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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Vine Garden Tasting at Bosman Family Vineyards in the Hemel en Aarde Valley

The Bosman family has two farms, one in Wellington and the other called De Bos Farm in the Hemel en Aarde valley. On this farm, in conjunction with their Lelienfontein Vine Growers, they grow a library of 47 different grape varieties and several clones of some of those varieties.

This privilege is one enjoyed by only very few wineries anywhere in the world today and makes Bosman Family Vineyards custodians of their wines from their very roots. It is also the essence for the enterprise’s slogan: ‘From Vine to Wine’. Selecting from a broad spectrum of high quality foundation status plant material in the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, Ceres Karoo, Klein Karoo and Leeu-Gamka, Lelienfontein Vine Growers cultivates vines of the highest standard with minimal risk of infections and viruses. It is actively involved in research and development through representation. It is through Lelienfontein Vine Growers that Bosman Family Vineyards has established the most enviable of situations for a winemaker - a veritable library of 47 different grape varieties that are at its disposal.

Bosman Family Vineyards MD, Petrus Bosman and Winemaker Corlea Fourie guided a group of media through the vineyards, where we were able to taste many of the ripe grapes of the 47 different grape varietals grown in this location. This was followed by a forest lunch and wine tasting under the pine trees.

It was a muddy and damp day, but tasting different clones of Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Cabernet and several other varietals was an enormous privilege, as there are so few places where one might ever again get this experience at this time of the year, when the grapes are ready for harvest. Were the differences visible? Yes, indeed they were. Yet another valuable learning experience in the world of wine making.

We began the day early with a coffee at the One&Only Hotel where we picked up our transport for the rather long 2 hour journey to the Hemel and Aarde Valley .

Thank you Ian Manley for the coffee and croissants we enjoyed on the bus. Most appreciated.

On arrival we were treated to a taste of their newly released Method Cap Classique Chenin bubbly

The MCC is entitled Steen, another name for Chenin Blanc. The wine has grassy and bready notes on its faintly tropical nose, is crisp and tropical and has a good mousse

The day was a little bit damp and they had made sure lots of umbrellas were available for our trek through the vineyards and afterwards at lunch

Each varietal and then each clone has about three or four rows and each bears their bona fides. So these are Rows of Sauvignon Blanc, Clone SB 108C x R110 Lynne's tasting notes for the grape she tasted are “Gooseberries (English), one note but a good blending wine from the French.

We learnt a great deal from our guides about varietals and how to use them

A good bunch of Sauvignon blanc showing a little rot and nice ripeness in the rain

A close up of the information labelling for the varietals

Clone SB11 R is also known as the Weather Station and is widely used in South African sauvignons. As you can see, it is quite prolific. It is figgy, has a nice acidity and some hanepoot sweetness when ripe.

Pinot Noir Clone PN 52C....

...showed some very large healthy bunches

Lots of technical questions were asked and well answered

Winemaker Corlea Fourie with PRO Ian Manley

A field of American rootstock vines

Behind the vineyards is a lovely pine forest, where the sound of the wind is magical. This was where the tables were set up for lunch

It was a huge buffet spread of many different things so we all had lots of choice

Cheese, meatballs and sausages, grapes and salady things

Great chicken liver pate, biltong, droëwors, prawns on French toast, good breads, chutneys, pickles and relishes

Chicken wings, figs stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped in Parma ham and dips

Smoked and cooked salmon with gherkins and cream cheese on mini French toasts

Lovely local cheeses

and cold meats with nuts and fresh asparagus

A place setting with the Bosman wines we could drink with lunch

There was a good selection

Dining in a pine wood was a lovely experience

We are introduced to the wines

by Jan Bosman, Lelienfontein nursery manager, who ably guided us through the vines

Corlea Fourie, Bosman’s winemaker

Phillip van Zyl, editor of Platters Wine Guide

Petrus Bosman

Back labels tell a story

Misty damp vineyards from the pine forest

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

Thursday, February 13, 2014

140213 Main Ingredient's MENU - The International Wine and Spirit Competition, Franschhoek Summer Wines, Elgin Tweet up, Saronsberg Lunch at the Cape Grace, Szechuan stir fry

Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal

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Evening on the Sea Point beachfront

In this week’s MENU:

