Jordan celebrates 21 years and launches Jardine bakery

Maryna Strachan sipping Jordan’s delicious rosé

A beautiful summers day at Jordan

Into the cool winery for the vertical tasting

2 Jordan barrel fermented chardonnays and five years of Nine Yards Chardonnay

Thomas Orpen, Jordan marketing manager

Tasting Room manager Eron Martin

Sjaak Nelson, winemaker

Owner Cellarmaster Gary Jordan telling us about Jordan's 21 years of wine making

Dave Hughes CWM

Lunch: Louise Genis and Tom Orpen await us on the brand new deck

Eron shows us the older vintages we will enjoy with lunch

Talented chef and baker George Jardine

George’s wife Louise, who is the Restaurant manager, with Louise Starey

Ciska Rossouw, the baker, preparing our platters

Louise Genis

A very happy David Biggs

The menus to be served on the deck

The team who have been baking for us

A huge selection of breads and dips to start lunch with

Sesame humus, Chimichuri and Caponata to go with the bread. There was also a lovely garlicy aioli

Our wine list

One of the best views ever in the winelands

Owners Kathy and Gary Jordan with the media

The charcuterie platter with a silky smooth duck pate bloc, rilette, a great selection of local and imported meats accompanied by a sharp apricot relish, caper berries and cornichon

The local cheese platter with preserved figs

Peas and new potatoes with herbs and butter

What is the surprise inside this bread package?

Perfectly cooked fresh and moist hake!

Who can get enough of the relaxing views of vines and mountains?

A sticky tart au pruneaux (soaked prunes on an almond frangipani base) with a very chocolatey brownie

Alan Mullins

The dam is full, the vines are flourishing and the weather is perfect. Now go and see for yourself.

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013

Lunch with Genevieve MCC

A wet ride in 2 buses up the N2 to Bot River 

Full of happy smiling media

Warm welcome with a glass of Genevieve Method Cap Classique

Innovative canapés: Mushroom and lemon thyme mousse with humus, served as one journo commented, condom style in a leek

Oyster cream inside a shell of potato crisps dusted with celery salt. But where was the spherical pearl?

In front of a beautiful old house,

a huge marquee was set up for the large party

Cathryn Henderson accepts a top up of Genevieve
while Graham Howe and Yegas Naidoo await theirs

Melissa Nelsen tells us all about the history of Genevieve,
named after the patron Saint of Paris.

The beautiful table decorations echo the flavours and aromas in Genevieve

Lunch is served

First course is a Bouche of really excellent Goats' cheese with yellow beetroot, tarragon pickled almonds and grilled lettuce and topped with crisp noodles

A great selection of bread

Corlien Morris raises a toast

Genevieve 2010 is poured

Chef David Higgs flew down from the Saxon Hotel  in Johannesburg especially to cook for the function.  He is an old friend of Melissa’s

He tells us about the food pairings

Summer lemons

Genevieve 2009 is poured for the main course

Melissa's partner, viticulturalist Leon Engelke

Waiting for the next course

Quite a few bottles were consumed

Main Course was a Confit of Pork, meltingly tender served with honeyed well baked sweet potatoes, baby carrots of varied colours, a savoury jus and an excellent ginger beer gel.  It was topped with pork skin popcorn, a bridge too far for those of us who don’t want our crackling subjected to molecular gastronomy, it had little flavour

Mike Bampfield Duggan of Wine Concepts

Melissa did get to sit down and eat

Now let me tell you...

Dessert was a Macadamia and Halva parfait with pear mousse and a lemon verbena custard and was very rich and sweet . It was topped with thin slices of poached apples and pears and was the best matched dish of the day as it went perfectly with the Genevieve 2008

Genevieve 2008 still has lots of flavours and elegance but is now more suited to pairing with dessert or patés

A duck pond at the back of the house

Some of the makeshift arrangements for the chefs

Christmas goose?

Darling duck

The rear of the old house

The vines and the Bot River hills

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013