130822 Main Ingredient's MENU - Gentleman Spirits and the Spirit of the fruit, The Best of Jordan at Woolworths, Dornier Bodega Seafood Platter special, Chicken Cacciatore, Age and wine

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An owl surveys the werf at Annandale

In this week’s MENU:                                

    Gentleman Spirits and the Spirit of the fruit

    The Best of Jordan at Woolworths

    Dornier Bodega Seafood Platter special

    Chicken Cacciatore

    Age and wine

Follow this link to see our Main Ingredient blogs, because to tell our whole story here would take too much space. Click on Bold words in the text of this edition to open links to pictures, blogs, pertinent websites or more information. Follow us on Twitter: @mainingmenu

This week’s Product menu: We have been without the wonderful Protea Hill Farm raspberry balsamic vinegars for a couple of weeks, but we visited the farm yesterday and have new stock of the youthful tank-matured and the aged, barrel-matured version, which costs a little more but its depth and richness justify the investment. Listening to Jenny Morris on Cape Talk in the car this afternoon, driving to the Convention Centre, we were very pleased to hear one of our customers call in to say that an earlier caller to Cape Talk would be able to find chestnut purée on our shelf. Thank you, Michael. We also have whole chestnuts and various other variations on that theme. Another caller mentioned that he could only find synthetic almond “essence”. Look no further, we have Nielsen Massey’s superb, real almond extract and their whole range of other real extracts like vanilla, coffee, chocolate, lemon, orange (blossom and juice) and rose water. Our online shop shows our range of rare and exciting products which you are unlikely to find elsewhere in South Africa. See it here

Our market activities Come and visit us at the Old Biscuit Mill’s wonderfully exciting, atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday and every Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00. Tip: Some visitors tell us how they struggle to find parking. It’s quite easy if you know how. Click here for a map which shows where we park.

Gentleman Spirits and the Spirit of the fruit     Do you like Grappa, or Schnapps or Eau de Vie? Do you like a spirited aperitif before a meal or a digestif after dinner with your coffee? Then the passion of the people behind Gentleman Spirits will excite you as will their bright, clear and sophisticated products.

We studied distilling when we took the Cape Wine Academy diploma so, when we were invited to the launch of Gentleman Spirit distillery on Blaauwklippen, we were interested to see this very neat and clean installation and of course to taste the impressive results. Briefly, if you ferment ripe macerated fruit and then cook it, you can distil out the alcohol that fermentation produces, giving you a clear spirit which still shows the character of the original fruit or grain. It doesn’t have to be fruit, you can do nuts, herbs, spices and other substances that ferment. What do they taste like? Intense flavours of the fruit and other complex nuances, followed by a lovely warming kick of hot alcohol. You don’t drink much, just a small glass is enough.

Gentleman Spirit is an association of three talented men. Rolf Zeitvogel the Managing Director and cellar master of Blaauwklippen, Hubertus Vallendar, a renowned master distiller in his home country, Germany, where he has won the world championship in distilling in two of three categories at the World Spirits Awards 2011 and 2012. Urs Gmür from Switzerland is the strategist of the three gentlemen partners. Why are they doing this here? Because our sunshine and soil produces a wonderful selection of good ripe fruit and grapes from excellent terroir.

And they want to set the bar in distilling in South Africa higher than ever before. To quote Hubertus “We cannot lower our standards, because all the space below is already occupied”. This week, we were invited to see the sparkling clean and well organised distillery and to taste some of their spirits. This was followed by a lunch at the Blaauwklippen restaurant. Click here to see the experience.

The Best of Jordan at Woolworths     On Tuesday, we were invited to lunch at Jordan by Woolworths to celebrate their long association with Jordan wines. The Exclusive Selection of Jordan wines bottled for Woolworths is so accessible and such a pleasure to drink. CWM Alan Mullins started doing this special selection of wines for Woolworth 25 years ago and they now have 250 cycled products on their list.

It is no secret that George Jardine is one of our favourite chefs in the Cape and he produced a meal of quite extraordinarily delicious food, designed to match and highlight these beautiful wines. Not every chef gets this right, he is really skilled at it. He tells us he has been foraging for years and the plates were beautifully presented and packed full of flavour and interesting combinations and George’s signature sauces. Photographs of the people, the wines and the food here.

Dornier Bodega Seafood Platter for two on special in August     You have one more week to get yourself to Bodega on Dornier for their August Wednesday special: half price seafood platter. We could not resist the temptation when we learned of this and booked three weeks ago for the first possible Wednesday. It did not disappoint. Despite the really awful cold and wet weather, we had a lovely lunch, drank some good Dornier wine with the seafood, bought some of their current special, a box of Cocoa Hill red for R242 and then went on to see Hempies du Toit at Annandale, just a few kilometres down the road from Dornier, to taste his great wines and port. Click here to see the photographs of Dornier and here to see Hempies at his historic farm.

