A Common Dotted Border butterfly (Mylothris agathina agathina) on a pink daisy
A quiet week which started with lovely warm sunshine and has ended with very cold, wet weather. The upside of the rain we have had this year is that all the dams which supply Cape Town are full. The biggest, Theewaterskloof, is near 100% full for the first time in years. So we started with a walk in our lovely Green Point park and ended with a small braai for just ourselves to celebrate Heritage Day, with the help of two wonderful wines, all described below.
A walk
in our local park, the Green Point Urban Park
It was such a lovely day last Saturday and we decided to go to our local park for a walk. The park on Green Point common was created after the new Green Point stadium (now called the Cape Town Stadium) was built, in time for the Soccer World Cup in 2010. As vested land, the Green Point Common was granted to the Cape Town City Council in 1923 by the Union Government as Commonage for general public recreation and sports fields. It looked as though the Metropolitan Golf Club was going to get all the land, but our then Councillor JP Smith insisted that some of the land be given to the people for recreation and the 18 hole golf course was reduced to 9 holes. Read on…
Zoom tasting with Woolworths of Spier wines
We observed an online webinar this week with Woolworths WCellar, entitled "WCellar: The Braai Episode with Spier". Frans Smit, Cellarmaster of Spier Wine Estate took part with the staff of Woolworths Wine. The Zoom meeting was ably chaired by Rebecca Constable. Frans talked about his wines, his philosophy and his methods while he braaied in the background on his indoor fireplace. It was great fun and good to see the crew on line, many are old friends. And Chef Anda Dlepu, Protein Product Developer at Woolworths, who showed us what he was cooking on the braai, made us very hungry. He gave us advice and recipes for Heritage Day on Thursday, a day when many South Africans do braai. Some of the webcams' quality left a lot a to be desired and the photographs do not flatter the subjects. Read on…
Many people hold that Chenin blanc and Pinotage are South Africa’s signature red and white varietals. We chose two sensational Heritage wines from our cellar. The Beaumont Hope Marguerite Chenin Blanc is a wine we love and buy when we can - it sells out quickly. We drink some new and fresh and keep some in the cellar as we know it ages well. This was a 2010 and quite magnificent. The 10 years in cellar had made it creamy with crisp apple and honeyed caramel flavours, rich pastry wood; so a good example of a wine to pair with Tart Tatin.
The 2011 L'Avenir Pinotage is quite Burgundian in style. As Pinotage ages we find that the character of its Pinot Noir parent does tend to come to the fore. Fresh red plums, prunes, strawberries on both nose and palate, with long flavours, and a background structure from well handled wood. One of the few Pinotages Lynne enjoys
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