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Wednesday, April 12, 2017

This week’s MENU. Breakfast at South Hill, Bubbles at Charles Fox, Tasting Buitenverwachting wine, Saxenburg's impressive vintage wines, Spaghetti Marinara, King of the Hill Chardonnay

One of the joys of Autumn is enjoying the spectacular sunsets

Our felicitations to you all for Easter and Passover

A fairly quiet week ahead with the holiday weekend to look forward to. We hope you will all enjoy your celebrations and not be affected by any of the madness we usually see on the roads. Be safe and enjoy the time spent with your families and friends

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Breakfast at South Hill

A morning with Bubbles at Charles Fox

An evening tasting Buitenverwachting wine

Saxenburg shows off some of their impressive vintage wines

What's on the Menu this week. Spaghetti Marinara

Wine of the Week. King of the Hill Chardonnay from South Hill

Breakfast at South Hill

We needed to have a good breakfast in Elgin on Sunday morning and Nicky Wallace had recommended South Hill for breakfast the next morning and she was so right, it was superb. Owner Kevin King was on the farm that morning. He joined us for breakfast and gave us a tasting of some of their wines. See more....

A morning with Bubbles at Charles Fox

We popped into Charles Fox on Sunday morning and were treated to a tasting of their MCCs. This collection of classic Mèthode Champenois always impresses. The wines all rate 4½ stars in Platter...

An evening tasting Buitenverwachting wine

Last Wednesday saw us visit Buitenverwachting in Constantia with our wine club. It is one of our favourite farms, producing superb wine. It has a very good restaurant run by chef Edgar Osojnik, a successful coffee & deli shop, a family of owls in the oaks and the new tasting room Read on....

Saxenburg shows off some of their impressive vintage wines

Cellar master Nico van der Merwe joined Saxenburg in 1990, just a year after the Swiss Bührer family bought the estate. Vines were first planted by the founder Joachim Sax in 1701. Winemaker Edwin Grace took over from Nico recently and is now the Cellar master. Nico made wines to last and this was a chance to taste quite a few of the older vintages with members of the family and Edwin, followed by lunch at the Cattle Baron restaurant on the farm....

What's on the Menu this week. Spaghetti Marinara

This is an easy store cupboard and freezer supper. We keep a frozen seafood mix in our freezer for dishes like this. Will serve 3 to 4 people. Add a little more spaghetti if you like.

1 small onion, finely chopped - 1 t olive oil - 1 clove of garlic, crushed - 50 ml dry white wine - 350 ml tomato passata - 400 g defrosted frozen seafood mix - 200ml fish stock - 1 t fresh thyme leaves - 1/2 t oregano, chopped fine - salt and freshly ground black pepper - 200g spaghetti - garnish: 2 t chopped parsley.

Put a pot of well salted water on to boil. Fry the onion gently in the oil in a large deep saucepan and, when softened, add the garlic and fry for a minute. Put in the white wine and reduce it down to half. Add the tomato passata and the fish stock and the herbs. Simmer the sauce gently for 5 to 10 minutes to thicken and then taste and add seasoning. Leave to simmer while you cook the spaghetti. When the water comes to the boil, add the spaghetti. Cook for 8 minutes, until just before it has finished cooking. While the spaghetti is cooking, add the marinara mix to the sauce and let it cook through. When the spaghetti is ready, using tongs, drain it and add it to the sauce; stir and cook together for 2 to 3 minutes to allow the sauce to coat the spaghetti and finish cooking it. Serve sprinkled with the parsley

Wine of the Week. King of the Hill Chardonnay from South Hill

The King of the Hill is a single barrel 2015 Chardonnay made for Kevin by winemaker Matthew van Heerden (previously of Uva Mira, now at Grande Provence). It is made from best terroir Elgin grapes

Vanilla and jasmine nose with cooked apple. Clean, zingy citrus flavours followed by apricot and more apple; it has a silky texture, with the wood showing full on the end with Seville marmalade. It can take time. Definitely a food wine, it matched the Seafood marinara so well

12th April 2017

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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. This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.

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Tuesday, April 11, 2017

This week's MENU recipe. Spaghetti Marinara

This is an easy store cupboard and freezer supper. We keep a frozen seafood mix in our freezer for dishes like this. Will serve 3 to 4 people. Add a little more spaghetti if you like.

