of you saw Carte Blanche last weekend, you will know all about the huge sewage outfall problem in Table Bay, Mouille Point and other points round our coastline. The city puts all the city and Atlantic seaboard sewage out into the ocean. This also happens in other areas like Hout Bay. Besides the smell, the toxic chemicals, medicines, dangerous bacteria and microbes in the sewage are really causing major problems and could be a serious disease and long term health hazard for all 
This photograph © Carte Blanche 
A lovely stay in the area recently was marred by the awful stench of sewage. We didn't write about it then, as it was not the fault of the venue and we didn't want to lose them business, but now that it is out in the open, we do hope that the people of Cape Town will rise as one and demand a solution to this dangerous problem from the Council, the Province and the Government. We need an efficient land-based sewage plant; we have to stop polluting our ocean and our beaches with millions of litres of sewage pumped into the bay. They have always ducked this, saying it is too expensive. The population of Cape Town continues to grow enormously as people from other countries and provinces flood in. How expensive is our health, loss of tourism income and our marine life, on which many people depend?   See sense, no sea sewage. Please.
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

This week's recipe: Beetroot cured Salmon Gravadlax

is something Lynne made for John's birthday and would be a great starter for Christmas or New Year celebrations. Gravadlax is not difficult to make and you don’t need a huge quantity of salmon. We did two large 200 x 140 cm salmon fillets, but one fillet would be plenty for about 8 to 10 people. If you use two, put them face to face, covered in the cure and compress together. The key to gravadlax is to decide whether you like a salty or a slightly sweeter cure. This year Lynne altered the proportions of salt and sugar and we loved it. She also used grated fresh beetroot, which gives the salmon a wonderful ruby-like colour but doesn't affect the taste very much. It was incredibly popular. You need to start making this about three days before you want to serve it.
1 oblong fillet of fresh salmon, skin on, about 800g - 2 T rough salt - 3 T pale brown sugar - 1 fresh beetroot, peeled (approx 200g) - 3 juniper berries - 2 T finely chopped fresh dill - 1/2 t ground allspice - a good grinding of black pepper - 50ml Aquavit/dry gin/vodka
Pin bone the salmon, place it on a large piece of cling film (enough to completely wrap it later) and put into a deep oblong (non metallic) container like an ice cream box or Tupperware. Put all the other ingredients into your liquidiser and blitz till you have a nice, slightly rough red paste. (You might want to use gloves for the next bit!) Cover both surfaces of the entire salmon with this and then wrap it up. Put some heavy weights on top of it and put in the fridge. You will need to turn this one every 12 hours for about 2 to 3 days. Lots of liquid will come out; you can pour it off. Just before you want to serve it, remove from the fridge and brush off all the rub. This will leave you with a glowing piece of salmon gravadlax which you can thinly slice off the skin (using a very sharp knife), sprinkle on a little freshly chopped dill and accompany with some creamed horseradish sauce. Left overs - if there are any - will keep for a couple of days in the fridge.

Lynne found a great solution for the weights by wrapping two concrete garden path pavers in clingfilm. They will be used again!
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Sir Ian Botham walks the rainbow nation and Kumala launches wine range


Sir Ian Botham is in SA to lead some sponsored walks. We were invited to The Table Bay Hotel (Sun International is one of the sponsors) to tweet about another of the sponsors, Kumala wines, with winemakers Ben Jordaan and Bruce Jack, before meeting Beefy Botham and hearing about his walks and to hear about the four causes to which the money is being donated after the walks. It looks as though at least half of the Barmy Army will be walking with Sir Ian
Meeting all the usual suspects who tweet and several new ones

