Thursday, December 06, 2018

This Week’s MENU. Hillcrest Estate New Release Launch, Lunch at Upper Bloem, A visit to Darling Cellars, Christmas dining ideas, Darling Cellars Gustus Chenin Blanc 2018

Lynne wanted a Christmassy photo. This one is from ten years ago. The wonder of Christmas reflected in a little girl’s face: Izzy (Isabella) Sutton at Kirstenbosch Carols. We are very grateful to her parents, Tony & Julie, for allowing us to show you this photograph
And so we approach the end of what has been a very interesting year, for all of us. South Africa has seen a change with a new President who is walking a tight rope as he endeavours to remove the corrupt elements in his government without damaging his own position by allowing a rearguard action from those elements who have done so much damage in the past 9 years. Britain is tussling with the Brexit debacle. Our travels in Iberia were most interesting, often entertaining and had a few wobbles as well. See it on our Travelogues page. We have tasted wonderful food and wines, and some that were less than great and we've been able to take you with us on the journey. Thank you for coming with us
Now, we are taking a break until January - we desreve one and most media things don't begin again until mid January. We wish you all a wonderful celebration, whether it be Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or simply Yule and the solstice. We hope that 2019 will bring us all peace, less consternation and a bit more prosperity. Drive safely and take an Uber if you will be imbibing away from home
Thursday evening saw us at Hillcrest wine estate in Durbanville for the launch of the new vintages of their Saartjie wines. They are named after GM, winemaker and viticulturist Arno Smith’s cute Jack Russell terrier and she has made it onto the labels. They have built a lovely new deck and they also have a Beer garden. They had laid a table…

To Upper Bloem restaurant on Main Road Green Point, opposite the Cape Town Stadium, for lunch on Saturday. They were offering a Restaurant Week special and we wanted to return after our last visit, which was for the launch of the De Wetshof Limestone Hill Chardonnay in August. We were quite early…
A visit to Darling Cellars    
For our last media engagement of the year, we travelled to Darling in a minivan organised by Darling Cellars. The invitation was to come and taste some of their ranges of wines and enjoy a fish braai for lunch. How could we refuse? It was a great way to end the year and a huge success. We know the wines well, we used to stock them at Main Ingredient and they have always been consistent, good, and also good value…

Temptation!
Christmas is approaching fast and we are still planning our main Christmas meal. We like duck, but duck has almost disappeared in the Cape since the demise of the Duck Farm.  We are not going to give you a recipe this week, but some different suggestions for the meal.  Of course many of you will be doing turkey, but if you look at what other nations do there might be alternatives, all for special occasions…
Darling Cellars Gustus Chenin Blanc 2018    
We tasted this wine at Darling Cellars and were so impressed that we have made it our Wine of the Week. A beautiful expression of unwooded Chenin Blanc from dry land vines in the Darling area.  Gustus is a new range of wines which are terroir and varietal specific. (Gustus is Taste in Latin). Darling Cellars want to explore the possibilities of these grapes, so that they express the best they can be and do not disappear into huge blends without investigating their potential. Golden fruit, minerality…
6th December 2018


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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2018
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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 our website and ancillary works are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are often 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, pleaseclick here to send us a message and if you wish to be  removed from our mailing list

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