Lunch with Steenberg's new vintage at Bistro 1682

Another one of those terrible days.  With a storm sweeping in from the North West, we headed off to Steenberg to meet Marketing manager Caroline van Schalkwyk in the tasting lounge, where she welcomed us warmly with a glass of their new Sauvignon Blanc bubbly. Not an MCC, not enough time on the lees, more of a Prosecco, fresh and crisp with sparkly style. Then we sat down and tasted through some of their other wines before going through to the restaurant for what turned out to be a very long lunch indeed. Were we having a good time? Yes, you bet or we might have left at a decent hour. And we were captivated by Chef Brad Ball’s food from his new Bistro style menu. 

Our welcoming drink

Caroline tells us about it in front of a very necessary fire

This is the new Sauvignon Sparkling wine. We really like the new modern stand-out label with traditional touches

We then went on to taste four Steenberg wines

The 2014 Sauvignon Blanc is a classic green pepper Constantia Sauvignon, very much to our taste, with lots of asparagus and lime. Very quaffable, with elegance too

Then the Black Swan 2012 Sauvignon Blanc which was launched in May this year.  It's a blend of two vineyard blocks and is fermented in barrel and then transferred to stainless steel tanks, which makes it a Blanc fumé. Leesy rather than woody, it is also full of green peppers, with a nice touch of smoke on the end. Refreshing and complete.

Our tasting sheet

The weather was becoming murkier outside, but the view of the Constantiaberg is still magnificent

Then came the Steenberg Shiraz 2012. Spicy with black pepper, turmeric liquorice, cassia and red berries on the nose, this is a very pretty, feminine wine. It has a lovely mouthful of red and black cherries, vanilla with perfume on the palate and some salt on the end. And then Steenberg’s famous Nebbiolo , still one of only three made in South Africa, and always one of our favourites. It has a wild nose, full of childhood sweeties, raspberry jelly and a whiff of smoke.  On the palate, it is full of salty goji berries, raspberries and cranberries. So complex and appealing, it is a great food wine. It spends 15 months in oak.

Sparkling glasses and a fruity mobile in the tasting room where we met sommelier Kayla Mayman, who will serve you the Steenberg wines you want to taste

And then it was time for lunch in a corner of Bistro 1682

Chef Brad Ball, busy at the pass in the kitchen

We examine and discuss the new menu

And drink some more delicious Steenberg wine, These are the 2014 Sauvignon blanc and the 2012 Black Swan

A rare photo of the photographer. John having a good lunch

Caroline Poulter van Schalkwyk

The Menu

Many of us ordered the Chicken Liver Parfait with truffled granola and a cranberry compôte. Perfect with the Steenberg Merlot

But we looked enviously at the baked camembert, which was crusted with nuts and surrounded by fig syrup and parsley oil. A very pretty dish. Caroline saw the envy and ordered another one for the table to share

She had the Smoked trout with a poached egg, asparagus and salad leaves, served with a grainy mustard dressing

We were in the restaurant from about 1.30 till 5 and it never seems to empty. People came for lunch, stayed for tea and others then arrived for tapas and, as we were leaving, the evening dinner crowd started to come in. The kitchen closes at 8.30, so do get there early. You can stay later, but without food service.

The deconstructed Banting Beef Bourgignon:

On the plate: Cauliflower purée, lardons, mushrooms and fondant onions

In a separate bowl, the short rib of beef in a rich red wine sauce

The free range roast chicken with a crispy egg, celeriac purée, confi'ed garlic and a thyme cream. And, of course, some broccoli. Another Banting dish!

In deep discussion about the food and wine

Ah, the cheese course comes with a Banting nut and seed cracker!

The rose red panna cotta was perfect, just set, so nice and wobbly, lots of rose flavour and a lovely pistachio sponge, an unusual (in a good way) green fig ice cream set on a burnt marshmallow.

Guess who had the Chocolate Nemesis? With honey ice cream, an orange anglaise custard and a chocolate almond crumble. Yum

Chef Brad Ball came and joined us at the table and we had lots to talk about while we tasted more wine with the excellent food

RETURN TO MENU
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

Celebrating ten years of Saronsberg Shiraz at Auslese

Tasting 10 vintages of Saronsberg Shiraz

We feel very privileged when we are invited to this sort of tasting. Saronsberg winemaker Dewaldt Heyns took us through the ten vintages of their Shiraz at Auslese this week, followed by lunch with our favourites. To see the progression of this wine on one table is amazing and very, very interesting. It started out as a big, full on, spicy, warm Shiraz and, as the vines have aged, it has turned into a Northern Rhône style shiraz, full of minerality and refined layers of flavours, but still recognisable as the same wine. Lynne had two very different favourites, the award winning block buster from 2007 and the elegant 2010; hard to believe that they are from the same vines, but what a marvellous progression. We have all asked if we can do this again in another 10 years, so that we can taste 20 years of the wines’ progress! Here’s hoping that we will all still be around tasting wine.

