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Thursday, April 21, 2016

Backsberg celebrates their Centenary with an end-of-harvest lunch

The rags to riches story of the Back family is inspiring. The original Charles Back arrived as a penniless refugee from Lithuania in 1902 and worked his way up from bicycle delivery 'boy' to owning his own butchery. He and his wife were offered the farm Klein Babylonstoren on the Paarl-facing slopes of the Simonsberg mountain in 1916 and jumped at it. They sold the butchery and became farmers. They farmed some grain, some live stock, some fruit and in time, some wine grapes. The farm was renamed Backsberg. Charles Back also bought the farm Fairview in Agter Paarl and he left a farm to each of his sons, Sidney (Backsberg) and Cyril (Fairview). Today cousins Michael and Charles Back own these two farms. After years of the hard work of four generations, the Back family have grown very successful and produce wines of good reputations that sell. This week current CEO Simon Back (son of Michael) invited some media and wine trade to a lunch to celebrate the end of harvest in Backsberg's new restaurant, This was to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Back family making wine at Backsberg and taste some of the newly released wines with lunch

Pierre Jordaan of Backsberg chats to Alan Mullins MW as we enjoy a glass of Backsberg Brut MCC 2010. The food throughout the lunch was a feast of delights. Canapés were small falafels with a warm chilli sauce and inspired crisp potato wedges topped with herbed cream cheese

A long table had been set up on the terrace in front of the new restaurant

The restaurant has a great mixture of old and new and feels very relaxed, spacious and comfortable.

We love the ceiling of barrel staves and that table in front of the fine is one to go for in the middle of winter. They serve lunch outdoors if the weather is favourable and indoors beside a roaring fire in the chilly months. They do spit braais every Sunday. when the three course set menu is R225 per person. Musician Guy Feldman provides live guitar music

PRO for Backsberg Emil Joubert

Simon Back, 4th generation Backsberg CEO, welcomes us and tells us some of the history of the farm and about the wines and the future

The starter was divided into four small dishes. Not tapas but tastes said the chef to Lynne. A warm and smooth sweet potato soup, a lovely smoked snoek Samoosa that tasted of sea food with a sweet dipping sauce; a slice of spciy chorizo, nicely ripe and ready Languedoc cheese, bread, Humus and piquanté pepper; Honey roasted baby beet on goats milk cheese with pomegranate and rocket, all were enjoyable

This was served with two wines, the well wooded (100% new barrels) 2015 Sonop Chardonnay, rich and creamy, long layers of fruit and depth with apples, yellow plums, apricots and a finish of toasted brioche

and the Family Reserve White blend, an enchanting blend of Roussanne, Sauvignon Blanc Chardonnay, Viognier and Semillon. It is a wooded wine but we did not find it over wooded. It is perfumed with notes of flowers, fruit and cigar box. The oily Semillon and nice acidity lights up the palate then the Chardonnay apples and pears take over for a long end. A food wine

Simon Back

Chef Wilhelm Mareé came out to talk about the food

All the wines now have the Backsberg Centenary label. The Family Reserve red a classic Bordeaux blend was served with the main course. It is big, but supple and elegant. We also tasted the Klein Babylonstoren classic Merlot, with incense and violets, cassis and cherries with soft tannins and chocolate and liquorice on the end. Ready to drink now but has age to last, a good SA merlot. and the Pumphouse Shiraz which is like Rolls Royce backfiring very spicy puffs of balsamic cherries, spice and liquorice, the perfect match for the lamb pie main (Photo © Jan Laubscher, Winetimes.co.za)

Michael Fridjhon was the guest speaker and he reminisced about his long 40 year working relationship with Backsberg. He worked for Benny Goldbergs, the first wine supermarket in Johannesburg, when Backsberg started selling Estate wine in 1969

He reminded us that Backberg were the founding members of Estate wine in SA and founding partners in modern wine innovation. They still are an Estate and all the wine they produce is grown on the farm. They are about the integrity of terroir but not at the expense of good value

The main course of a very generous Moroccan style lamb pie wrapped in filo pastry, with a sticky Klein Babylonstoren wine jus, sweet carrots, minted fig chutney and fresh fig

(Photo © Jan Laubscher, Winetimes.co.za)

Backsberg has released a limited edition Centenary Selection of six wines hand-crafted to perfection by winemaker Alicia Rechner: one bottle each of Roussanne / Sauvignon Blanc 2015, Cape White Blend 2015, Cape Red Blend 2015, Sangiovese / Barbera 2014, Grenache / Shiraz 2014, Malbec 2014 for R1170. The carton is covered with Backsberg labels from the past. Backsberg also produce a Kosher wine Range: Sparkling MCC Brut; Chardonnay; Pinotage; Merlot; Kiddush. They are made under the auspices of the Cape Town Beth Din and the OU of the United States. The wines are Mevushal and Kosher for Passover

