Evening cruise on a sparkling
Table Bay
In
this week’s MENU:
The Christian Eedes Chardonnay Report
Caroline’s White Wine Review
Taste older Sauvignons from all over the world –
Bartho’s Savvy Celebration
Spicy Pork and Butternut Stew
Palm oil – an environmental disaster
This week’s Product menu: We have new stock of chestnuts,
in cans and jars and have replenished our stock of the ever popular truffle
oils. Patés have been selling well, especially the delicious French duck
rillette, and we have more of those in stock too. Confit duck in 2 and 4 leg
cans is wonderful on its own and is brilliant in cassoulet. They’re in our
shop. 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.
As usual, we have a link at the bottom to our calendar of wine and food related events which should interest all
lovers of great food and wine and events which promote them. We have always had
a few from centres outside the Western Cape, but we now have enough to justify
a separate list, so, if you live in one of the other splendid places in our
lovely country, have a look. If you are promoting an event in any of
these places, please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.
The Christian
Eedes Chardonnay Report with Sanlam
To quote Christian: “The Chardonnay Report was started in 2011 to
scrutinise the top-end of the category in South Africa on an annual basis. In
undertaking the exercise, I wanted firstly to take a view on the overall level
of quality but secondly start to explore issues of terroir – is provenance
discernible, and moreover, might it start becoming something worth a real
premium?”
We had an opportunity to taste the results
this week at Burrata with many of the wine media. It is always good to see what
Christian and his band of judges come up with and to see if we agree. There
were some really good Chardonnays, one huge surprise for us, some we knew would
win kudos and awards and a couple we found rather too overwooded and in the
style that turned people away from Chardonnay in the past. But that is what
different tastes throw into a mix like this. Click here to see the awards and
pictures of the event
We have begun to love
Chardonnay again over the last couple of years and love the way the South
African wine industry is treating this beautiful grape. We love the lean and
elegant French style, wines full of citrus and marmalade, the well integrated
wines where the wood adds structure, but does not blunt your palate with burnt
flavours or tannins, wine that has mellowed in good quality barrels for more
than a scant few months, or wines that completely unwooded and lively. Heavy applications of wood chips or batonage are
just not on anymore. Chardonnay can be full of golden fruit and sunshine and,
more than anything else, it can add so much to food. And, yes, we do think that
terroir is starting to point the way to where the best can be grown - Hemel
& Aarde and Elgin often come to the fore in awards.
Our favourites were rather
predictable, we so agreed with the judges on four of the top wines: the 5 star 2012 Paul Cluver (R125) which is
full and complex and a huge compliment to food, and the 5 star 2012 Groot Constantia
(R155) is full of citrus, vanilla and perfume.
4½ star The Hamilton Russell 2012 (R290) surprised us, we did not expect
to like this as much as we did and we think winemaker Hannes Storm has really
got it right with a huge golden wine, without too much wood overtaking it.
Every time we have tasted the KWV The Mentors 2012 Chardonnay (R160) this year
we have loved it and this continues.
Do go and find some of these,
they are well worth drinking.
Caroline’s
White Wine Review This
was held on Wednesday night at the huge Table Bay Hotel venue. Normally, Caroline chooses the wines she
wants the farms to exhibit; last night, the winemakers could bring what they
considered to be their best white wine. And they so did! It is extremely difficult to be objective
about this sort of tasting, where most of the wines and bubblies we tasted were
absolutely terrific both in quality and flavour. We started with three
completely different MCC bubblies.
Different, unique but all good to go. David van Niekerk’s High
Constantia Clos André 2009 has water biscuits on the nose and a lovely aged
rich character; Lourensford’s Brut 2008 is jam packed full of limes and lemons
and would match seafood phenomenally well and Graham Beck Brut Zero 2008 shows
what a little lees contact can do to a bone dry MCC; it sparkles with life.