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A wine tasting with Hermann Kirschbaum at Buitenverwachting

Last Wednesday saw us visiting Buitenverwachting in Constantia with our wine club. It is one of our favourite farms, producing superb wine. It has a very good restaurant run by chef Edgar Osojnik, a successful coffee & deli shop, a family of owls in the oaks and the new tasting room ....

... which is in the old cellar on the side of the large lawn

Previous Cellarmaster Hermann Kirschbaum, who has been with Buitenverwachting since 1993, has been promoted to Farm Manager. Wine maker (for the last 13 years) Brad Paton has now taken over as Cellarmaster. He will be appointing a new winemaker shortly. Here is Herman with his wife Adrienne who organised the platters we enjoyed after the tasting

Inside the spacious new tasting room, we made ourselves comfortable on the long sofas

Modernity fits well into the old building's core

There are lots of different seating options

We began with the Buitenverwachting MCC Brut, often sold out, bright and crisp with some pinot raspberry showing. A great way to start the evening with experienced winemaker Hermann

Baby vines above the bar. We began with the whites and tasted Buiten Blanc. This amazingly popular wine sells over 600,000 bottles a year and is on most wine lists in South Africa. Tasting it, you can understand why and it sells for only R60 a bottle on the farm. One of our favourites, the Hussey’s Vlei Sauvignon blanc, is clean, crisp and lively, with good green Constantia flavours. The well wooded 2014 Maximus Blanc Fumé is complex and elegant, well integrated with the vanilla wood and built to last. R250 a bottle. We are so glad to see a revival in wooded Sauvignon Blancs, it does add so much finesse and character to these lovely wines

The Oenophiles, earnestly tasting, scoring and making notes. Buitenverwachting is keen to host wine clubs

A line up of some of the wines we tasted. We had four reds, starting with the Meifort, a Bordeaux blend, which always sold extremely well in our shop. It is made from the same barrels of wine that the flagship wine Christine is selected from and therefore gives very good value for money at R90 a bottle on the farm. The Christine is in a class all of its own however, showing such intensity with expensive wood and herbs on the nose, soft, supple and warm; a lovely cassis blockbuster, R350 on the farm. We loved the Malbec with its savoury beetroot and pomegranate wildness, soft and supple and sappig with cherry sweetie and soy flavours, gentle tannins and a vanilla ending. R250 on the farm. The Merlot is full of rich dark cherries, tobacco dust, some mint and long after tastes, R160

Adrienne had organised platters for us for afterwards. Good bread, some cheese and curried meatballs, two dips, olives feta and sundried tomatoes, biltong, spicy chorizo and some grapes. What a great evening, thank you Herman and Adrienne, we had great wine and food and great fun with you both

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Vintage tasting and lunch at Saxenburg

Saxenburg shows off some of their impressive vintage wines

Cellarmaster Nico van der Merwe joined Saxenburg in 1990, just a year after the Swiss Bührer family bought the estate. Vines were first planted by the founder Joachim Sax in 1701. Winemaker Edwin Grace took over from Nico recently and is now the Cellarmaster. Nico made wines to last and this was a chance to taste quite a few of the older vintages with members of the family and Edwin, followed by lunch at the Cattle Baron restaurant on the farm

A list of the wines we tasted. The Private Collection Merlot: The three Merlots were interesting and each different. The 1995 still has huge tannins but shows suppleness. The 1998 is attractive with a pretty nose filed with cherry and raspberry and floral, so Merlot. Slightly spicy but sweet berry fruit, warm alcohol and tannins say this wine still has years to go. The 2005 has balsamic notes with brandy hints and the tannins overtaking the fruit still.

The Private Collection Shiraz: 1994 was spicy, peppery, intense and interesting, with green herbs and truffles. Dry chewy tannins soft berry fruit beneath. The 1996 was contentious in the room. Coffee mocha notes on black berries with violets, it had clean almost crisp fruit acids, the tannins are soft and supple, more Rhone like. Drink now. 2000 smells of wonderfully of kelp, spice and rich red fruit. On the palate rhubarb, tayberries and boysenberries, with some spice. A good food wine. The best of the bunch.

