Summer in the Swartland
The madness continues, but there are signs that
it will soon slow down. Each week seems to bring more events that we cannot miss
and this week has more stories than ever. It keeps us young and energetic, we
still enjoy it and we hope that you do, so please read on... or click any of the following links to look at a story
Doolhof at Dash Doolhof
launched their new vintage wines at Dash restaurant at the Queen Victoria Hotel
recently. Five were from their Signatures range, and one from their Legends of
the Labyrinth portfolio. Doolhof is below the Bains Kloof pass in the newly
proclaimed Limietberg ward of Wellington, there are fourteen wines in their
wine portfolio
Green Wine Public tasting This was held on
the top floor of the Nedbank offices in the V&A Waterfront, which has
wonderful views of Cape Town and our mountain. It was a chance for the public
to taste the winners. Check them out here http://www.greenwineawards.com/
Rosé Rocks
Another annual awards ceremony, showcasing top
Cape rosé wines, was held again at the Radisson Blue Hotel next to the V&A
Waterfront. The wind was howling, so it had to be held inside, but some lovely
rosés were awarded the Top Ten accolade
Caperitif Cacophony This was a relaunch, not of a wine but of
an historic aperitif: Caperitif, known since the early part of the 20th
Century. It was held on Adi Badenhorst's Swartland farm Kalmoesfontein on Guy
Fawkes day. Not a glass of wine in sight, we spent the day tasting first
Rooibos Caperitea, listening to entertaining talks by Adi, Wim Tijmens, Dave
Hughes and Lars-Erik Schmidt. Time then for a horizontal tasting of the five
different batches released so far of this great aperitif and then five
different expertly mixed cocktails. We just sipped, honestly. This was followed
by a fun retro lunch prepared by Adi's rather well known mother, talented chef
Judy Badenhorst, who used to run the River Cafe restaurant on Constantia
Uitsig. What a celebration!
Stellenbosch Hills at Panama Jacks We always look forward to this annual wine
event, as we never know what Stellenbosch Hills will come up with each year.
Whatever it is, it is always enjoyable, as are the wines. This is an award
winning co-operative wine cellar established over 70 years ago, in 1945, and is
now a collection of 16 successful members making the best of their Stellenbosch
grown wines, on a very wide range of terroirs. The winery is in Vlottenberg and
you can visit the tasting room to taste for yourself. The wines are very
affordable
This
year, we were invited to Panama Jack’s in the Cape Town Docks to taste the new
wines and meet the new wine maker. Panama Jack’s has been there since 1989, and
not much has changed. It is known for its good seafood and fish and atmosphere.
It started as a small shack selling food and drinks to people working on their
yachts and grew into a larger, quirky windblown shack near the container port.
All the women at the event wanted to take down the flags lining the ceiling and
put them in the washing machine. It’s an original, and it works. A great time
was had, good wine was tasted and good fish was consumed
The Celebration of Chardonnay at De Wetshof Now this event is really, really special. It
is held once every two years on their farm by the de Wet family of De Wetshof in
Robertson to showcase the best Chardonnays locally and internationally. Since
2010, chardonnays from Burgundy, America and Australia have been included. It
is an extremely generous gesture to the wine industry. Anyone who has ever been
invited hopes that they will be on the guest list again. This year was the
sixth time it has been held and there were 200 guests. Every year they invite
an important international speaker. The speaker this year was the acclaimed
American novelist and wine writer Jay McInerney. And we tasted some phenomenal
Chardonnays
Wine club bubbles We had a tasting
recently of Champagne and MCC at our wine club, presented by Matthew Krone. We
did have Laurent Perrier NV, Mum Cordon Rouge (our favourite) and Veuve
Clicquot yellow label, a Prosecco from Italy, a Freixinet Cava from Spain but
we just wanted to mention how well the South African MCCs stood up to the
foreign competition. Matthew Krone's own 2010 Alexandra earned loud applause.
The favourite of the evening was the Steenberg Lady R, very closely followed by
the Avondale Armilla. We drank the Kleine Zalze as our welcome drink and it
really got the tasting going well
Two of the best
annual Bubbly tastings will be happening soon. DO NOT MISS THESE:
Wine Concepts’ "Finer Things
in Life" Champagne Festival at
the Vineyard Hotel on Friday 25th November features only good French Champagnes
The Franschhoek Cap Classique and
Champagne Festival ‘The
Magic of Bubbles’ will be held over the weekend of the 3rd and 4th of December.
We hope to see you there, as we will be at both
MENU dish of the week South African Feta & Peppadew Phyllo Borek
If
you need a quick canapé, try this one. Lynne had to think on her feet last week
as we were very busy, but she needed something to take to our wine club. We had
some Phyllo pastry in the freezer, some feta and peppadew in the fridge and in
the larder a tin of tuna. This is what she made
4
rounds of plain or herb feta cheese, about 400 gm - 8 to10 well drained peppadew
peppers, roughly chopped - a tin of tuna in water, also well drained - 6 sheets
of Phyllo pastry - 1/4 cup of melted butter - 2 T raw white sesame seeds
Turn
your oven on to 200⁰C. Mix the first three ingredients together to form a good
filling. Flavour with a little pepper or cayenne, depending on whether you are
using hot or normal peppadews. Lay down some cling film and spread out a sheet
of Phyllo. Using a pastry brush, paint it with melted butter then lay another
sheet on top and butter that, until you have three layers. Cut into oblongs
approximately 14 x 9 cm, place a heaped teaspoonful of the feta mixture 2 cm
from the top of the oblong, cover with the Phyllo above it, fold in the sides well
to prevent leakage and roll up till you have small parcels. Repeat till you
have used all the pastry and filling. Seal the bottoms with melted butter and
glaze the tops with more. Place the borek on baking paper on a baking tray,
sprinkle over the sesame seeds and put into the oven until the borek are crisp
and golden. Serve warm
MENU Wine of the week There are two this week. We have tasted
so many good wines that it was very hard to choose. The first is good value, a
great wine with food and readily available, the second is a great wine, one to
treasure and drink as often as you can afford to
Stellenbosch Hills White Blend - you will read
about it in Stellenbosch Hills at Panama Jacks
and
Ataraxia
Wooded Chardonnay 2015 -you will read about in the Celebration of Chardonnay at De Wetshof
In MENU next week: Lunch at Glenelly, Hemel en Aarde Chardonnay,
Winemaker of the Year, Keermont and more
18th November
2016
PS If a
word or name is in bold type and underlined, click
on it for more information
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172
/ 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point
8005
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Photo website for our rate card and samples
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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
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