In
this week’s MENU:
Competition results
Kleine
Zalze MCC Launch
L’Avenir
Relaunch Party
Taj
Classic Wine Awards Dinner
Ommiberg
Festival in Paarl
Oldenburg
Blaauwklippen
Zinfandel Vertical tasting
Corder
White Wines
Baked
Gammon
Another busy week where our
livers need recovery time. We hope to see lots of you on Saturday at the Wellington
Wine Festival, which is being held over this coming
weekend. Next week will be more of the same and we plan to be at the Solms
Delta Oesfees on Saturday 22nd too.
This week’s Product menu - Chilli sauces have always done
very well for us in the past and we are looking at supplying a very hot Peri
Peri sauce which we tasted today. Lynne is going to try some of it on some
chicken tonight. Check out our on line shop soon to see what we have. We are
still desperately looking for a good replacement for our Prego sauce and hope
this supplier can come up with another Prego to go with the Peri Peri, just as
good as the one Sense of Taste used to make, which we know you are all missing.
Such Successful
Competitions! Winners of the 10 pairs of
Taste of Cape Town Tickets have now been notified and the organisers will
contact them direct regarding their tickets. The correct answer was 7.
The five winners of the
Entertainer Cape Town competition have also been notified and the organisers
will be contacting them directly. The correct answer was 850.
Thank you all for entering –
we had a great response and mostly right answers. If you wish to see the list
of winners, you are welcome to contact us.
Kleine Zalze MCC
Launch Although we had a sneak peak at this the
previous night, it was lovely to taste this again at the official launch at
Nikki Booth’s Ottimo Cibo private restaurant.
There was a great gathering of media from around the country and we had some
lovely food to compliment this elegant wine. Click here to see the event and food
L’Avenir
Relaunch Party This well known Stellenbosch
farm with good French Connections has been rather silent over the past year or
two and, last Thursday night, they threw an excellent party on the lawns of the
farm to relaunch them back into the midst of the vibrant SA wine industry. The
party was opened by Antoine Leccia the CEO of Advini Wine Group in France, who
are part owners of L’Avenir. The wines were served at stations around the
garden and each wine was matched with two dishes, one of French origin and one
of South African origin. Not all of the matches worked, some of the food being
a little misunderstood by our local chefs (please don’t roast rabbit dry! Casserole
it) but some of the matches and the dishes were divine. We particularly raved
about the Steak au Poivre versus the Championship Boerewors served with the
Classic Reserve Pinotage. This wine is epic, a Pinotage Lynne, (pathologically not a Pinotage fan) would drink anytime
of the day or night, could she get her hands on it. And we do have a little. If
only all of it could be made this way. It is silky soft and full of deep dark
fruit and not one hint of any metallic or rusty flavours or any sweaty leather.
Click here to see the pictures and the descriptions
Taj Classic Wine
Awards Dinner Once a year, several fairly
eminent French wine trade people come to South Africa and judge the local wines
that are entered into this very interesting competition sponsored by the Taj Hotel.
We so wish more farms would enter, because there were some huge gaps,
especially not enough Chenin blanc, which they say they really appreciated, no
viogniers and none of our best white blends, even though the judges say we are
making stunning Semillon and not showcasing it enough.
We had a good dinner and each
table had a bottle of each of the winning wines to share over dinner, so we had
a really great experience with some excellent wines. Many of the winning
winemakers had wrested themselves away from a very busy harvest to be there, so
it made for a very happy and joyous evening.
Sadly the head judge, Olivier
Poussier, (the Best Sommelier in the World competition winner, wine consultant,
writer and group sommelier of Lenôtre), seems to dislike our Sauvignons blanc –
many of us think perhaps he has not tasted enough of them or the right ones....
He says we don’t have the right terroir
and fairly obviously prefers French but really likes those made in Australia
and New Zealand where pyrazines are a feature. .. He doesn’t like our
pyrazines. Lynne had quite a conversation with him as he left, mostly in French,
and he said he had enjoyed the competition very much. Photographs here
Ommiberg
Festival in Paarl So it was up and at ’em again
on Sunday and off we went to this revived festival. We started at Spice Route
and it was buzzing. But Clare, John’s daughter, had been there three weeks
before and she said this was normal. Charles Back has really organised this
farm, and his other farms, well. There is so much to see. We started by
collecting our glasses, armbands and a slice of onion tart, tasted the new wine
they had on offer and then split into two groups: girls to do the chocolate
tasting and men to do the beer tasting. After a quick look at the sensational
glass factory – sadly no blowing going on while we were there - we set off for
Paarl’s Main Road where we believed most of the festival would be happening. It
was very, very quiet. We tasted some wines from Painted Wolf at Proviant
restaurant and then decided to go to Marc’s Restaurant. We had a lovely lunch,
but we were almost the only people there. And this was supposed to be a
festival day? Paarl, we think you need to trumpet louder and put on a few more
exciting draw cards for people to come to the next festival. After lunch, we
again split into two. The lads wanted to taste more wine at Proviant: Mason’s,
Black Pearl and Mitred Edge and the girls wanted to go to the market and art
exhibition, but it had finished at 3 and they were just too late. Perhaps
because there were very few attendees? So we finished at KWV, tasting their new
wine, having a lovely chat with Marc Friederich, owner of Marc’s, who said it
had been busy there. We ate and enjoyed one of his spicy Mexican chilli tacos.