The Private Collection Cabernet Sauvignon: 1992 Cassis leaves and berries, oak notes, lactic and different herbal notes. on the palate herbal with basil and oregano, then light red fruit, pomegranate rather than cassis. 1998 A Full-on nose of cassis leaves and berries Silky on the palate with warm alcohol, very 'together' a proper Cabernet in the French style except the nice warmth from our South. Vanilla oak and violets make an appearance. 2000 Balsamic spice then berries on the nose; soft sweet cassis and cherry fruit, lively and refreshing backed up by good wood and chalk. Nose does not marry with palate. 2003 Vanilla violets and cassis and rich cherries, a block buster nose, so different from the 2000. Light spicy fruit, very warm alcohol, this wine needs to get together a bit more.

The Saxenburg Shiraz Select (SSS): 1998 Dusty musty spicy with dark black berries and pepper on the nose, Hot red fruit very Rhone style with some herbs dark liquorice wood, spice and warmth of alcohol, long flavours and linseed. nice lively fruit, with a pure fruit end. 2001 Balsamic with wood, almost cassis fruit, clean sweet and sour fruit on the palate, long with warm alcohol. 2005 Pretty nose with dark fruit, perfume and warmth, no faults and interesting, showing good age notes a bang of alcohol and sweet fruit. Lovely wine for red meats - steak or rare roasts. It was a very good tasting and rather special to be able to taste these wines.

On a warm autumn day we met on the lawn outside the wine cellar

Mike Bampfield Duggan examines a bottle of the Saxenburg Non-vintage MCC, a new offering made from 85% Chardonnay, 15% Pinot Noir

The tasting was held inside the old wine cellar. This was previously owned by KWV and was used to ferment brandy, vodka, Gilbey's Gin and to make sweet wines

A mural above one of the tasting tables

Vincent Bührer, in charge of Management & International Wine Sales with his sister Fiona, has been at the reins since 2011. Vincent welcomed us and introduced the team

Cellar master Edwin Grace

Media and wine industry discussing the wines

Pouring the wines for the other table

Each of the old kuipe cellars displays one of the Saxenburg wines

The line up of the vintage wines we tasted

Lunch was at the Cattle Baron restaurant on the farm

Inside the Cattle Baron restaurant, the room has a mural of the farm

Herb margarine for the bread

The lunch menu

Fiona Bührer, sister of Vincent, is also in charge of Management & International Wine Sales, she spends her time between Europe and South Africa, she is the European Brand Manager

With lunch we got to taste the current wines, this is the new rather contentious label on the 2016 Guinea Fowl Chenin Blanc

It is a typical Stellenbosch Chenin grassy and dusty on the nose, juicy with lots of tropical flavours like pineapple and apple. Unoaked.

The starter was a briefly citrus cured Norwegian salmon ceviché, served with pickled vegetables and spring onion

A rather fetching arrangement of lamps

The group enjoying lunch

Fiona telling us about the current wine range

Saxenburg are known for their excellent Shirazes. This is the 2009 Triple S Select, just launched at the lunch, from 3 vineyards, 50/50 America and French oak R800 on the farm,. Only 3000 bottles were vinified and it is only made in the best years. It has savouriness with rich wood and berries on the nose and more intense berries and some spice, with warm alcohol and taut tannins and chalk on the end palate. Needs time

This was served with the main course which was a first for several people, tender and succulent, well flavoured beef cheeks on truffle mash, with a wine jus, baby rainbow carrots and half an onion. Not sure why the onion was there, it didn't add anything to the dish

Dessert was a coconut Panna cotta with a mango coulis, topped with roasted coconut flakes. They unfortunately collapsed as it was rather thin in texture.

Served with dessert was the La Reve Natural Sweet Wine made from Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Chardonnay. Lovely label with a bee on a vine on the World. Sticky sweet grape must with some honey and hints of pourriture but not enough to get it certified as Noble Late

In conversation

Johannesburg Sommeliers asking questions of Vincent Bührer

Johann de Wet, visiting from Robertson, with Fiona Bührer

A double espresso to go. Saxenburg had kindly arranged Uber to take us there and back home

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Best Wine on this week's MENU. South Hill King of the Hill Chardonnay 2015

The King of the Hill is a single barrel 2015 Chardonnay made for Kevin King by winemaker Matthew van Heerden (previously of Uva Mira, now at Grande Provence). It is made from best terroir Elgin grapes

Vanilla and jasmine nose with cooked apple. Clean zingy citrus flavours followed by apricot and more apple; it has a silky texture, with the wood showing full on the end with Seville marmalade. It can take time. Definitely a food wine, it matched the Seafood marinara so well.

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