We are here to tweet about Kumala wines
Sir Ian Botham being greeted by Ben Jordaan of Kumala wines. This walk will mark the celebration of his 60th Birthday and the 30th anniversary of his first ever walk from John O’Groats to Lands End in 1985
Chatting with Bruce Jack
"Beefy" Botham will start his first walk on Friday morning at 7 am from the Table Bay hotel and will walk 22 Km to Llandudno. For more information and donations, visit his website www.beefywalkingtherainbownation.com There will be 10 different 22 Km walks around the country on different days. He will be accompanied by many people, lots of them from the UK, who are also out here to watch the Cricket in January. Half are from the Barmy Army, we were told by one of their organisers
Bruce Jack, winemaker for Kumala wines, tells us about their sponsorship
Alison Pearce, Accolade Wines Marketing manager, tells us about the walks and the sponsors
Kumala winemaker Ben Jordaan
Following the lively Kumala Tweet up of their 2014 Zenith Chenin/Chardonnay blend, the Zenith 2015 French style Rosé and the Reserve 2014 Shiraz, we tasted two Flagstone wines 2014 Free Run Sauvignon Blanc, and the Writer’s Block 2014 Pinotage. John was astounded to hear that Lynne actually liked the Pinotage (she doesn’t normally enjoy Pinotage)
Bruce telling us about the Writer’s Block Pinotage
Time for a quick bite to soak up the wine. Sadly, not much if you are Banting
The sponsors list. At the base of the sign are the four beneficiaries; not much time was given to them until Lynne asked who they were. They are Nazareth House www.nazhouse.org.za, The Chipembere Rhino Foundation www.chipembere.org/, Kliptown Youth Programme www.kliptownyouthprogram.org.za in Soweto and the Southern African Waitrose Foundation www.waitrosefoundation.org.za
Lots of the British, who are here to do the walks with Beefy Botham
Rob Dalton, Gaming Relationship Manager at Sun International Management spoke about their involvement in the project
Executive chef of Camissa restaurant at The Table Bay, Jocelyn Myers-Adams and assistant F&B manager Hilton Ruch

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

Baby owls at Steenberg with great wine and food

It was extremely exciting and quite moving to be able to stand one metre away from a just fledged downy baby owl. We were invited to a tasting of Steenberg's new wine range and were served a superb charcuterie platter with the owl perched on a branch just above us.
After you get through the extremely impenetrable security at the front gate you find yourself in an oasis of green and calmness. We met Caroline van Schalkwyk, the Marketing manager, on arrival and she first took us on a short tour. Steenberg has taken over the running of the Spa, the restaurant and the accommodation and if you want a wine tasting with nibbles, a platter or a meal, you head to Catharina’s restaurant.
At the Steenberg Spa. Relax in the lounge before and after your treatment
Lots of choices of things to drink: fruit water, bubbly and teas and fire for chilly days
Farm Manager Johann De Swardt
The enchanting baby owl which has left the nest, still covered in downy fluff and not yet confident enough to fly, but practicing
The Werf at Steenberg. The lawn was previously covered by Hydrangeas but they have now been removed to return it to the originally historical layout of a werf (farm yard)
The Farm Platter is very, very good value at R150 for two people. (This one is slightly larger being for 3). The chicken liver pate is unmissable and the curried vegetable piccalilli adds a real Cape flavour to the food. You can have this on Mondays to- Saturdays from 11am - 5pm and sit and enjoy the lovely peaceful ambience as well. Our platter consists of locally sourced cheese, cured meats & house made, paté, breads & other fresh accompaniments. Enjoy this with one of the selected wine flights of three wines each: a Bubbly flight (R100 pp), Klein Steenberg flight (R60 pp )or HMS flight (R90 pp). And of course you can also enjoy lunch at Catharina’s Restaurant
John, our waiter, bringing us the first tasting which was wines from the Klein Steenberg range. We then followed with the other two tastings
The first flight of our tasting: the three sparkling wines
Lynne and Caroline at the table under the oaks. The baby owl can just be seen above Lynne on a niche in the tree
Executive Chef of Catharina’s restaurant, Garth Almazan, whom we always maintain is one of the best in the Cape
More of the owl. Its mother is still in the nest in a tree just a few metres away. There is another but it was not in sight that day
Looking balefully at us but it does not seem stressed and we are sure will soon be able to fly off
Catharina’s Restaurant
The bubbles available to taste. The first is not an MCC and is made of Sauvignon Blanc. The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are both MCC's
The very reasonably priced Klein Steenberg range. Lynne liked the Sauvignon Blanc so much - it is a typical crisp green Constantia sauvignon – that she bought 12 for summer drinking
The third flight we tasted is known as the HMS Battle of Muizenberg (7th of August 1795) flight (the wines are named after the 3 Royal Navy battle ships that took part: HMS Rattlesnake; Sphinx and Echo
The lunch menu on a blackboard is for the day and changes regularly according to food availability. Many dishes can be ordered as a starter or a main
We made a trip up to the Bistro 1682 and the tasting room and met an old friend Jennifer Holmes, who is now working there
People enjoying lunch in the Bistro
Wonderful glass grape mobile over the tasting counter. This is where you come to buy the wines to take home


© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015