We were invited to taste the De Bos range of wines from Bosman Family Vineyards at the Hotel School in Granger Bay
The students of the Cape
Town Hotel School ready to serve us some rosé on a perfect summer's day. 
The long table, where we
ate lunch and tasted the De Bos wines
Although the table was in
the shade, it was rather a hot day
Alan Romberg, the
Principal of the Hotel School, gives the welcoming speech and tells us about
the school
Tony Jackman of The
Weekend Argus and other publications taking photos of the food
Jerome Peters, the head
chef instructor of the cookery section, joined us for lunch. He has lots of
experience of top class restaurants and his teaching is raising the bar at the
school
The day's two second year
student "head chefs" explaining how they devised and cooked the
menu. Apparently, they were responsible for the rather good sauces on both the
starter and main course
Our starter of rather
chewy seafood tortellini, a vanilla prawn (thank heavens the vanilla was not
too noticeable - it is not one of our favourite combinations) anoki mushrooms
and a very good seafood bisque. This was accompanied by De Bos Walker Bay
Sauvignon Blanc 2012 - a wine we would very much like to buy.
The main course was rather
fatty rolled breast of lamb on top of mustard mash, topped with asparagus and
broccoli and again a rather good accomplished jus. They said it had mint in it,
but we could not taste any, thankfully - we think that mint with lamb has
become rather a cliché. This was served with De Bos Handpicked Cabernet
Sauvignon 2011, which was a good match for the lamb.
Dessert was a vanilla
panna cotta with a poached pear and a tuile biscuit. This was served with De
Bos Sur Lie Chenin Blanc 2012 which, sadly, was far too acidic for the dessert,
but was enjoyable on its own. It needed a dessert wine.
The very charming and
urbane Aubrey Ngcungama, made famous by Come Dine With Me South Africa, sat between
Lynne and Graham Howe at lunch. The goodie bags contained a Malay curry sauce,
cooked rice, sambal, yogurt, coconut and some vegetables for a “do it yourself”
veggie curry for when we got home. These had been prepared by the students. And
a bottle of the De Bos Chenin Blanc to go with it. A very clever idea.
Our curry had to go into
the freezer for another time -
we had another appointment that night,
John’s birthday dinner.
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus cc, 2012
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus cc, 2012
