Kleine Zalze launches MCC at Ottimo Cibo in Bishopscourt

The Booths’ lovely home in Bishopscourt is also the venue for their unique private restaurant, Ottimo Cibo, and the many functions catered by talented chef Nikki Booth. Although we had a sneak peak at it the previous night, it was lovely to taste this wine again at the official launch. There was a great gathering of media from around the country and we had some lovely food to compliment this elegant wine

Kleine Zalze’s new Methode Cap Classique bubbly, made from 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir was launched at this media event. It is delicious with just the right amount of elegance and crisp acidity = a great celebration wine. It had three years on its lees

Despite a four hour power cut by Eskom as we arrived, Nikki Booth and her kitchen managed to put out a lovely selection of canapés, cold and warm

Lovely crisp fishcakes, topped with tartar sauce

Wynand van Schalkwyk, Marketing manager of Kleine Zalze, tells us about the MCC

Kobus Basson, owner of Kleine Zalze, tells us why they decided to launch this now and a bit of history about the farm and the grapes and the harvest

This was a very popular media event and very well attended on a lovely summer’s day

Parasols were needed and used

Kathryn Henderson, Editor of Classic Wine, and Monica Elias, Editor and publisher of Wine Tourism South Africa, interrupted in mid-Tweet

Morning mist on the mountains made the atmosphere a little muggy, but it soon cleared

There was a huge spread laid out for us in the dining room

Seared tuna

An unusual salad of meatballs, beetroot, goats cheese, topped with potato crisps and olives

Fresh asparagus, toasted pine nuts and cream cheese

Parma ham, salami and melon

Roasted vegetables, chick peas, artichokes

Prawns, avocado, sunblush tomatoes and baby corn salad

Delicious Veal Tonnata

Smoked salmon and cucumber ribbons with a creamy sauce

Lovely mushroom salad

We tuck in to the spread

PRO Ian Manley, Event organiser Julie Killias and Aubrey Ngcungama, SA favourite Come Dine With Me contestant

Two journalists from Gauteng enjoying our sunshine instead of their rain

Enjoying the lovely lunch and sipping copious quantities of the Kleine Zalze MCC on the terrace

A wicket moist chocolate cake with hazelnuts

Another amazing confection topped with fresh figs and nuts

Millionaires chocolate and nut topped fudge and something new and novel, Turkish delight spring rolls

A rich polenta cake drizzled with lemon icing

Wicket and stunningly good Pavlova

And we ended with the perfect cheese platter

The creator of all this wonderful food, chef Nikki Booth

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

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140307 Main Ingredient's MENU - Mount Nelson Colmant Dinner , Muratie Harvest Festival, RMB Starlight Concert, Durbanville Feast of the Grape, Nobu & Kleine Zalze, Competitions, Chargrilled Aubergine & Courgette

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A bottle of Kleine Zalze MCC to welcome us to Nobu

In this week’s MENU:

 Dinner with Colmant MCC and Champagne at the Mount Nelson

 Muratie Harvest Festival

 RMB Starlight Concert

 Durbanville Feast of the Grape

 Nobu and Kleine Zalze

 Competitions

 Chargrilled Aubergine and Courgette slices

We apologise for the late arrival of this week's MENU. A huge number of events, with appropriate number of words and photographs, coupled with a bit of load-shedding interference from Escom, have made it inevitable.

Trying not to make you too jealous, we are having the time of our lives at the moment and loving every moment. It is a little exhausting but we are of the opinion that life is short, so no snoozing - enjoy every possible minute. This has been a very busy week with some superb events and there are yet more to come. We hope you too are out there, enjoying life and what it has to offer you. In the Cape, there is plenty happening that you can take part in and we hope you do check out our Events Calendar regularly and plan your free time around some of the really remarkable events.

