You may recall that we had been invited to Dunstone
House in April to stay and we wrote about it in MENU. We like it very much and, when we heard about their winter special which runs from April to end of August
each year, we thought we would take members of our wine club to stay for a
Saturday and that would give us all an opportunity to explore Wellington wines.
We had lots of keen travellers and were surprised that several of them had
never been to Wellington before. It is only one hour from Cape Town and is a
very beautiful and hospitable valley
We started the
weekend by meeting at Klein Optenhorst to see the Ferreiras’ magnificent garden
and taste some of their newly released Pinot Noir MCC, grown on the farm but
vinified by Peter Ferreira, who is related not to Naas Ferreira but to Jenny,
his wife, the gardener
Weddings are
held in this lovely summer house on the side of the lake
A view of the
house from the early spring garden which is recovering from the long cold
winter we have had, but still had many plants in bloom
Happy
gardeners exploring Jenny’s wonderful collection of plants
and enjoying
the lovely spring weather
One of the
ponds, with a message
The Oenophiles
assemble, ready for a wine tasting
MCC glasses
await
Naas Ferreira
does the honours
Toasts to the
winemaker
How to spend a
relaxed Saturday
This retails
at R150 a bottle and our group bought a few!
The view from
the house terrace. Imagine how lush this will be in Summer
Nabygelegen
Then it was on
to see James McKenzie at Nabygelegen, just down the road. James and his
partner Adele gave us a superb tasting of his wines and they laid on a very
good cheese and meat platter for lunch which cost R80 pp.
They have a
lovely terrace with a vine pergola outside the tasting room and we sat down in
the sun for the tasting and lunch
Owner/winemaker
of Nabygelegen, James McKenzie
Enjoying a
taste of Scaramanga White 2014
The lunch
platter
You feel
spring has sprung when you see a lawn covered in pink oxalis
The manor
house
Paying for the wine we bought
Not pretty as
a picture but very sweet and loyal. His Mum, Adele, loves him dearly
The barrel
cellar
The stack of
cases of wine. John Coetzee removing his
Dunstone
We were not
moving far on our first day in the valley as Dunstone is also just the other
side of the Bovlei Road from Nabygelegen. We arrived, a little weary, to be
welcomed by tea and cake and then everyone went off to their rooms for a rest,
a sunbath, a walk or a read or to watch the rugby test against Argentina. We all met later for supper at their Restaurant, The Stone Kitchen
We met at 7.30
in the restaurant for a tasting of the Dunstone wines and some older Wellington
wines which we had brought from our cellar
Dunstone’s
wines were presented to us by the owner, Dr Leigh Wallis, who told us all about his
very hands on winemaking. There were snacks with the tasting
Then we sat
down to supper
What is on the
menu? We had a simple potato and courgette soup, lamb chops and mashed potatoes
and were promised malva pudding with home made custard, but sadly, we were
served sliced cake with bought custard. They are trying to give value for money
and it is a very good deal at only R600 per person for tea, dinner, bed and
breakfast, but the dinner, while adequate, but was not at all exciting
And so to bed - we had the Lavender Suite
The next morning
dawned warm and sunny and everyone was very relaxed
The views from
the terrace are superb
Looking over
the vines towards Bosman’s which we would visit later that morning
The Faithful
Hound is on the bottle label too
Table laid for
breakfast which was very well prepared
Tessa and John
Coetzee
A light and
fluffy whipped three egg omelette filled with cheese and bacon
A classic
English breakfast with some toast
Or better yet,
great scrambled eggs with truffle oil in a croissant, topped with crisp bacon
A very happy
crowd looking forward to a busy Sunday. Thank you to all the very good staff
who made our stay so comfortable and happy.
The paddock
with the horses
Roger
Jørgensen was next on Sunday morning. While our group knows quite a lot about
wine and winemaking most of us are not very au fait with the making of spirits
and it was a treat to have Roger take us through the processes he uses and then
a trip into his garden and workroom to smell all the aromatics and botanicals
he uses in the making of his brandy, gin, akvavit, vodka and other interesting
alcohols
His column
still and his pot still are in the yard and he makes any equipment that he
needs
His logo and
the sign for his Vodka
Their
wonderful old Huguenot house and property is called Versailles
Roger grows
many of the botanicals he uses. Here he shows us Angelica
He had neatly
laid out the aromatics and botanicals he uses in his Gin for us to smell
Identifying
new and old smells
Not allowed to
use the word Cognac, Roger has cleverly come up with Savignac: made up of SA
vin ‘gnac
His range of
spirits, some are available for tasting, all for purchase
We tasted the
most scrumptious chocolate ganache cake with the Savignac
His vines in
front of the house
Because we had
spent so much time at Jorgensen’s, we were woefully late for the appointment
John had made at Bosman but Bea was very good about it and gave us a good
tasting of their ranges of wines in the old cellar. Sincere apologies from us
all.
This is their
old cellar with the concrete tanks which they are turning into a bottle cellar,
That old barrel at the end of the room does have 1801 painted on it.
They call
these the organ pipes in the industry, a range of the bottle sizes from a
single bottle right up to a Nebuchadnezzar which contains 15 litres of wine
We move to the
comfortable tasting room
The Bosmans’
Wine Club Selection and Grenache blanc
The range of
wines for tasting
The view from
the cellar door
and a view of
the Werf and the beautiful old farm buildings
Then it was
off to Diemersfontein for a tasting and lunch. As the day was so balmy we were
able to sit out on the terrace and do our tasting at the table at which we had lunch later
David Sonnenberg came to welcome the group and answer any
questions we had. He kindly invited us all to come and see the manor house and
gardens after lunch but, sadly, the food took rather a long time to arrive, so
we didn’t manage to get there. Perhaps next visit?
A nice
vegetarian option was stuffed aubergine
Pork Neck on
mash with a salad
A Cape Malay
curry with rice and a poppadom, described on the menu as a Rogan Josh. They used lots of fenugreek which is a Cape
signature.
Time to head
home after a lovely weekend and sadly the clouds are starting to gather
A magnificent
eagle carved out of a tree at Diemersfontein
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014
