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Delheim celebrates and remembers 80 years

All content © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus

Friday, October 25, 2019

This Week's MENU. Delheim at 80, Chardonnay Report, Blaauwklippen Blending Competition, UK Adventure, Lake District to Bath, Blueberry Crumble, Kanonkop Kadette

Beached hire boats on the rainy shore of Lake Windermere

Simple pleasures. The feel of soft rain on one’s skin and the smell of the damp earth after a long, dry spell. Simple and delicious food, enjoyed with a good wine. The company of good friends. Remembering some wonderful experiences. We’ve had them all this week and know that we are blessed. Amid the political turmoil here and in other countries, we are especially blessed to have all these things to remind us that life goes on and is beautiful. It is a privilege to share some of them with you

A joyous celebration at Delheim this week to help them celebrate the 80th year since the Hoheisen family bought the farm in 1939. Michael Hans “Spatz” Sperling came to the Cape from Germany in 1951. He joined his uncle Hans Hoheisen and his aunt Del on the Delheim farm, where he started to experiment with wine making, eventually adding to his knowledge by consulting with established winemakers. His first wine Spatzendreck, a natural sweet, was tasted by a friend who pronounced it “dreck”. He bottled it with a picture of a sparrow relieving itself on the label and it has been a favourite dessert wine for many aficionados ever since. Sperling is the German word for Sparrow and Spatz is the colloquial equivalent…

The Prescient Chardonnay Report 2019

This year's Chardonnay Report from Winemag.co.za, in concert with sponsor Prescient Financial Services, was held in the Watershed at the V&A Waterfront this week. There were 93 entries from 65 producers and these were tasted blind (labels out of sight) by a three-person panel. Scoring is done using the 100-point quality scale. An outstanding 52 of the 90 entries (56% of the line up) rated 90-plus. South African Chardonnay is definitely coming to the fore after a while in the doldrums…

The 36th Blaauwklippen Blending Competition Awards lunch

To the terrace at Blaauwklippen to meet the four teams who have made it to the final of the Annual Blaauwklippen Blending Awards. We were offered either a glass of Blaauwklippen’s new Garden gin served with a Chinchona Pink tonic made with ruby grapefruit and natural quinine, (not a hint of Angostura in sight) which tempted Lynne and was very refreshing. John opted for the MCC made from Zinfandel...

MENU's UK Adventure 8. From Glasgow to the Lake District; Keswick and Windermere and on to Leicester

It was time to head south, leaving Bonnie Scotland and heading for the Lake District in Cumberland. Lynne spent some great times there when she worked for Heinemann Educational Publishing as they took a group of staff up once a year to do some hill walking on hills like Helvellyn and Great Gable. We followed the paths of the beautiful hand written Wainwright guides and of course it was team building. We are well past fell walking nowadays and all we could do was gaze in wonder and amazement at the beautiful hills that now look so unachievable. Even Cat Bells looks steep. Our first stop was in Keswick and it was a slightly damp Sunday…

MENU's UK Adventure 9. Leicester, Warwick, Stratford upon Avon to Bath

We had discovered that a friend from Knysna, Karen Shuttleworth Dames, known for her business The Little Herb Garden, had recently moved to the north of England and we wanted to get together, if only briefly. She suggested that we should meet at The Brewery in Kirkby Lonsdale, which was on our way between Windermere and our friends, who live at Horseshoe Cottage farm in Cropston, near Leicester. We had to meet at 10 in the morning as it's quite a distance to Leicester…

On the MENU this week. Blueberry Crumble

A quick Blueberry Crumble for those evenings when you need a dessert but haven’t got one. You can make this from the store cupboard and the freezer. Frozen blueberries are cheap but, to be honest, defrosted they are not up to much, as they become soggy without much flavour. But if you cook them, they melt and become full of lovely flavours. Which inspired Lynne to use some that we have in our freezer…

MENU’s Wine of the Week is Kanonkop Kadette Cape Blend 2016

What do you drink with a simple supper? Something to go with Spaghetti Bolognese on a cold wet evening. Pinotage always goes well with tomato based dishes, so does any Italian grape grown here, so we dug in our cellar to see what might work. It had to be a red; we have had rather a lot of white wines over the last week or two…

25th October 2019

All content © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus

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On the MENU this week. Blueberry Crumble

2 or 3 cups of Frozen blueberries – ½ cup mixed roughly chopped nuts – ½ a cup plain flour – ½ a cup rolled oats – ½ a cup melted butter - ½ a cup of brown sugar - 1 teaspoon of cinnamon – a pinch of salt

Turn your oven to 180 °C. Take a reasonably deep oven proof dish (Lynne used a soufflé dish) and put the frozen blueberries in it. Mix up the nuts and the oats, flour, sugar, salt, and butter and spread on top. Put into the oven and bake until the top is golden brown and crunchy. Takes about half an hour; you might see evidence of blueberry juice rising around the edges. Serve with good custard or thick cream. You might like to add some honey or a little sugar to the blueberries if you find them too sour. Serves 4. Double up for a larger group