This week’s Product menu - You may think of lentils and other pulses as winter food but they do make surprisingly good salads The small green lentils (we'd recommend Puy lentils, but they are currently unavailable) cook very quickly but stay whole and when warm you can pour over a good vinaigrette and serve with cold meats. Bean salads are also a good way of getting protein if you are a vegetarian. Check out our on line shop for our full range of pulses, beans and rice.

If you can find it in the supermarket, we don't usually stock it, just the products you would struggle to find... Check our online shop to see more details and prices.

Dinner with Colmant MCC and Champagne at the Mount Nelson Hotel     The dear old Nellie has just had its 115th birthday, so our weekend started very well with an invitation to come to the Mount Nelson Hotel for the first of the series of Wine and Dine dinners that they will be running through the coming year. Click here for the programme. Executive Chef Rudi Liebenberg and Sommelier Pearl Oliver have teamed up with some of the world's most talented winemakers, brew masters and whiskey producers to bring you these delicious gastronomic evenings.

Chef Rudi and Pearl, who invited us, had matched the seven course menu to compliment the MCC sparkling wines of Jean-Philippe (JP) Colmant in Franschhoek, plus two champagnes from France the Follet and the Tribault which JP represents in South Africa. Read on and see the pictures

Muratie Harvest Festival     Some of our wine farms radiate the expense of money and sophistication and lots of bling. At others you can see the long history and real tradition marked on all their walls, echoed in their wines and carried on by their owners and staff. Muratie is one of the latter and we love her for it. So missing her Harvest Festival each year is not a option. This took place on the farm last weekend and we had a ball. Read on here and see the photos

RMB Starlight Concert     We left Muratie just after four and travelled fast to Vergelegen wine farm for the Starlight concert. This annual event is another highlight in the Cape calendar of events and it is also held in Johannesburg. We are extremely lucky to be invited by Rand Merchant Bank and absolutely love the experience. The Concert is ably marshalled by Conductor Richard Cock and features some local and international talent which is a huge cross section of the arts from classical music played by the Cape Town Philharmonic orchestra, to dancing, both ballet and ballroom, choirs, opera, puppetry and acrobats. Click here to read and see more

Durbanville Feast of the Grape     This very country style wine festival took place last weekend on D'aria Farm and we went on Sunday. With your entrance ticket costing only R50 you received a good quality glass and 10 coupons, which enabled you to taste the wines at the festival. More coupons could be bought as needed. Shady marquees were put up all around the field holding all the Durbanville wine farms involved, who had many of their wines to taste and, between almost every wine farm, there was a food stand, often run by that farm. They did very interesting tastings in a tent throughout the day and we managed to get into two: One by Charles Hopkins, Cellarmaster of De Grendel, on the Unusual & Rare Varieties grown in the Durbanville area and one by Brandon Butler, winemaker at Nitida, on the white blends of the area. They had a lot of wine on sale at special festival prices to take home or drink in situ and the food on offer was also all reasonably priced. We had a lovely afternoon. Click here to learn more

Nobu and Kleine Zalze     We think Nobu is one of the very best Japanese restaurants in Cape Town and love going there. So when we were invited to a Kleine Zalze vertical tasting of their Chenin Blancs at Nobu, we were rather enthusiastic . These wines were then all paired with seven courses of beautiful food and the tasting was a delight. Have a look at what we ate and drank here

We have two very exciting competitions for you this week

TASTE OF CAPE TOWN     This superb annual food show will take place at the Green Point Cricket Club on the 3^rd to the 6^th of April . Check out their website for more details of who is attending this year. We have ten pairs of standard entrance tickets to give away. Just answer this simple question: How many years has Taste of Cape Town taken place, including this year?

The first ten correct entries will each win a pair of tickets, which will be sent to you by the organisers. We will notify the winners.

and

ENTERTAINER CAPE TOWN     This is a large book full of money-off coupons. We have been given a copy and are quite interested to see how many good places the book contains. If you would like to win one, enter the competition below.

