Wednesday, August 23, 2023

David & Nadia tasting at Culture Wine Bar

A chance to taste the newly released 2022 vintage Swartland wines of David and Nadia Sadie was exciting
It was arranged at the Culture Club venue in Grub and Vine in Cape Town by Karen Visser of Great Domaines

The lineup of the 2022 David and Nadia Vintage release for the Great Domaines trade tasting

David and Nadia Sadie farm at Paardebosch Farm on Paardeberg Mountain

The tasting was well attended by members of the wine trade and media

The wines we were to taste. It was a really impressive view of what good winemaking can produce

Wine being poured by Karin Visser of Great Domaines wines.  Impressive glasses for the tasting

David and Nadia also poured

All the wines are grown in the Swartland from several different sites
There was a discussion about corks and they now prefer to use 100% Diam, which gives them good results

We began with the Chenin Blanc and Aristargos
The 2022 Chenin has 20% new oak the wine is from old vines. It's a classic Swartland Chenin
Clean fruit on the nose, some ripeness
Lovely layered fruit on the palate which is a blend of tropical and golden fruit, with a long finish
Aristargos is an unusual blend of Chenin Blanc , Semillon, Claret Blanche and Verdelho
All pickings are timed differently
Vanilla oak, greyness from the semillon, minerality and good peach and apricot fruit on the nose
Superb on the palate with integrated fruit, it is exciting and goes on and on, with good acidity and in full balance
A food wine and rather Southern French in character

Hoësteen 2022 Chenin Blanc is complex on the nose with hints of lees/wood. From clay slopes in Malmesbury
Clean, crisp and full with long flavours, a little chalky tannin, another great food wine
2021 was the most extreme vintage with heat waves and they lost 10 to 15% of the crop
All the grapes come from dryland farms
Rondevlei 2022 Chenin Blanc comes from a single vineyard in Malmesbury West, a flat oasis
Made in concrete, with a portion in barrel. Richness of fruit, a whiff of oak. Golden and complex, it draws you in
On the palate, clean fruit, great structure, good acid balance with limes appearing on the end with dark oak

Platbos 2022 Chenin Blanc is from 3.7 hectares, their biggest vineyard
They are grafting and replanting on old neglected vineyards
An ethereal nose, golden fruit with wood supporting, very different, very good
Clean and crisp with underlying richness and fullness in layers
Skaliekop 2022 Chenin Blanc has mature fruit and vanilla oak on the nose
Ripe loquat fruit with more crisp lime on the end palate, with some pastry

Grenache Noir 2022 is made in concrete and older barrels
Wildness on the nose, it wants to break free with mulberry and morello cherry fruit and a whiff of dark oak
It fills the palate with lovely red berry fruit, some soft chalky tannins and a good fruit acid balance,
a long finish with some salty licorice on the end
Epidios 2021 is a blend of Grenache noir 38%, Syrah 36%, Pinotage 10%, Carignan 9%, Cinsault 7%
An interesting nose as vanilla appears first, then the Pinotage & Cinsault showing their Pinot like character,
with cherry and raspberry, then darker fruit and spice from the Syrah
Chalk and fruit circle the palate with pepper, sour cherry, rhubarb and mulberry, with more chalk on the end

An exceptional, educational and exciting tasting of well-made wines
Thank you both Sadies and Karin for arranging it

All our stories can be seen in the Blog Archive near the top of the column on the right

Posted by MENU at 6:08 pm 0 comments

Cape Wine Masters Graduation lunch at Durbanville Hills

An invitation to attend the induction of two new Cape Wine Masters at a lunch
held in the Tangram restaurant at Durbanville Hills
Tangram is a Chinese geometrical puzzle consisting of a square cut into seven pieces
which can be arranged to make various other shapes
Some of the wines now bear this name

A friendly welcome
with a glass of Durbanville Hills special Blanc de Blanc 2015 Cap Classique with some good age character
90% made in tanks and 10% made in old barrels
With lovely, full and exciting fruit, some savouriness,
it's a bone-dry Chardonnay, wood is discernible and it still has a good mousse

Kobus Gerber, Durbanville Hills white winemaker, Andy Roediger CWM, Wilhelm Coetzee, red winemaker

Mary-Lyn Raath CWM, Albert Gerber, MD at Durbanville Hills, Lyn Woodward CWM, Burton Swain, Heineken

First a tasting of Durbanville Hills wines, beginning with their just released 2023 Sauvignon Blanc
Identifiably Durbanville, with floral perfume, some green pyrazines and a little hint of hanepoot
Zesty and full on the palate with lime, guava, granadilla and a little green pepper
The 2016 Tangram Bordeaux style white blend of 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Semillon
was the first vintage of the blend with grapes specially selected from the vineyards
Each varietal was matured separately for two years, after which only the best barrels were identified for the final blend
Golden fruit on the nose with a whiff of smoke; full on the palate with limes, melons, long flavours
Some salinity on the end, and it developed well with food

We were told that they can handle 8000 tons of wine in the cellar; it is the largest wine cellar in the world
Durbanville Hills 2021 Merlot has a concentrated nose, with dark cherry mulberry and plum
No barrels were used; chips were added to the 5000 litre tank
Silky soft on the palate, zingy and crisp fruit with long layered flavours
The 2016 Cape of Good Hope Collector's Reserve Cabernet is a cassis bomb
with berries and leaves on the nose and structure from 100% French oak
Cassis and morello cherry with leather
2012 Tangram Bordeaux Blend is a little balsamic with licorice and good fruit
The salty licorice follows through on the palate with good fruit and good wood holding it together
Showing some good age.