Giving Credit where credit is due     Totally uninspired on Monday night, all cooked out from the weekend but needing a quick and easy supper using what we have in the fridge or freezer, Lynn adapted this really quick Nigella recipe which she thinks you will like and enjoy. We added extra vegetables like carrot batons, celery, slices of courgette and patty pans to bulk it up with more goodness but they are not essential. Just assemble all the ingredients and off you go. This is a one pot dish cooked on the top of the stove. You could use fish if you don’t eat meat but just add it to the sauce at the last minute so you don’t overcook it.

Chicken Cacciatore

1 tablespoon olive oil - 1/2 cup pancetta cubes or bacon - 6 large spring onions, finely sliced – 1 clove of garlic - 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves - 500g chicken thigh fillets, each cut into 4 pieces - 1/2 teaspoon celery salt -1/2 cup white wine – 1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes - 2 bay leaves - 1/2 teaspoon sugar – 1 x 400g can cannellini beans, optional

Put the oil into a pan with the pancetta, sliced spring onions, garlic and chopped rosemary and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the bite-sized chicken pieces, stirring well, and sprinkle in the celery salt. Pour in the wine and let it come to a bubble before adding the tomatoes, bay leaves and sugar. Put the lid on and let the pan simmer for 20 minutes or until the chicken is done. Drain and add a tin of cannellini beans and when they have warmed through too, you are ready to eat. Serve this with rice or tagliatelli if you need a starch. Serves 4.

Age and wine    We are sometimes asked why we have a cellar with a fairly large amount of wine. The justification comes when one wants something for a special meal and can select a well-aged, beautiful wine. We did this last Sunday when daughter Clare came to celebrate Lynne’s birthday. Lynne prepared a lamb casserole and asked for a merlot to go with it. We selected a 1998 Overgaauw merlot (sadly, we don’t have many bottles of similar age). What a treat! Age had not dimmed its favours. It was supple and elegant, with beautiful red cherry/plum fruit and a mineral backbone to keep it from being flabby. We enjoyed half the bottle on Sunday and finished it on Monday evening and it had not suffered from being open for 24 hours. In similar vein, Bruce Jack’s 2006 Weather Girl white blend tasted recently and Cape Point 2006 Isliedh were both delicious, with the youthful fruit and acidity tempered by complex flavours of maturity. Just as a beautiful woman can mature and become more interesting, so can a wine and many of our best wines become so much better when they are allowed to spend a few years resting peacefully in a quiet place. It might be in a cupboard under the stairs or any other quiet cool corner, but building a collection of wines which can be allowed to age gracefully will pay huge rewards.

Buying from us On Line   We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods You can contact us by email or phone, or through our on line shop. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Please do not pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you, then you pay and then we deliver or post. When you make an eft payment, make sure that it says who you are. Use the form on the website to email us your order. Click here to see our OnLine Shop.

Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy

There is a huge and rapidly growing variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western Cape. There are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have made separate list for each month for which we have information. To see what’s happening in our world of food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit our Events Calendar. It needs updating and we’ll do that tomorrow. All the events are listed in date order and we already have a large number of exciting events to entertain you right through the year.

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.

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. We plan to visit their French establishment after Vinexpo. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Pete Ayub, who makes our very popular Prego sauce, runs evening cooking classes at Sense of Taste, his catering company in Maitland. We can recommend them very highly, having enjoyed his seafood course. Check his programme here. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking classes in Fish Hoek 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. Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite Groote Schuur hospital). Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking classes for small groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here

22nd August 2013

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 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.

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. We own our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. 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.

Wine tasting at Annandale with Hempies du Toit

Annandale has more character in its gate post than some of the large modern wineries will ever have. And it has another attraction, the warmth of its owner - Hempies du Toit, legendary Springbok front row forward and sixth generation winemaker

Here he comes to greet us with his warm, friendly welcome

The farmyard is full of old and new winemaking equipment, and the buildings have an aged charm. Hempies adores his horses and his much loved pregnant mare comes trotting at his call.

She looks as though she is having fun

Inside the very rustic tasting room, filled with Springbok rugby memorabilia, we tasted through their extremely good range of red wines and port with a large tour group of young people from all over the world. Hempies keeps his wine back, so you can enjoy wines that are properly aged and ready to drink. Current vintage on sale is 2004

This wine is going to Australia and Hempies signed both bottles

Magic in the cellar in front of a roaring fire

When the sun comes out you see more of the charm

 © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013

Dornier Wednesday seafood special

The bright interior of Bodega, Dornier’s restaurant. A new experience for us, as we have always been there in summer when we sat on the terrace with the wonderful mountain view.

We were given a Monis medium sweet sherry as an aperitif to warm us up on arrival, as it was a very dank, cold, wet day. This is the view of the awful weather through one of the restaurant doors to the presently empty terrace.

Wednesday’s special menu for August.. We had come especially to share two Royal platters. We love these specials which make luxury ingredients more affordable. We are pensioners after all.

And the stupendous dish arrives. The crayfish and the langoustine were amazing. Well-cooked in a lovely buttery garlic sauce. The king prawns were less exciting and the polpetti calamari were tender and also in a good sauce. The mussels usually on the plate were not available, so we were given extra calamari. We think the very moist and juicy fish fillets were gurnard as they were neither gamey and dry, nor firm like kingklip. The small herb salad was well dressed and the rice and egg pilaf was the perfect accompaniment, as it soaked up the juices on the plate. 