All content © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus

MENU’s Wine of the Week is Kanonkop Kadette Cape Blend 2016

John found a bottle of Kanonkop Kadette Cape Blend 2016 in the cellar and Lynne was a bit aghast at putting what she considers to be a quality wine with humble spaghetti. But it went so well with the pasta, it made it shine. A blend of 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Pinotage, 23% Merlot and 6% Cabernet Franc from Stellenbosch. They describe it on the bottle as “A dry red wine with concentrated berry, cherry and plum flavours with soft silky tannins and a hint of spice on the finish. Enjoy with meat, pasta or spicy dishes”. And we completely concur. We think it might also be good with lamb chops or a rump steak. It also went very well with the crumble. Very pleased that we still have some for tomorrow. The current vintage in the shops is 2017 and sells for around R110

All content © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus

The 36th Blaauwklippen Blending Competition winners' lunch

To the terrace at Blaauwklippen to meet the four teams who have made it to the final

of the Annual Blaauwklippen Blending Competitions. Canapés were served, this was lavash flat bread

Very good small crisp tempura battered fish bites dressed with a lemon mayonnaise

More canapés of nut crumbed goat's cheese in half a strawberry

We were offered either a glass of Blaauwklippen’s new Garden gin ...

served with a Chinchona Pink tonic made with ruby grapefruit and natural quinine (not a hint of Angostura in sight)

which tempted Lynne and was very refreshing. John opted for the MCC made from Zinfandel

Bronwen and Guy MacDonald with winemaker Narina Cloete and Landbou Weekblad journalist Lucille Botha

That 'pink' gin

Time to go inside for the awards and lunch

On the table were bottles of this year's winning blend, which we were to drink with lunch

Always a long table

The lunch menu

Guy MacDonald was our lively MC for the day

The awards were under cover

Narina welcomed us and talked about this year’s wine. What they were looking for was accessibility, fruit, purity, not a one dimensional wine; good now, but with a possibility of aging. She headed the judges who were Clive Torr CWM, Karen Glanfield Pawley and Guy MacDonald. This year the wines sent to clubs were Shiraz, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Zinfandel. They judged the 77 blends entered. the tasting was audited and they used the 100 point system. They chose a top 8 and then whittled it down to just 4. She then introduced the four finalist wine club members

They were to tell us about themselves. First to speak were the Lydenburg Wynproewersgilde (Mpumalanga). Gerda, who is the secretary of the club, gave a very amusing and detailed account of how the club was formed, how it runs and how they approach the competition. They have four wine fundis, the rest are wine lovers. It is about ambience and fellowship. This is their 24th entry into the competition and the third time they have been in the top four

SLVWG (Serious Lovers of Vines, Wines and Grapes) (Western Cape) Their speaker was Paul Laenmle

It is a their pinnacle of achievement to reach the top 4. It was arduous and rewarding

John Mark spoke for the Thursday Club (Gauteng) They began in 2001 and have had 2 divorces and 20 children in that time

Only invited members. It goes back to UCT when members joined the wine culture society there

The club has won this competition two years running, then they came stone last. Good to be here for a third time

Wingerd Vista (Western Cape) has just two members, Chef Janine van Zyl and her partner Eckart Potgieter and it has been in existence for just one year. Janine, who is also a trained chef and sommelier, has her own restaurant at Del Vera wine estate and is currently studying to be a Cape Wine Master. Eckart says Janine has a fantastic palate; he just likes tasting wine

The wine is opened and violets show first on the nose from the Petit Verdot, incense oak, dark black cherry and cassis berry fruit with some spice. Smooth at first on the palate, then rhubarb and mulberry fruit acid shows; dark wood, tight tannins all make aging this wine a proposition. Black and red pepper on the end

Then it was time for lunch with the awards to follow afterwards. Keeping up the suspense! Lunch was served family style and Narina was being mother here. We had whole roasted fillet of beef, ready sliced, a chimmichurri sauce, a farmers salad of cooked and raw vegetables. Beef fat fries topped with roasted hazelnuts and parmesan cheese

Then time for Guy to announce the winners

The newcomer Club of the year was SLVWG (Serious Lovers of Vines, Wines and Grapes) (Western Cape)

They get a decanter, some glasses (sponsored by Vitria Glass) and a box of the winning wine

The winners of the Blaauwklippen Blending Competition of 2019 are the Lydenburg Wynproewersgilde (Mpumalanga) Their winning blend is 48% Zinfandel, 22% Merlot, 10% Shiraz and 10% Petit Verdot

The four club members who flew down for the award, all delighted at winning

Blaauwklippen Gin popsicles were the dessert. Oops, none for the driver please