This Week’s MENU. Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel at Aubergine, FNB Top 20 Sauvignons, Broad beans, Perdeberg Dryland Chenin

Wheat fields, clouds and hills in the Overberg

You will have noticed that our last few weeks have been somewhat fraught. Just now, we are enjoying a small respite while we look forward to times which promise to be as frenetic as those just past. So we are taking the opportunity and publishing MENU with just two stories, each of which we believe to have special significance, plus our usual recipe and Wine of the Week before we gird our loins for the fun to come. We live in an exciting, still evolving country. It has some of the most beautiful, very varied, scenery; challenging, but fermenting and constantly developing politics, kept under control by free courts and media and, importantly for us, a very exciting food and wine environment. We do our best to keep you up to date with all of that, so read on and, we hope, enjoy

•       Simonsig's Best Bubbles with lunch at Aubergine Restaurant
•       FNB awards to the Top 10 Sauvignon Blanc 2017
•       What’s on the MENU this week? Broad Beans on Bruschetta
•    MENU's Wine of the Week. The Dry Land Collection Chenin, unwooded 2013 from Perdeberg

Simonsig's Best Bubbles with lunch at Aubergine Restaurant 

Simonsig Estate was recently crowned top producer at the 16th Amorim Cap Classique Challenge. Last week, we were invited to a tasting of older vintages from Simonsig’s range of Cap Classiques, hosted by cellarmaster Johan Malan. This was followed by lunch at Aubergine restaurant with a paired menu to match these excellent wines. They were innovative pairings by Chef Patron Harald Bresselschmidt, who is one of the most skilled at this difficult art

FNB awards to the Top 10 Sauvignons Blanc 2017      

This year the awards were held over lunch at Franschhoek Cellars. We are great fans of this refreshing, crisp white wine that can have many different characters and styles, so we were excited to see which ones have risen to the top this year .

What’s on the MENU this week? BROAD BEANS ON BRUSCHETTA

Broad beans are in season and, if you are lucky enough to find some, this is one of our favourite recipes to try. Easy peasy, no cooking required. You can make toast can't you?

250G shelled broad beans – salt - 1 small clove of garlic – 1 t of lemon juice - a handful of mint & parsley a dribble of olive oil - slices of bruschetta – 1 clove of garlic

Plunge the beans into boiling salted water and cook for no more than 2 or 3 minutes. Drain, refresh with cold water and then slip the beans from their tough outer coating. This is easy to do if you make a small nick in each bean and squeeze. Put them into your blender with the roughly chopped herbs, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil. Blitz them but leave them a fairly rough consistency - you do not want a smooth paste. Taste and add salt. They will make a beautiful bright green spread. Toast the bruschettas on both sides, and wipe the cut edge of a clove of garlic twice across the surface of each. Spread on the paste and enjoy3

MENU's Wine of the Week. The Dry Land Collection Chenin blanc, unwooded 2013 from Perdeberg

We had this wine with one of our favourite suppers, witlof wrapped in ham and cooked in a cheese sauce. Some wines would not cope with the flavours of witlof or the heavy smoked ham and thick cheese sauce. This Chenin not only coped, but it added a lot to the dish.

A refreshing food wine with hints of spice, ginger and honey on the nose and a little petricor, which is rain on hot stones or earth. A tingle on the tongue from pineapple acidity, crisp citrus flavours followed by green melon and pear, lots of layers. John's comment? "It's a bloody nice wine". Often mistaken for another, very expensive, Chenin Blanc.

The current vintage is available from the farm at R110. They also have a barrel fermented Chenin in the same range for R115. Don't forget that Perdeberg has their open day on the 28th of this month, when you can go and sample all their wines and bring cases home with you

18th October 2017

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017

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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. This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.