.: The Tops at Spar wine show at GrandWest Casino & Entertainment World

An invitation to attend the Annual Tops at Spar Wine Festival, held at the GrandWest Casino in Goodwood, was tempting. We set out at 4 to get there for the opening on Thursday and, sadly, the Cape Town traffic had us crawling very slowly and we only got there at just before 6. The 650 metres from Strand Street to the flyover took us more than half an hour due to gridlock. It is a daunting challenge to get to any event that requires central city and motorway driving nowadays to get out of town in the late afternoon and early evening

Certified Sommelier Neil Tabraham, a partner in the Sommeliers Academy, with Roxan Waldeck and Jean Vincent Ridon on the South African Wine Tasting Competition stand, where the search for the Super Taster was taking place. The final team to go overseas should be announced this week. This was the last chance to enter

Lots of staff support! …and fun

We heard from Neil that Bloemendal had their Suider Terrace 2019 Sauvignon Blanc for tasting

and this is the vineyard in Durbanville that most winemakers would love to turn into wine

The wine does indeed live up to its reputation, even though it is very young and newly released

The Bloemendal wines. The Sauvignon Blanc has always garnered lots of awards in the past

Guy Webber of Hill & Dale has produced two Spumante type bubblies in the style of Prosecco

Winemaker JD Rossouw & Marketing Manager Fanie Fourie of Wildeberg Wines. We have just heard that their Chenin was one of the top five in the Winemag.co.za inaugural Best Value Chenin Blanc Tastings 2019. Well deserved

Jon Meinking invited us to take part in his annual SA Wine Showcase, where he gives us 8 wines to taste and we then have to come to a conclusion as to what they are. Jon is adept at choosing good wines that taste very little like their expected varietals. Well, we do so badly at these tastings, that is our conclusion! Lovely wines. all available to taste on the stands at the show, if you had time beforehand. It is a great fun tasting and confounded many people. We think that the highest correct score at our tasting was 2! And that was scored by a well-respected winemaker

Gotcha again! "No, not a Pinot Noir, but a 2016 Malbec from Bloemendal. Lynne, who was in love with the wine, scored it very highly - pale in colour, soft and perfumed and gentle with strawberries and raspberries - like Malbec often isn’t...

OK who can tell me what #4 is? Chocolate and nut nougat, very sweet on the nose, crisp on the oxidised palate. The nearest we came was a Muscat or a Bukettraube. It was a Skin Contact 2018 blend of Chenin blanc and Hanepoot from Daschbosch

Eugene Kinghorn, Marketing Manager of Koelenhof with their rip roaring 1679 Chenin Blanc

Not a wildly busy evening for a Thursday and then suddenly it was time to eat something

With our VIP tickets, we had been invited to a food and wine pairing at the VIP enclosure

Sadly, when we got there at 7.30, it was all over

The dishes in the pairing were:

Southern Fried Chicken with Ranch Dressing

Mosbolletjie Bagel with Pickled Beetroot, Goats Cheese Mousse

Cape Malay Pickled Fish with Curry Emulsion

Smoked Lamb Rib Roulade with Rosemary Jus

Chorizo and Blue Cheese Arancini

These were the paired wines

Chef Beau du Toit of Goose Roasters, who were doing the catering, made a plan and found us some of the dishes and some of the wines

Southern Fried Chicken with Ranch Dressing

Mosbolletjie Bagel with Pickled Beetroot, Goats Cheese Mousse, Cape Malay Pickled Fish with Curry Emulsion

All delicious and the pickled fish was a complete revelation to us

We both hate it normally, but this was not a heavy sour pickle, more spicy and Indian in flavour and spice, and the fish was perfectly cooked

The perfect match to the Pickled Fish. The Goose wines are an appropriate label for The Goose Roasters caterers. Goose Wines belongs to golfer Retief Goosen, who won his first tournament in the PGA Circuit Senior Players’ Championship that weekend