A honey bee harvesting
from a pickerel weed
flower in our pond (Pontederia cordata;
jongsnoekkruid)
The shutter speed was
1/1250 of a second and the bee's wings are still a blur!
This is a lovely time of the year, but it is never
complete bliss. We love the sunshine, but we long for the drenching rain our
friends in the north of the country are having, even if it is a bit excessive at
times. We have enough water in our dams to last about four months if we are
careful. It should start raining by May, but we need to be very careful. Of
course, this being harvet time in the wine industry, we need dry weather until
the grapes have come into the cellars. It seems to be a very good harvest, down
on quantity, but beautiful quality, so it should be a good vintage.
Sign the petition! Stop sand mining in the Swartland
The
South African wine community is in a state of shock. An application for sand
mining rights in the Paardeberg area of the Swartland has been approved by the
Malmesbury municipality. An appeal against this decision is in progress. If it
is allowed to go ahead, some of the country's best wine producers will be very
badly affected, if not ruined. These include Eben Sadie, the Mullineuxs, Adi
Badenhorst, Vondeling, David and Nadia and Lammershoek. PLEASE go to http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/protect-the-paardeberg
and sign the petition against this travesty
Celebrating the Harvest at Jordan
Glorious summer brings on the grape harvest in our winelands and many
farms are celebrating their success. We hear that this harvest is generally a
good one, despite the drought; grapes are smaller but the juice is very
concentrated, with good sugar and acids. We were invited to Jordan this week
with other media people to taste some of the juice, the newly fermenting wine
and last year's bottled wine and we were very impressed
A relaxed Harvest celebration at Muratie
Muratie opens its doors each year for the Harvest celebration and hosts a
relaxed day in the garden with food, good music, lots of wine and fun. We saw
the new Art Gallery, passed on the opportunity to stomp some grapes (much
enjoyed by the youngsters), tasted their new fermenting wines, took a tractor
ride through the vineyards and chilled under the trees with a huge box full of
grapes, figs, cheese, bread and other delights, accompanied by their wines. It
was "Cool bananas" as the chilled Capetonians say
The new MOK art gallery on Muratie MOK is
run by a relative of Rijk Melck, Cecile Blevi. Rijk took us to have a look and
we were very impressed. It is in an historic old house on the properly, where
freed slave Ansela van de Kaap lived with her German husband Lourens Campher,
the first owner of Muratie from 1695
This week's recipe on our MENU We
know that many of you loved the simple strawberry ice cream Lynne published a
while ago. Now for another decadent ice cream. Masterchef Australia has been
full of ice creams, parfaits and mousses this year and they made them look very
complex, especially when chocolate was involved. It is not
Rich Chocolate Ice-Cream
75g caster sugar - 4 egg yolks - 600 ml single cream - 1 Vanilla
Pod, split open - 200g plain 70% dark chocolate
Put the sugar with 6 tablespoons of water in a small pan and heat
gently until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and continue boiling until
the sugar reaches the thread stage* – about 110ยบ C. Beat the yolks in a mixing
bowl, then pour in the syrup in a thin stream, whisking all the time
Put the cream, vanilla pod and
chocolate, broken into small pieces into a pan over a low heat and stir till
the chocolate has melted. Take it up to just below boiling point. Remove the
vanilla pod and pour the scalding chocolate cream onto the egg mixture,
whisking until it is thoroughly mixed. Pass through a sieve. It should resemble
a light custard in texture. Cool and freeze for 24 hours. You can use an
ice-cream machine if you have one.
[*Thread stage for sugar is when you drop a bit of the mix into a
cold glass of water, the syrup will form a loose thin thread]
MENU’s Wine of the week. Muratie's Isabella Chardonnay is luscious, with white peaches, citrus and gentle caramel, and a
nice clean, dry finish. The new fermenting juice we tasted from this year's
harvest has fresh nectarines & apricots in abundance, with a hint of pine
nuts. It points to another lovely wine from the 2017 harvest. Winemaker
Hattingh de Villiers showed us the new wine fermenting in the cellar. It sells
for R145 on the farm or on line, and is also available at good wine retailers.
It is drinking well now but, if you can keep it for a couple of years, it is
bound to become even better. Platter awarded the 2016 vintage 4½ stars
21st February 2017
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
If you like the photographs you see in our publications, please
look at our Adamastor
Photo website for our rate card and samples from our portfolio
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
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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017
