.: 2018 Muratie Flavours of Winter Festival

Thursday, August 02, 2018

2018 Muratie Flavours of Winter Festival

We were invited to last Saturday's Flavours of Winter Wine Festival at Muratie in Stellenbosch. It was a good chilly, wintry day on which to go to the farm and enjoy some Ports and other wines made from Port varietals. The sun did break through and we even got to taste some older vintages which Rijk Melck brought out of his vinoteque. And we enjoyed a well made hamburger from the kitchen for lunch

There was a little sun on the patio, enjoyed by a few brave souls

At Muratie, there will always be music and this duo was giving guests a tuneful welcome in the foyer

Some tables and ports to taste in the restaurant

The kitchen team at the food station

And in the main cellar, we found most of the tables with the Port farms showing their wares

and more tables outside. It was a well attended festival

Autumn, winter and spring in the trees

Annemie Adriaanse and Mark on the Axe Hill table were pouring the wines and the Ports

Peter and Yvonne Bayly had their wines and Ports and a jug of that marvellous White Port and Tonic aperitif

The choices from Axe Hill in Calitzdorp, which is owned by Mike Neebe

Cosy in the inside rooms

Chaloner had their jams, jellies and olive products to taste and buy

Muratie owner Rijk Melck with one of those older wines which we were lucky enough to taste. It may be cloudy, but the Fine Special Old Port, Alberta Anna Marie from the early 1980s, still had lots of flavour. We also enjoyed a Muratie Amber fortified Hanepoot, with bruléed maple syrup flavours, a good dessert wine from circa 1989

Von Geusau chocolates were very popular and they always go well with Port. Don’t you love the dog chewed wing back? And the request to not disturb the sleeping dog. Our similar chairs try hard not to be cat scratching posts. And the old Joanna

OK, that's Cockney rhyming slang for Pee-anna

The just launched Senator LBV, named for Sir Walter Ernest Mortimer Stanford KBE CB CMG. After serving as a magistrate in the Eastern Cape, he entered the Cape Legislative Assembly in 1908 as an independent member for Tembuland and was selected to represent the views of the African people at the National Convention of 1909, which led to the Union of South Africa. He argued strongly for universal franchise, regardless of race and gender but his proposal was not accepted. From 1910-29, he served in the Senate, nominated for his knowledge of the African peoples. He was a colonel with the South African forces in the First World War. In 1919 he was appointed KBE, and died at the age of 83 in 1933. He lived at Muratie in his later years