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Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Durbanville Feast of the Grape

The Feast of the Grape festival, held last weekend at the Durbanville Race Course was a new concept for Durbanville, with nine of the farms taking part. There were good wines, food tents and lots of amusement for the children

Kids playing on the jumping castles

Mini tractor rides

Pony rides

and a farmyard petting zoo

A driving service that will get you home safely afterwards, something we really applaud as people can drink too much, especially in the heat of the day

There was lots of shaded seating and tables for eating the delicious food on sale

Martin Moore , Durbanville Hills cellarmaster, and Lynne discuss weighty subjects, talking about harvest and wine making. Martin is one of our ultimate gurus. He knows a great deal about the industry and also has many amusing stories.

We sampled a selection of Martin’s Durbanville Hills excellent wines kept nice and cool despite the heat

We also had long chats to Bennie Howard of Meerendal estate and bought some of their delicious Pinotage Rosé for the rest of the summer and some small 375 ml bottles of Sauvignon blanc which they had on special – great for picnics

For John, an inspiring T-shirt. Looking at his foot, it was obvious that this man knew all about it.

A taste of the Altydgedacht wines is always rewarding. We love their bone dry Gewürztraminer and recently enjoyed some of the Ollo white blend at a dinner we had.

Bernhard Veller of Nitida with Mark Herd of Sunset Beach Wines. We also tasted their wines and chatted to the new winemaker Brendan Butler, who has recently joined them after a few years at Jordan wine farm in Stellenbosch.

Relaxing in the food tent at the end of the show with Richard Schroder, Stephen Jeffery and John talking to Warren, the owner/manager of Cassis restaurant on Nitida Wine farm.

Dornier pop-up restaurant at Merchant's Café in Long St

We were greeted on the pavement outside Merchant’s Café at 33 Long Street for the Dornier Pop-up restaurant.

Watch this space, it will happen again this coming winter

Starlight ceiling in the restaurant

Raphael Dornier chats to Florian Gast of Opulent Living magazine

Two tapas dishes were on offer for R50 a plate – Lynne had the aubergine rolls filled with goats cheese and topped with pesto which were extremely good

John had three plump fresh oysters, he preferred them au naturel, but you can have different sauces on them.

We drank Dornier’s very crisp and delightfully fresh Donatus White blend. You could also have the Tempranillo

Restaurant manager, Merwe Steenkamp and Louise Starey, Dornier's Wine Lounge Manager, in discussion

Raphael, concentrating hard, taking pictures of the evening

Neil Norman, the chef at Dornier, joins us for a glass of wine and a chat

A golden pig on the counter adds atmosphere

Louise Starey pours a pint

We were early, this was the beginning of a busy evening with lots of people dropping in to see what a Pop-up restaurant is all about

Merwe Steenkamp pouring the wine

Cosmopolitan Long Street, early Friday evening, getting ready for the fun and the hip and happening of Cape Town

Starlight Classics at Vergelegen

Lynne chats to Francois de Sornay on Vergelegen's lawns

As always, an impressive array of glasses

Rand Merchant Bank invites a huge number of guests each year

Conductor Richard Cock talking to members of the audience before the concert

Vergelegen winemaker André van Rensburg

RMB CEO Alan Pullinger opens the concert

Picnic suppers on the lawns before the concert

The audience stands and sings the National Anthem with gusto

A fabulous concert with talented performers, and a beautifully lit stage

Some seriously good guitar work

alongside the Cape Town Philharmonic

At the interval, a pause for some refreshment

before the concert continued

The grande finale with thousands of waving candles

Harvest lunch at De Grendel

Before going to the Durbanville Festival of the Grape we enjoyed the Harvest lunch at De Grendel.

The menu where all the dishes were based on grapes

Their handsome under plates bearing the Graaff family crest

Our table with a lovely view of the vineyard and Table Mountain

The terrace where, sadly, there are still smokers. Some of their fumes wafted into the restaurant

The vineyard, the lake and the wonderful Table Mountain and city vista. It was a beautiful hot summer day

Cool inside the main restaurant - we were early, so most guests had not arrived

Our starter of a Waldorf salad dressed with creamy gorgonzola cheese was delicious and was copied at home later in the week. Strangely, underneath the salad was some dessert: a piece of sweet cake, sweet grape jelly and some custard. We did not repeat that. We drank a small glass of surprisingly complex and good Pinot grigio with this course

Lynne's main course was absolutely perfect. Lamb done three ways: a smoky barbecued loin, a terrine made from layers of lamb neck, all fat rendered out ; and a spicy lamb Merguez sausage made by the chef. Topped with a sticky grape confit, and a mild harrira this rested on top of just blanched asparagus, thin green beans and cous cous and had a very good jus.

Lynne had a glass of the excellent De Grendel Merlot : soft , juicy, full of ripe fruit and it went perfectly

John enjoyed his red wine Arborio rice risotto topped with a good piece of spiced and grilled Cape Salmon with asparagus and grapes and a béarnaise sauce with tarragon. John drank a glass of De Grendel Pinot noir

Whoever made dessert is someone who really understands desserts. The very minimalist menu description read only “ Grape, peanut, banana, chocolate chip cookie” and would have put us off had we seen this on the web. But what arrived was a thick parfait of real banana topped with a fresh and clean grape sorbet, then roasted peanuts mixed with crunchy bits of chocolate chip cookie were sprinkled over and at the bottom of the glass there was a treasure of a lovely piece of dark chocolate right at the base.

With our dessert we drank a small glass of the delicious and well balanced De Grendel Sauvignon Blanc Noble Late harvest.

The a la carte menu