Creation Pinot vertical tasting at the second annual Hemel-en-Aarde Pinot Noir Celebration

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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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

Riesling (and Rarities) Rocked at Hartenberg

We started on Saturday at Hartenberg on the Bottelary Road for this annual gem of a festival. They only sell 500 tickets so we always feel honoured to be invited, and they sold out again. It is held in their beautiful gardens and this year they added the Rarities to the Riesling and there were some really interesting wines to taste. Lots of food was available to taste and we were provided with two enormous picnic boxes.

Directions to the garden

Humour on a warm day

We arrived nice and early and this was the scene at 12 noon as the festival opened

A view of Hartenberg’s vines

Wimpie from Groote Post having a quick bite while serving us their two Rieslings

Hárslevelü from Lemberg in Tulbagh was really different and so enjoyable we may well buy some. It is fruity, waxy, very silky soft but with a good dollop of acidity and couldn’t be identified as anything familiar, which we see as an advantage. We hope more will be planted. It's normally found in Hungarian wines

On to taste the classic Thelema and Sutherland Rieslings and their Viognier-Roussanne full of peaches marzipan and pears and nice soft tannins.

More people arriving and discussing the merits of the wine

A warm welcome from Jordan who showed The Real McCoy 2014 Riesling with lots of terpenes and honey but bone dry. Nice to see them back as they have stock this year but not much, so if you love, buy soon

Then it was suddenly one o’clock and time for the Gewürztraminer seminar presented by Paul Cluver. We tasted three vintages of their Gewürz and they were remarkably different which shows how climate sensitive this grape can be. Hartenberg have this wonderful “fresco” map of the farm showing where all the wines are grown, in their tasting room

A collection of old Montagne (the original name) and Hartenberg wines

Ann Ferreira was one of the organisers of the festival and she supervised the seminars

These were the wines we tasted. The 2011 was so typical of the variety bursting with roses, Turkish delight and marzipan with love clean, crisp, fruity freshness. The 2012 is full of limes and lemons with a little rose and some terpene and crisp acidity – it was a warm year. The 2014 has rose and spice and, unusually, some salty licorice. Crisp with soft floral notes. All are food wines and pair superbly with hot and spicy and aromatic dishes

Paul Cluver explaining how to grow the grape and turn it into this marvellous wine

Our tasting samples

Some new acolytes

Lots of rapt attention while tasting

Back to the festival; we visited Pieter du Toit on the Cederberg stand and marvelled at the Ghost Corner Semillon  -full of peas asparagus, layers of citrus, clean and elegant - and the Cederberg Bukettraube 2014

Pieter enjoying the day with a fan

Then we found the Jordans looking happy on the Paul Cluver stand with Jonathan Snashall, Georgie Prout of Glen Carlou, Paul Cluver and his sister Liesl

Another happy welcome from Young Winemaker of the Year Jacques Erasmus on the Spier stand, for a taste of their Ideology Riesling 2012

Christophe Dehosse of Joostenberg restaurant on his food stand with his menu for the day. We had a lot of these delicacies in our picnic boxes

We stopped for our picnic with Eppie and Norman MacFarlane.

This was the food provided for one person! Charcuterie, cheese, good rolls, a salmon paté, a caprese salad, humus, potato salad, bread and butter pickle and, for dessert, pineapple and meringue

It was lovely sitting on the lawn; the weather was warm but not too hot, no wind and everyone was having fun

Live music for the event

Our last wine was the Anthonij Rupert Semillon: Perfumed, with a full on layered mouth of fruit and very elegant. Of special mention was also the Simonsig Roussanne which has spun sugar candy, limes & lemons with spice and honey, and the Nitida Semillon which was also loved at our Semillon tasting at our wine club this week full of green pyrazines with perfume and crispness – such a good food wine.

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015