A visit to Anthonij Rupert Wines

At some wine farms you just get a tasting room experience, at others like Anthonij Rupert, there are a lot of great experiences. It is a very beautiful farm with almost as much garden as vineyards. We started the morning with tea in the gazebo, accompanied of course by a glass or two of their MCC.

The beautifully restored dining room which is used for private tastings. The farm was inherited by Johann Rupert in 2001 following the tragic death of his brother Anthonij

Gidi Caetano showing us around the La Garonne Manor House

The classically furnished drawing room

A wonderful antique glass-fronted walnut cabinet filled with English china

The tasting can be held on the terrace...

...which has great views of the gardens and the mountains

and some shade

Or you can taste inside

There are two guest rooms, furnished in the same style

with spectacular Victorian style bathrooms

Very fine examples of pressed local flora, prepared at least a century ago

This snowdrop example is very skilfully done and even includes the bulbs

A St Francis drinking fountain for animals

The slave bell at the entrance to the superb rose garden

A variety of evening primrose

An old cellar which has been converted into company guest accommodation

Magnificent roses in Mrs Beck’s rose garden, planted in 1992 for her son’s wedding

They surround the gazebo

Old friends enjoying the sunshine

A damask rose with the most wonderful perfume

Tea in the gazebo. You need to book this at least 24 hours in advance, but it’s a perfect place for friends to meet, for small celebrations and special occasions. Or even small wedding ceremonies

So many wonderful choices. Top shelf had macaroons and smoked salmon pastries, next were cheese scones and butternut filo tartlets, the bottom had flourless chocolate tarts, wonderful lemon cream filled brandy snaps, semolina financiers and more divine macaroons

All went very well with the L’Ormarins Brut Classique MCC

Anne, facing temptation with a good pot of tea

A stone celebrating the gardener of the rose garden, Oom Storm van der Westhuizen

Then it was on to the Tram for a trip around the farm. The vines on the top of the hill remain, but on the rest of the farm they are doing extensive replanting

Marvellous Cabernet Franc grapes just waiting for the harvest

A view of the new dam being built on the farm and of the bare vineyards which will only be replanted in three years' time when the ground has had time to rest

A view of another of the farm’s ‘trams’ which take you around the farm. They do not run on rails. The trams are housed on L’Ormarins, at the Franschhoek Motor Museum and at the two tasting rooms, Terra del Capo and Anthonij Rupert, the latter on the adjacent Anthonij Rupert Estate.

The trams travel in tandem between the two venues, with each journey lasting approximately 30 minutes and operating on a hop-on hop-off basis.

It is a trip filled with magnificent views of the surrounding countryside

A copy of Rodin’s The Kiss is in the gardens near the wine cellar

And these gardens are full of excellent sculptures being collected by Johann Rupert

It also has a marvellous potager garden for the chef, filled with vegetables and herbs

L’Ormarins Manor House

Then it was back to taste the full range of the Cape of Good Hope wines and Two of the top Anthonij Rupert wines with winemaker Dawie Botha. The are grown on four farms in the group and are all terroir specific.  It is an amazing range to taste and we suggest you go and try these wines for yourself. Lynne particularly liked the elegant Semillon with notes of pine nuts, straw and quince, a clean, fresh and layered food wine. The Merlot has an intense nose with vanilla, cinnamon and cherries with a hint of white pepper and it’s a velvety mouthful of Bing cherries and cassis flavours with chocolate coffee wood  

Gidi joined us

Winemaker Dawie Botha guided us through the tasting and we discovered that they will soon have a truffle harvest on the farm

There is another Potager garden at the tasting room

Then we drove down to the Terra del Capo tasting room for lunch. They brought us many dishes to try. This was a lovely salad, very well dressed

Good charcuterie platter

Arancini balls stuffed with molten mozzarella

Superb deep fried lightly battered quid and a garlic aioli – some of the best we have had lately

Deep fried tempura courgette slices

The menu

Chocolate ice cream topped with a strawberry for Anne

A cappuccino for her afterwards

Lynne had the cheese platter with red preserved figs

The outside of the Terra del Capo tasting room

All the photographs were taken by Lynne for a change. She is not as good as John, especially when focusing!