The farm was bought in 2002 by Nick and Mariette van Huyssteen and, in 2003, was badly hit by a fire. The vines were ‘aggressively’ replanted and they also added more surrounding vineyards. In the early days, some of the wine was bought in. Now it is all produced on Saronsberg. Is this the best area for Shiraz? It really does seem to suit the Tulbagh area. Does Tulbagh have a terroir indicator on its wines? We found tobacco on the nose and palate of the odd year vintages.

All these wines have dark and dense colour. It was interesting to see how fresh some of the older wines still are, showing lots of further growth potential. The earlier, full, fruity style changes as the vines aged and many people preferred one style to the other. We liked wines from both ends of the spectrum and were delighted to find that we could drink them with lunch. Lynne’s preferred vintages were the 2007 (Tobacco, silk, mulberries and ginger on the nose and full to bursting with ripe warm fruit and spice and some soft chalk. No faults and it still has lots of life left to keep on giving). The contrasting wine that she scored the highest is also the favourite of winemaker Dewaldt and it is he 2010: Vanilla on a shy nose, intense minerality, elegant ripe cherry fruit with whiffs of violets. Soft fruit on the palate which intensifies on the back palate, spices and long, long flavours. A definite food wine. It was also interesting to taste 2013 and surmise how it will develop – not yet a final blend, as it is still in barrel and will be bottled in October/November. It has a pretty nose of violets, spice, dark cherries and some creaminess. Lots of shy fruit hiding in the wine, with lots of depth, but it is seeking balance and does not yet have strength. Dewaldt will sort this out when he does the final blend, we are sure

Delightful canapés of a fish mousse, produced by the Auslese chefs

and lovely fresh oysters

The long table took 38 journos and other wine related experts and invitees – it was a tiny bit of a crush, especially as we all had 10 glasses in front of us

Auslese (and Aubergine) sommelier Khuselo Mputa pouring, with Cathy van Zyl MW watching with amusement. Next to her are Maryna Strachan and Karen Glanfield Pawley

Greg de Bruyn CWM, James Pietersen of The Wine Cellar and wine writer Angela Lloyd

Oops! Lynne sent one glass flying over John’s nice clean trousers

With ten glasses at each place, space was very tight and some of us need to use our hands when we talk

Dewaldt Heyns, winemaker of all the vintages at Saronsberg, tells us about the vintages while Harold Bresselschmidt, Chef and Owner of Aubergine and Auslese, acts as a pourer. Lynne is checking out the quantity he is, fairly, pouring

‘Legs’ on wine can indicate its substance, quality and, often, its keeping ability

Dewaldt told us, not only about the vintages, but also the weather in each year, which has a profound effect on the wine. Was it a windy, wet or dry year, were there heat waves or was it cool? Did we have rain at harvest? All these factors and more can seriously influence what goes into the bottle.

The line up of the ten wines we were tasting. They have won multiple awards over the years, as you can see from the stickers. The interesting thing is that the bottle without any award stickers, the 2009 Shiraz, was felt by many attending to be one of the best wines in the tasting, proof that it often needs time for a wine to come into its best

Winemaker Dewaldt Heyns

James Pietersen

Graham Howe

Mariette van Huyssteen

Greg de Bruyn CWM

Wade Bales and James Pietersen, chatting while enjoying some warm bouillon

Wade talking to Alan Mullins CWM

Journalist Samarie Smith and Anel Grobler

Johan Crafford and Johane Nielsen

Broadcaster Guy MacDonald and Anel Grobler

Sommelier Khuselo Mputa liked the same two vintages that stood out for Lynne. All of them were good wines, but most of us have preferences!

Chef Harold Bresselschmidt with Jane Broughton

The lunch menu offered dishes paired with Shiraz vintages

Just seared fresh tuna, coated with dukkah spices in what tasted like a nut paste. The pink grapefruit was a lovely contrast.

Unctuous braised lamb shank with very fine textured shiraz flavoured polenta a Shiitake mushroom filled with pickled cabbage with Romanesco (a type of broccoli)

John's special version was prepared specially, without the mushrooms

RETURN TO MENU
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014