Now you are spoiling us. A glass of the Backsberg Sydney Back Brandy to go with dessert

Lynne's brandy was spilled on her Cape Brandy pudding, next to it is shortbread topped with granadilla cheese cake, then chocolate roulade topped unusually with beetroot, and finally some Dalewood cheese with a fruit preserve, something for everyone

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Biltong and Pinotage Festival at L'Avenir

Sunday broke fair and fine and off we went to the Biltong and Pinotage Festival at L'Avenir, sponsored by Joubert and Monty Biltong. Lots of the South African Pinotages from top producers could be tasted and many farms brought along a couple of other wines. There were two wineries to each stand and they shared a biltong pairing

You received a card on entry and, each time you tasted the main pinotage, or the biltong pairing, the card was stamped to show you had done that. But many extra wines could be tasted free. We had a lot of fun

L’Avenir has huge lawns and the stands were set up on them

There were a few food offerings, but not terribly inspiring. This stand had Belgian Waffles

Two food trucks, one serving Pizza and the other hotdogs or hamburgers ,beef wraps, sausage rolls and chips

We decided to begin with white wines or bubbly and enjoyed the Beyerskloof Chenin white Pinotage blend the most

Chatting with the staff about the wine

The group was great, we would invite them to any festival or function we attended. They played a laid back selection of great music and tailored it to fit the locale. Sting's Illegal Alien was amusingly adapted to "I'm a refugee in Franschhoek"!

They even played a good Irish jig and a few of us could not be constrained and tried out a few steps a la Riverdance. Well .... nearly

Pierre Wahl and his wife from Rijks in Tulbagh had a lovely selection to try. This sort of quality wine made the festival so worthwhile

There were shade tents and a fair amount of places to sit, or on the lawn

We wanted something lighter for lunch, so went across the road to Morgenhof

John ordered his favourite, the sesame chicken salad. This is the huge main course portion; you can order it as a starter, which he should have done

Anne ordered the Tapas plate with a huge selection of interesting bites

Lynne had the smoked salmon salad with chips, topped with a caper mayonnaise

It is lovely under the shaded pergola of vines. They are fresh and green in the summer, but autumn is upon us

Back to taste more Pinotage. We started on the Anura stand

Then to Altydgedacht

A sandpit for the children

Enjoying Mummy's company while she works on the Remhoogte stand

You were given a toothpick with a couple of pieces of biltong for each Pinotage you tasted. It is good biltong, but not all the flavours match the wine. And there was lots of discussion at the festival about flavoured biltong, especially lemon and herb or red pepper flavours. The salami style thin sausage has a very intense and salty taste. We saw that many people did not do pairings, but collected their different biltongs in a paper bag to eat later. We eventually did the same as there is only so much biltong you want to eat in one afternoon. We do see it as a good way for Joubert and Monty to introduce people to their different biltong flavours. More biltong could be sliced and bought to take home.

Shadows lengthen and the afternoon wears on

Marketing Manager Barend Barnard of L’Avenir with adoring fans

Lewellyn of Chamonix

The wines on offer at Rhebokskloof. Winemaker Francois Naude has been involved with making their Pinotage and was their first winemaker at L’Avenir; they are both outstanding

No one can resist Retrievers and they love the attention, such good natured dogs

and very social dogs

Beyers Truter with friends

We were introduced to Beyers' new beer, Pinotale which is made for Beyerskloof by Red Sky Brewers We really enjoyed it

Barend with Zelda Furstenburg, Sales Manager of Lanzerac, enjoying their Pinotage

No one was in a hurry to go home, it was so laid back

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Wednesday, April 20, 2016

A Mad Hatter evening at A Touch of Madness, Observatory

You can't say we are not game for a fun event. We got dressed up in eccentric garb on Friday night as we were invited to the 'relaunch' of this pub/restaurant in Observatory. Walking through those rather dodgy streets in weird clothing needs bravado. It is now under the ownership of locals Richard Andrew and Olivia Andrews

Our first meeting with Olivia and Jean du Toit, the manager, both of whom may well be a little mad dressed like this! Behind them is Leah van Deventer, the White Rabbit to John's Mad Hatter?

The front garden area, where they poured us a glass of Bubbly

The front room of the restaurant, where we enjoyed our glass of Bubbly

Fashionistas NOT! And yes, you have noticed that not one other person in the room has dressed up as instructed. Clash

At the bar. A mask? A stetson, really? the best you could do? Some other silly hats seemed to be most people's idea of a touch of madness. Co-owner Richard (turquoise shirt) looking after a customer