• The NEW Entertainer Cape Town 2014, available now as a printed book and a new Smartphone App. Download the free App now (available from iTunes, Blackberry World and Google Play) and access FREE trial offers for Le Venue at The House of J.C. le Roux in Devon Valley, Stellenbosch and Tasca de Belem on the V&A Waterfront.
• The full Entertainer Cape Town product features over 850 buy one, get one free offers for dining, leisure & beauty across Cape Town, including 120 international hotel offers, so you can save literally thousands of Rands. From Beluga and De Grendel Wine Estate to Ratanga Junction and The Grand Café & Beach, view the full list of participating merchants at https://www.theentertainerme.com/protected/Gallery/P14SACT.PDF
• Offers are valid 7 days a week, at all times (except public holidays). You don’t need to book ahead and you can use up to 4 vouchers at one time, so eight people can dine for the price of four!
• At just R 495, the Entertainer Cape Town could save you over R 520 000 this year!
• To buy your copy, or for more information, visit theentertainerafrica.com

Question: How many Buy One, Get One Free dining and leisure offers are in the Entertainer Cape Town?

This week’s recipe is a very summery one as lots of us are braaiing in the super late summer evenings

Chargrilled Aubergine and Courgette slices

Take one large aubergine, cut into 2 cm thick slices, salt both sides and leave to drain in a colander for half an hour. Top and tail 6 medium courgettes and slice in half lengthways. Wash salt off the aubergine slices, pat dry with kitchen paper, then put them and the courgette halves on a braai grid. Sprinkle with flaked salt and freshly ground black pepper. Put over a hot fire. Turn over after 4 minutes and continue cooking until they are softening and ready. Put them on a plate and sprinkle with some good olive oil and garlic and serve. You can also do mushrooms this way but do add the oil and garlic before cooking them. You could sprinkle all these vegetables with smoked Spanish Paprika for a more intense flavour.

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. Karen Glanfield has taken over the UnWined wine appreciation courses from Cathy. See the details 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

7th March 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.

Durbanville's Feast of the Grape

This very country style wine festival took place last weekend on D'aria Farm and we went on Sunday. With your entrance ticket costing only R50 you received a good quality glass and 10 coupons, which enabled you to taste the wines at the festival. More coupons could be bought as needed. Shady marquees were put up all around the field holding all the Durbanville wine farms involved, who had many of their wines to taste and, between almost every wine farm, there was a food stand, often run by that farm. They did very interesting tastings in a tent throughout the day and we managed to get into two: One by Charles Hopkins, Cellarmaster of De Grendel, on the Unusual & Rare Varieties grown in the Durbanville area and one by Brandon Butler, winemaker at Nitida, on the white blends of the area. They had a lot of wine on sale at special festival prices to take home or drink in situ and the food on offer was also all reasonably priced. We had a lovely afternoon

Ollo Parker, owner of Altydgedacht estate, decide to live up to his name and make sure every car was correctly positioned

Stephen Jeffery's Black Plate Charcuterie stand was doing a roaring trade

An interesting variety of freshly baked breads

Ghenwa and Geza Steingaszner had a wonderful display of Lebanese delicacies

No explanation needed....

Heidi Cilliers, having moved from Villiera in Stellenbosch, showed us the wines of the new producer, Signal Gun

Jacus Marais talks to Lynne about Nitida's harvest

Loads of fun, and great exercise, tramping the new grapes

Delicious hamburger patties,

and lovely fresh breads at Altydgedacht

with Ollo Parker's youngest son showing us the Altydgedacht wines

Delicious steak rolls from Cassia, washed down with a glass of Nitida Calligraphy red blend

Then off to Charles Hopkins' tasting of Unusual & Rare Varieties

with wines poured for us by Roxy Laker of Errieda du Toit PR

Charles with his selection of Durbanville wines

A taste of the new fermenting must from the sauvignon blanc picked on all the 12 participating Durbanville farms

Despite cloudy weather and a little rain, there was a good turnout

Nitida owners Bernhard and Peta Veller's lovely daughter made sure we were properly seated to learn about the white blends....

ably assisted by winemaker Brandon Butler

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014