Bennie Howard made the opening speech and also spoke of Cellarmaster Martin Moore
who established Durbanville Hills and who, tragically, died earlier this year
We all miss him very much; he was such a good friend and mentor to us in our early career in wine

Inside the rather full restaurant

Wilhelm Coetzee, red winemaker, introduced us to the wines

Attentive staff

Kobus Gerber, white winemaker, spoke about his side of the business


The lineup of the wines we tasted 

Sharon Keith, Marketing Director, Heineken SA explained why Heineken, a beer and cider company,
bought into the South African wine market (Distell and Durbanville Hills)
We await a copy of her speech to add to this article

Marlee Malan, newly qualified CWM. She wrote her thesis on enzymes in wine. 

Sister and brother Cape Wine Masters, Kathy and Jeff Grier having fun

Heidi Duminy, Principal of the Cape Wine Academy,
told us that 275 candidates are registered to do the Cape Wine Master course

Marlee Malan accepting her certificate. She works for Vinochem
She said there are few things in life better than enjoying wine

Wine for lunch

The second new Cape Wine Master is Rudolph Steenkamp, a winemaker in his own right with Salt Rock wine
His Thesis was Conversion of Conventional framing to Organic.

He has worked for several wine farms in Constantia and Stellenbosch
He quoted Bob Marley, "Don't gain the world and lose your soul"

It is a very prestigious qualification and it takes a great deal of hard work to earn it
and rather a lot of wine tasting from all over the world, which makes it worthwhile

The Cape Wine Masters who attended the event
They also gathered for a weekend in the Hemel and Aarde valley
We have since heard that it was a very good experience

A lovely view across the vineyards, looking at "that damn quarry!" to quote Martin Moore
He hated it, it is an eyesore and eats up valuable wine terroir

Time for lunch. Grilled and very tender Chalmar beef fillet,
roasted corn puree, roasted baby potatoes, caramelized onion and sage relish with chimichurri

Line fish, pineapple yellow curry, fragrant cauliflower rice, tomato salsa and crispy calamari

Jacques Steyn CWM, current chair of the Institute of Cape Wine Masters and GM of Jordan wine estate in Stellenbosch

Melk Tert

Very rich and delicious chocolate tart, which was wonderful with the Durbanville Hills 10 year old Potstill brandy
with honeycomb, sable biscuit and toffee on the nose.  Hot and spicy apricots and peach on the warm palate

 A checkerboard of spring green vineyards, looking not at sprouting vines, but the cover crops

All our stories can be seen in the Blog Archive near the top of the column on the right

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Friday, August 18, 2023

In MENU This issue Chenin blanc, Stellenbosch tour, Coopmanhuijs, Helena's dinner, Blaauwklippen, Eike lunch

We had a wonderful two days in Stellenbosch, filled with beauty and some superb wine and food. Stellenbosch is South Africa’s second oldest city and the people in charge have always been very conscious of their heritage, history and the character of a city renowned as the country’s wine capital. This event-filled visit was a superb reminder. We hope you’ll enjoy our stories as much as we enjoyed the experience

Chenin Blanc take-over of The Wine Glass in Stellenbosch

We hadn't been to a Chenin Blanc tasting for rather a long time so, when we saw this tasting featuring Stellenbosch Chenins, we decided to go. We discovered that, if you booked lunch there, you could enjoy all three tastings. A great incentive. We like the concept of three sessions, each featuring eight terroir driven wines. A new venue for us, but we hadn't been in Stellenbosch for quite a while and, to follow the tasting, we were being sponsored by Stellenbosch Wine Tourism to stay overnight and take part in their Festival. To see this story, Click here

A walking tour of Stellenbosch with Johan Nepgen

Johan Nepgen is a tour guide in Stellenbosch. He takes you on walks in this historic and very beautiful University town and knows all the interesting and intriguing stories that bring the city to life. We were lucky enough to be invited to do a tour of the art, photography and history when we visited Stellenbosch for their festival. The city is filled with superb sculptures by well-known artists. We began the tour opposite our hotel Coopmanshuis in Church Street. . To see this story, Click here

Overnight at Coopmanhuijs, Stellenbosch

We stayed overnight at the historic five-star Coopmanhuijs Hotel in Stellenbosch for part of their recent wine festival. We were sponsored by Stellenbosch Wine Tourism. How do you park in central Stellenbosch? Thankfully, they have valet parking. To see this story, Click here

Dinner at Helena's restaurant, Coopmanhuijs

We had been invited to have dinner at Helena's Restaurant as we were staying in the Coopmanhuis Hotel in Stellenbosch. To see this story, Click here

Wine and food pairing at Blaauwklippen

An invitation to visit Blaauwklippen, see their new restaurant/tasting room and experience one of their new seasonal paired wine and food tastings. The wine pairings are perfectly harmonized by Blaauwklippen’s winemaker, Narina Cloete, together with the food from the new chefs from Cucina di Giovanni well known from their Green Point Deli.

To see this story, Click here

Lunch at Eike, Stellenbosch

Chef Bertus Basson has always produced exciting and unusual food in his restaurants, so we were very keen to go to his new Eike restaurant in Stellenbosch. An invitation from the Stellenbosch Wine Tourism board fulfilled that wish. The restaurant is at 47 Dorp Street. One does not, however, enter from the front. There is a small alley next to the restaurant and you drive through that to find a good parking area (finding street parking in popular central Stellenbosch is not easy). To see this story, Click here

All our stories can be seen in the Blog Archive near the top of the column on the right

If you do not wish to receive e-mails from us, please email menucape@gmail.com with the word 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in your email

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