Lynne’s average score for the 47 wines she tasted was about 17.5 and there was
one 20 for the Incredible Five Generations 2010 Chenin Blanc from Cederberg
made by Alex Nel. This is a wine so layered and full of fruit concentration and
depth that it is a wine to covet. David Trafford’s Sijnn white blend 2012 was a
19, tasting of sweet layered fruit on pebble stones. Groote Post Riesling sang
in the glass with 13gm of sugar and not a turpene in sight, very Germanic in
style, was also a 19. Diemersdal’s Eight Rows Sauvignon Blanc is exactly the
style of Sauvignon we want to drink: herbaceous, green peppers, limes and
minerality, another 19, as is De Grendel 2013 Koetshuis SB. We could go on for
hours describing Antonij Rupert, Beaumont, Cape Point, Buitenverwachting, De
Wetshof, Paul Cluver, Oak Valley, Simonsig and Spier.. and many more. Thank you
Caroline. She stocks them all and is about to open a new shop in Tokai. We took a few photographs
A
chance to taste older Sauvignons Blanc from all over the world Suné and Bartho Eksteen's 2013 Savvy
Celebration (the 21st) will take place at the end of November in
Hermanus. There are just a few places left and if you have forgotten to
book, get moving! We will be there taking notes and photographs for them. Click here for the information . Our photographs of last year’s celebration can be seen
here. Arnaud Bourgeois of the respected
Sancerre producer Henri Bourgeois will be the guest of honour. He will lead the
workshop and presents some interesting samples from the Vignerons de Sancerre.
Suné has produced a detailed prospectus as a .pdf file. If you would like to
receive it, please send us a request and we’ll send it to you as an attachment.
It is too large to include as part of this newsletter and we can’t translate
the format into our blog
This
week’s recipe is perhaps a different take on some familiar
ingredients and creates a nice spicy and rich stew with a hint of chilli and
spices. Not quite a curry, but a very delicious meal in one pot. Lynne used some spicy masala we bought in
Durban on our last trip.
Spicy
Pork and Butternut Stew
2 T canola oil – 1 kg boneless lean pork cubes – 2
chopped onions - 2 chopped cloves garlic – 1 T Indian masala or curry powder –
1 t ground cumin – 600 ml chicken stock -
300 ml tomato piassava or 3 T tomato puree – salt and freshly ground
black pepper - 1 kg butternut, cut into 3 cm cubes – 1 kg baby new potatoes in
their skins – 1 cup frozen peas
In
a casserole with a lid, fry the pork in the oil until it is brown on all sides.
Remove from the pot and set aside. Add the onion and garlic and fry for two
minutes until it is starting to soften then add the masala and cumin and stir
until the onion is covered in the spice.
Add the stock, tomato passata or puree, salt and pepper bring to the
boil, stirring well to get the spices and browned bits off the bottom of the
pot. Return the pork to the pot, cover and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook for
an hour, stirring occasionally. Add the
butternut and potatoes. Cover again and simmer until they are just done. Ad the
peas and simmer for another five minutes. Then serve in bowls with a good
unwooded chardonnay.
Serves six plus
seconds.
Palm oil
has become an ingredient in a huge number of processed foods and cosmetics and
is sometimes touted as a healthy alternative. What is not told sufficiently often
is the environmental story. The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is indigenous to
West Africa, but grows very well in other tropical areas. It has been, and
continues to be, widely planted in Malaysia and Indonesia, where huge areas of
indigenous forest are being destroyed and replaced with oil plantations. This
is doing enormous damage to the habitat of several endangered species,
including orang-utans. And before they plant, they burn the indigenous forest,
causing worldwide air pollution. This photograph from the latest National
Geographic shows some of the damage. We wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.
Photo by Mathis Klum, Borneo 2008.
“A birds-eye view offers indisputable evidence of environmental destruction, as
roads and terraced fields erase biodiversity in favour of just one species: the
oil palm tree. The profitability of palm oil has sent the crop sprawling across
an area the size of Switzerland” ©National Geographic Society
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.
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.
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. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.
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. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.
Pete Ayub, who made 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
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! ®
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