We drank a bottle of their best white, the Dornier Donatus - a blend of Chenin blanc and Semillon to start and then our budget insisted we switch to the Dornier Cocoa Hill Chenin. Both were perfect foils to the rich seafood.

This is their normal winter menu and good value at R180 for two courses. We saw some of the food on other tables and it certainly looked worth returning for!

Do go and taste this special, we think it is worthwhile offer and bought it. The wine is not ready to drink yet, but it will be in a couple of years. It has lots of fruit, good tannins and great acid structure to support it in the future

We met the Chef, Daniel Kotze, who was sous chef under Chef Neil Norman, who has just moved to a restaurant in Camps Bay. Daniel is waiting for his new tunics

A very pretty window above the door to the kitchen

Wines to taste in the tasting room with some souvenirs, most made locally from recycled things

The roof of the Dornier Winery in front of Bodega restaurant is inspired by the shape of an aeroplane wing, a reference to the Dornier family’s aviation history

The waterfalls on the mountain were huge due to all the rain we have had recently and all the local dams are overtopping

A glade of tall pines on the mountainside hides small buildings

And another, with a telecommunication tower

© John and Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013

A Celebration of Jordan wines in Woolworths at Jardine on Jordan

A rare sunny winter day in the winelands. We gathered outside the restaurant. Members of the media and PR enjoy a welcoming glass of Sur Lie Chardonnay and the sunshine.

Emanuel Mlotsha and Benedict Sithole, two of our friendly and efficient servers

The Exclusive selection unwooded Chardonnay  has  golden delicious apples on the nose and crisp dry green apples on its multi-layered palate with a distinct marmalade end.

Juanita Jolly, Maggie Mostert and Louise Genis enjoying the wine, the sun and the landscape

The menu for the lunch

Our rustic hors d’oeuvre was the kitchen’s freshly baked bread,  parsley butter, cauliflower salad, tiny roasted baby tomatoes with a lot of wonderful garlic slices and chives and some rich aioli.

Tom Orpen, sales and marketing manager for Jordan, Lynne, Alan Mullins CWM, wine consultant to Woolworths, and Cathryn Henderson, Editor of Classic Wine Magazine discuss the wines and the industry

Next we compared the Jordan  2004 Chardonnay and the 2012  ‘Specially for Woolworths’ lightly wooded Chardonnay which were served with the starter.

The starter. What a beautifully presented plate. On a broad bean purée base, a coin of buffalo mozzarella with chewy and intense grilled baby fennel, fresh broad beans, orange cream, and winter herbs: baby nasturtium leaves, sorrel leaves and flowers, chickweed, jasmine blossoms, and a sprinkling of crisp beef ‘kaaiings’ or crackling.  Each one of these flavours appeared in the wine and as a whole the dish was intense, sharp, citrusy, herbal and delicious

Co-owner/winemaker Gary Jordan tells us about the wines and the relationship with Woolworths

Woolworths’ wine buyer Ivan Oertle tells us about the Exclusive for Woolworths history

Chef George Jardine tells us about the food and how they did the wine pairing

The next course was a fillet of East Coast hake wrapped in crisp pancetta, tender red wine braised octopus circles, which some of us first thought were scallops, in a rich smoked marrow jus topped with watercress. This was served with two Jordan Merlots.  The very good value No Added Sulphur 2012 Merlot (R59.95) and the Woolworths Exclusive Selection Merlot 2010 (R99.95) and it had a remarkable effect on both wines. It amplified the smoke on the first wine and softened and enriched its slightly sharp acidity. And it brought out and enhanced the rich flavours of the cherries and mulberry fruit on the second wine. 

The next course of Confit duck leg with porcini boulangère (translation: cooked with sliced onions in a casserole) sauce, poached turnip purée and marinated sultanas, was the best duck confit we have had since France. Crisp skin, soft flesh falling off the bones, counterpointed by the mushroom jus and the sweetness of the sultanas.  The plate was dressed with chickweed, which is a weed we will be foraging for from now on. Served with two versions of  Jordan Cobbler's Hill Bordeaux blend: the Jordan 2004 and the Jordan Exclusively for Woolworths 2010 (R210.95).

These wines are full of expensive wood on the nose with cassis, rhubarb and cherries and with some savoury notes from the addition of the Cabernet Franc. They have rich, deep fruit flavours.  The 2010, while young and needing a little more time, was especially good with the duck and, yet again, everything on the plate added to the experience of the wines. As Lynne said in a tweet, George Jardine is indeed a food alchemist.

Winemaker and co-owner Cathy Jordan tells us a little more about the wines and how they did the pairings

To finish the meal, we were served a selection of great local cheeses from their cheese room with home-made jams. This was partnered with the richly sweet and elegant Jordan Mellifera NLH

Job well done, Chef George Jardine on his way home to his family.  Do go and sample his food, Jordan’s wines and enjoy that amazing view from the restaurant.

© John and Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013