The Antonij Rupert 2008 Red blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot and Merlot is a great wine, and has layers of minerality and soft velvety fruit with some salty licorice ‘drop’ and lovely balance.  The Petite Verdot is a pretty fruit driven wine on hints of expensive new oak

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

Starlight Concert at Vergelegen

Lots of strategic planning ensured that we met up that evening at La Franschhoek where John’s tour guests were staying and then it was off to one of our musical highlights of the year, the RMB Starlight Concert at Vergelegen.

Lots of great performers this year, Cape Town Opera Chorus, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, The Delft Big Band, Bovim Ballet,  our favourite Conductor Richard Cock, City Swing and many soloists. If only the programme listed the names of the performers with the items instead of the composers!

This young 12 year old Maudee Montierre gave a stunning performance for an amateur. She is blind and her ambition is to sing with Andrea Bocelli and Nianell. One wish came true, as Nianell was performing that night and they sang together

The top act for the evening was Sir James Galway, accompanied by his wife Lady Jeanne.  He played some beautiful works, some classical, a Carmen fantasy, a very amusing Irish gig on a penny whistle and a his very emotional rendition of Danny Boy which accompanied the War Horse puppets

Conductor and MC for the evening Richard Cock

The lovely part of the evening when we become the starlight and wave our torches in the air. If we have one small regret it was that this year there was very little audience participation with the music

Nianel singing at the piano

Opera and ballet together

with audience participation by candle light

The Paul Simon Graceland medley had the audience on its feet dancing and tears pouring down Lynne's face as these were the songs that brought her back to South Africa

Help yourself to sweeties at the after concert dessert and coffee table

Best selection of desserts we have ever had. Cream filled chocolate profiteroles, real macaroons, red velvet mini cakes, carrot cakes, chocolate cake topped with raspberries.  By the time we had a coffee and sampled some of these delights, the traffic had cleared

The magnificent ancient camphor trees of Vergelegen, now a national monument. Yes, the trees are a monument

Lovely finding your way to your car through the beautiful gardens of Vergelegen

One of the farm buildings that is now a restaurant

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

150306 Main Ingredient's MENU - Publication delayed. South Peninsula fire

Smoke from the dying fires above Buitenverwachting wine estate

and Groot Constantia

We write about our experiences in MENU, not only to entertain you, but to encourage you to visit the places and events that we do. We know you will enjoy them and we try to make each write up as graphic as we can, so you get a good picture of what is on offer at each place, restaurant, wine farm, festival we visit.

This week, there have been so many events, tours, tastings and festivals that we have had no time to do more than take notes and photographs. Editing and publication need to wait for next week.

The biggest, most devastating event of the week has been the horrific fires in the South Peninsula. We went to a tasting in Constantia last night and took these photographs. By the time we were there, it appeared that the fires were finally under control after heroic activity by the firefighters since Sunday morning. Our hearts go out to everyone who lost property, memories, livelihoods and even life. 

Cape Talk Radio started a fund yesterday and has already collected more than R3 million which will go to training firefighters and buying better equipment. You can contribute by going to their website and pledging. Look for " How to donate to the Fire Relief Fund" http://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/1967/fire-relief-fund

Thousands of visitors are here for the annual Cycle Tour. We welcome them all and wish them well. Sadly, because of damage caused by the fire, Chapman’s Peak Drive has had to be closed and the race shortened from 109Km to 47 Km.

Next week, we will be back to normal and we will send you a bumper edition.

Have a wonderful weekend

Learn about wine and cooking We receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here. Karen Glanfield has taken over the UnWined wine appreciation courses from Cathy. See the details here

The Hurst Campus, an accredited school for people who want to become professional chefs, has a variety of courses. See the details here

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.

In addition to the new Sense of Taste Culinary Arts School, Chef Peter Ayub runs a four module course for keen home cooks at his Maitland complex. Details here

Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has French cooking classes in Noordhoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here.

Emma Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her home in Constantia.

6th March 2015

Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our online shop for details and prices.

PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information

Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169

Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005

Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian and standard or Dutch-flavoured Afrikaans.

Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters and our blogs are ©John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast! ^® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.

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