The International Wine and Spirit Competition

Franschhoek Summer Wines

Elgin Tweet up

Saronsberg Lunch at the Cape Grace

This week’s recipe: Szechuan stir fry

Change in the way we present MENU Thank you to all who gave us feedback about the way we are presenting MENU. One pertinent comment was that it was not easy to go back to MENU after reading one of the blogs. We have inserted a "Return to MENU" link at the bottom of each of the related story blogs and it will take you back to the blog version of MENU

This week’s Product menu - Just to remind you that we carry a huge range of unusual spices from all over the world. Lynne has used Szechuan pepper in this week's MENU. We have whole nutmegs, cardamom pods, great Spanish saffron, Za'atar and Sumac from the middle east; pink peppercorns, grains of paradise and many other hard to find spices. If you can find it in the supermarket, we don't usually stock it, just the ones you would struggle to find... Check our online shop to see more details and prices.

The International Wine and Spirit Competition is held in London once a year and wines from all over the world are entered. First, a contingent of local judges in each country meets to judge the local wines entered into the competition. Their best wines are then sent to London for the large competition. Some of these same judges also go to London to judge international wines. So it was with great enthusiasm that we accepted an invitation to taste the South African wines which won Gold and Silver awards last year and some of the International trophy winners. Click here to see what we tasted and read our feedback.

Franschhoek Summer Wines Sunday was a lovely day to drive through to Franschhoek for the Franschhoek Summer Wines festival held on the lawns at Leopards Leap The festival started at midday and was extremely well attended. Click here to see our photographs and read about this successful summery festival, the wines and the good food.

Elgin Tweet up On Tuesday afternoon we took part in a "Tweet up” at Caroline's Fine Wines in central Cape Town. This was done in conjunction with the Elgin Winemakers who were in Elgin, watching the tweets of the media in town and adding their own spin. Iona winemaker Werner Muller was with us in Cape Town to give us local information about soils and climate. Elgin is not especially known for Chardonnay; that needs to change. We all know they produce great Sauvignon Blancs and really superb Pinot Noir. Now the Chardonnays and Shirazes being produced are showing that this area has length and depth with different varietals. We tasted some very, very good Chardonnays from the area, some of which are prize winning wines every year and others you have probably not yet discovered. Yes, the Paul Cluver, Iona, Richard Kershaw and Oak Valley are chardonnays about which we have written enthusiastically in the last year and thoroughly recommended. But have you discovered Almenkerk, Corder, Elgin Vintners, Lothian, Oneiric, Sutherland and Winter's Drift, all of which are worth a look. Click here to see some photos. If you would like to follow us on Twitter, our handle is @mainingmenu. We will be doing more Elgin Tweet Ups in the future and we do regularly tweet at wine and food events we attend.

Saronsberg Lunch at the Cape Grace On Wednesday we were invited to the Cape Grace Hotel for the first media tasting ever of all of Saronsberg’s wines. Saronsberg’s owner Nick van Huysteen, his wife Mariette and their very skilful, informative and likeable winemaker Dewaldt Heyns have been working successfully together for the last 10 years on the two farms in Tulbagh that make up Saronsberg and they are producing some really exceptional wines. It is a good partnership that works. Dewaldt guided us through a tasting of all the wines and then we sat down to lunch. The hotel also came to the party and, as we have said in the recent past, is producing some great food and is artfully matching that food with the wines. Some of these matches were spot on and it is so exciting to see both complimenting each other in this way. Click here to see what we drank and what we ate.

This week’s recipe is something we eat regularly. This version is quite spicy but not too hot. We use an unsweetened commercial chilli sauce, quite a mild one. We just vary the protein, the vegetables and some of the sauce ingredients. Stir fries are fairly quick to make, but there is a bit of preparation time on the vegetables. If pushed for time, you can buy a pack of prepared stir fry vegetable, sometimes with cooked noodles, from good supermarkets. All you need is some good protein, a little marinating time and a hot wok. You can serve this with noodles or rice or if you are avoiding carbs, this is a very filling dish on its own.

Lynne has noticed that many Chinese recipes add a little corn flour (maizena) to their sauces. She thought it was there to thicken the sauce, but now is convinced that it seems to tenderize meat or chicken. Try the recipe with the corn flour and try it without and see if you think the meat is more tender with it. She is convinced.

Szechuan stir fry

200 to 300g lean pork , beef or chicken breast, sliced thinly across the grain into bite sized strips – 2 T honey – 2 T soya sauce – 1 T medium chilli sauce – 1 T fish sauce – 1 t sesame oil - 2 t corn flour – 1 t Szechuan pepper

Crush the Szechuan pepper in a pestle and mortar and add to the other sauce ingredients. Marinade the meat in this sauce for half an hour while you prepare the vegetable.