There were several young people listening to the band, there was a petting zoo
and tasting as normal inside in the tasting room. We looked at KWV’s stunning
art collection, tasted a couple more wines and then it was 5pm and closing
time. If you were staying in Paarl over the festival, there were no evening
events. Sadly, not a terribly impressive event. Paarl organisers, PLEASE go and
see what Robertson does at the Wacky Wine Weekend. Our pictures are here
Oldenburg Our visit to this wine farm on Tuesday was
a first for us. It has also been called Rondekop, after the round hill in the
middle of the farm. Oldenburg is owned by Adrian van der Spuy, whose family
Trust had owned the farm until he bought it. He is an investment banker who
lives in Switzerland and visits regularly. In 2001 on a visit back to the Cape,
he tasted nearby Thelema’s 1998 Cabernet and was inspired to buy back the farm
from the family trust and start planting good terroir specific grapes. Now, 14
years later, they have a good portfolio of wines, mostly reds. We started the
day with a glass of their lovely rich and golden Chenin Blanc and went on to
taste the others with lunch. Click here to see the photographs.
Blaauwklippen
Zinfandel Vertical tasting One of the
highlights of our year is to be invited to Blaauwklippen for their annual
tasting of this lovely spicy wine, a grape too rarely grown in South Africa. Blaauwklippen
is one of the best producers and wins awards with this difficult to grow and
make, but really rewarding wine. Each year there is a different theme. This
year was the first ever vertical tasting of the wines since production started
10 years ago in 2004. It was a blockbuster tasting; we were astounded to see
how well all of them have matured and the earliest one is still so fresh and
full that we predict another 10 years of life for it. Click here to see the tasting notes and pictures of the
tasting and lunch
Corder White
Wines Ian Corder dropped off a couple of his
wines for us to taste this week and we took them both to our local Chinese
restaurant, Dynasty, last night as John’s brother was visiting from
Johannesburg. The Sauvignon Blanc was a very good match for our starters of
spring rolls and pot sticker dumplings, as it is definitely a food wine. It is
lively and a classic elegant Elgin Sauvignon blanc, a 4½ Star Platter – figgy,
crisp and green. The rather dry and perfumey 4 Star Platter Chardonnay was
somewhat overtaken by the spicy Chinese food, but might be better with a rich
fish dish.
Anniversary
dinner We had our 11th wedding
anniversary on Sunday and invited some friends we have not seen for a very long
time. Despite a very busy week, Lynne cooked up a storm on Sunday and we had a
lovely fun evening. This week’s recipe is one of the dishes she made. See the dishes Lynne made here. We started with Uitkyk Glass Memoires MCC, a disappointment
as the first bottle was corked and the second also slightly tainted. De
Morgenzon’s fresh, crisp 2012 Sauvignon blanc came to the rescue, both as
apéritif and as accompaniment to the chicken liver pâté and the seafood dishes.
Arendsig’s 2009 Shiraz was enjoyed with the gammon and the smoked chicken
salad, a delicious partner for both dishes.
Baked
Gammon – more of an instruction than a recipe
For years Lynne has boiled her
gammon gently in a large pot of apple juice or cider with 3 bay leaves, 1
onion, 1 carrot and 1 stick of celery, adding 5 peppercorns and 5 cloves. She
has never really been satisfied with the texture of the ham, despite following
instructions to cook it very slowly. This time she ran out of time and stove
top space and decided instead to bake the ham in the juice in a sealed Le
Creuset pot. It was an amazing success. The gammon ham came from Woolworths and
she simply followed their instructions on the pack and substituted the apple juice
for their stock. It does add a lovely light fruity flavour but the gammon was
as tender as we could ever wish it to be. Lynne than removes the skin and
glazes the fat with a mixture of ½ a cup dark brown sugar mixed with 1 T
Coleman’s English mustard powder and bakes the ham in the oven for just 20
minutes to set the glaze. She also always surrounds the ham with either tinned
pineapple pieces or peaches. Yes, tinned as the syrupy juices mixed with some
of the simmering stock make a good gravy. And she puts in a generous splash of
whisky.
She made a simple coulis of
mango and basil and olive oil for the crayfish we served but our guests all put
this on their gammon and raved about it, so that too will now become a standard
in our house. The coulis recipe came from Raymond Blanc. You will find it on
the Web.
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. 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
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
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