You can use a selection of any of these vegetables. The choice is up to you. We often have them in our fridge. Fill a large salad bowl with the selection and you will have enough for four people.

2 carrots, peeled and cut into batons – 2 courgettes, ditto –a cup of bean sprouts – 2 cups of sliced cabbage or bok choi –a red pepper, sliced – mange tout or sugar snap peas – baby corn – spring onions – chopped leeks – broccoli and or cauliflower broken into small ‘trees’ – green beans - a roughly chopped sweet onion – spinach or chard – celery – asparagus – your favourite crisp vegetable

A thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped – 2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped – 1 T peanut or canola oil

Add the oil to your wok and heat till it is almost smoking . Throw in the ginger and garlic and quickly stir fry for one minute. Add the meat and stir fry till browned on all sides and then add all the vegetables and the rest of the marinating sauce. Stir fry until they are just cooked but still crisp, then serve. This all takes less than five to 10 minutes. The sauce will coat everything.

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. 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. 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

13th February 2014

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 and standard 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.

Elgin Chardonnay tweet up at Caroline's

This is a list of the wines we and other media tasted and tweeted about. At one point we were really trending!

Caroline Rillema in her wine shop in Strand Street in town. She is just about to open a new shop in Tokai

Lap tops, phones and tablets at the ready, we begin a flight of three wines and start tweeting our findings. The screen at the end shows all the tweets from this group and the group in Elgin who were doing the same tasting at the same time

Aren't electronics wonderful? So instant. The Tweetup gives the winemakers a minute by minute view of what the tasters think of their wines

All the wines we were tasting are on the shelf behind Shanté who writes for Wine.co.za

Lunch with Saronsberg wines at the Cape Grace

Saronsberg’s winemaker Dewaldt Heyns welcomes us with their crisp and delightful MCC Brut 2009, a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir

This is what we do for a living... well, some of us

The Brut MCC, showing some of the prestigious awards it has received.

We begin the tasting and the tweeting ..

... and the conversation, while the Restaurant Manager, Martin Drotsky, and PRO Nicolette Waterford pour the wines

Dewaldt is extremely knowledgeable about his wines and his terroir and his soils and explained what they are trying to achieve in a very interesting way.

The line up of wines we tasted

Winemaker Dewaldt Heyns with Mariette and Nick van Huysteen, the owners of Saronsberg

We then moved into the Signal restaurant for lunch

Correct glasses for the tasting and some gifts to take home afterwards

The menu and the wines the courses were paired with

One of the wines we especially loved was the Shiraz rosé, which tastes just like a ripe red plum with savoury notes. This pairing of the ripe tomato, baby beets and strawberry sorbet completely echoed that wine and was a brilliant pairing. Tomato is notoriously hard to pair with wine, this is a real find AND is only R45 a bottle on the farm. This dish was originally going to be the starter for the vegetarians among us, but was so successful that they served it to everyone, together with the Smoked salmon trout and prawn starter. That went superbly with the Viognier which is elegant and restrained and not overfull or over wooded.

Mike Bampfield Duggan and Nick van Huysteen enjoying lunch with other members of the media

The main course of tender Chalmar sirloin in a good rich jus and roasted figs went so well with the beautifully made savoury Grenache 2011. The other good wine paired with this course was the Full Circle 2011 which is a Michelangelo Platinum award winning Rhône blend of Shiraz, Grenache, Mourvedre and a soupçon of Viognier and is made to go with meat dishes like this.

Shanté Hutton Of Wine.co.za chats to Christian Eedes

So nice to have the wines served in the correct glasses. It does make a huge difference

Dessert was a poem of textures and flavours. The crisp cream filled choux bun with a crunchy coating was stuffed full with white chocolate cheesecake and accompanied by a nicely balanced slightly sour peach and vanilla paste with a dollop of burnt honey ice cream. Served with the epic 2006Six Point Three straw wines it echoed all those flavours and the wine added more of the same flavours and sweetness the each mouthful. The exciting Brut 2010 was a good counterpoint to the dish, taking away any cloying richness with its crisp beady full palate.

All in all it was a pretty damned fine tasting and meal with some great wines. Thank you Dewaldt, Saronsberg and Cape Grace chefs.

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