In
this week’s MENU:
Cape Winemakers
Guild tasting
Graham Beck Blanc
de Blanc vertical tasting and Gorgeous launch
Pendock Wine
Gallery at the Taj Hotel
Young Wine Awards
Learning to prune
vines at the Vineyard
Chenin Blanc Top 10
Awards at Delaire Graff
Trade wine tastings
Food and wine (and
a few other) events for you to enjoy
Learn about wine
and cooking
To get the whole of our story, please
click on “READ ON.....” at the end of each paragraph, which will
lead you to the related blog, with pictures and more words. At the end of each
blog, click on RETURN
TO MENU to come back to the blog version of MENU.
This has been a frantic week, and we covered a couple of events on
Thursday afternoon and evening which we will have to tell you about next week. MENU
is a day late this week anyway. Adding those stories would have meant it
reached you even later!
This week’s Product menu – We have a new product for hot
chilli fanatics: Mr Pukkah’s Proper Portuguese Peri Peri Chilli Sauce. It has
been produced by an enterprising young man who brought it to us when he heard
that we no longer had the famous Prego. It has been pasteurised to make sure
that it won’t ferment and blow up and he has had it tested in a food science
laboratory. We have tasted it and we love it. It’s not just hot, it has great
flavour and will add a delicious note to your chicken braai. See it here
Cape Winemakers
Guild tasting Once a year the Cape
Winemakers Guild hold an auction of their member’s wines: This year it will be
held on the 4th of October at Spier and if you are a serious wine
buyer, this might be the place for you to stock up your cellar with some of the
best wines currently available in South Africa. We tasted 42 excellent wines at
the sit down guided tasting which is fast and furious. And there were another
19 for tasting informally after that. There are some gems coming up this year
in the auction, many of which we will be tempted to bid for, but hope not all
are too expensive. And we will be attending for the first time as we no longer
work on Saturdays. You can look at the catalogue on the CWG website http://www.capewinemakersguild.com/auction/
We then attended the public
tasting that evening where we got to taste previous and current wines entered
into the auction and chat with the winemakers. A silent auction is always held
at this evening tasting, of past Auction wines donated and signed by the
winemakers and we try to bid for some wine, with varying success! This year we only
managed to secure a Nitida 2004 Select Shiraz. The money bid in this auction
goes to support bursaries for talented young wine students to study further
both here and abroad, a worthy cause indeed. One way to support our industry. Read on
Graham Beck
Blanc de Blanc vertical tasting and Gorgeous launch If we have a preference when drinking
Champagne and MCC we veer towards a crisper, even Brut Sauvage, style and older
vintages, so it was great to be able to taste 5 vintages of Graham Beck Blanc
de Blancs with Pieter “Bubbles” Ferreira last Friday. We tasted backward from
the 2010 to the 2006, which was our favourite and is so lively, perfumed with
crisp mousse and full of limes, lemons, umami and leesy with a long finish.
Some are still in transition; all are worth drinking now and in the future.
The event was held at the 12
Apostles Hotel and, after the tasting, we were treated to a very good lunch
where they announced the release of a new Graham Beck wine, Gorgeous - a pale
pink blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, full of peachy citrus, in some very
funky packaging. The
exclamation was a favourite term of endearment by the late Graham Beck. It is
going to be in the R60 price bracket from the farm. Read on
Pendock Wine Gallery at the Taj Hotel
Every week at the Taj Neil Pendock hosts a tasting of different wines.
We went along last Wednesday to taste 36 RECM Best Value Merlots which he had
assembled. The Hillcrest Quarry Merlot 2011 and the Org de Rac Organic Merlot
stood out for us, closely followed by the Welbedacht 2010 and the Diemersdal
2013. The wines change every week. The tasting costs R100 per person and is
great fun. Check out his
programme here and Read on
Young Wine
Awards Several people were a bit scathing when we
said we would be at this awards presentation and we don’t understand why. We
see it as a chance, not only to see where the young wines made this year are
heading, improving etc., but also as an opportunity to meet some of the young
winemakers involved, while they are still at the beginning of their careers.
Not all the wine is going to be iconic and some of these are lovely and fresh, but
we did taste wines with aging potential. This was held at Grand West Casino
last Friday night – there are not many places in Cape Town that can do a stand
up wine tasting and a sit down dinner
for nearly 360 people - and it was quite a glittering occasion. Read On
Learning to
prune vines at the Vineyard Up bright and early on Saturday morning,
admittedly a little bleary eyed after such a hectic week and late night the
previous evening, to head for the Vineyard Hotel. It is the season to prune our
vines! After a welcome drink of bubbly, it was time to learn how and we found
Kevin Arnold a great teacher. John took photos while Lynne honed her pruning
skills, then it was off to enjoy a lovely buffet and braai lunch in the Health
and Fitness centre, where some delicious vintage wines from the sponsors were brought
out of the cellar to enjoy. (Thank you Matt Dietchmann and David Wibberley, the
Food and Beverage Managers) Read on
Meridian Trade
tasting This is certainly the season of Trade Wine
tastings. We do enjoy them very much, but why have they all been put into one
month? It is quite punishing and we suspect that the company that doesn’t organise
theirs in the same month as all the others will get a much better attendance.
Having said that, this tasting, which was held in the Foyer of Artscape, was
very well attended to the point of being overcrowded. Probably because they
represent a really impressive range of wine producers. The canapés were also
pretty good. Read On
Chenin Blanc Top
10 Awards at Delaire Graff Chenin
Blanc could be the wine that defines South African white wines worldwide and
seeing the huge advances in quality, style, sophistication and good marketing
of the winners this year, it is possible to believe that this might happen
soon. IF ONLY we had government support to promote SA wines overseas. Standard
Bank are the involved sponsors of these awards and they do a very good job of
seeing that their support goes, not just into the awards, but into the
community. Each of the top 10 wines was awarded R20 000 - with the proviso that
this money should be used in the farm’s local community for upliftment. And
there are some very good initiatives.
The Awards were followed by an
excellent lunch, produced by Executive Chef Christiaan Campbell, who gave us 5
courses, each perfectly matched to two of the winning wines. Read On
DGB Trade
Tasting We drove back from Stellenbosch to the
President Hotel in Sea Point for this tasting which is, thankfully, only 5
minutes away from our home. The weather was becoming quite foul, so we went to
taste a few of their brands and talk to some of our winemaker friends before
going home to finish writing MENU and for John to edit hundreds of photographs
from a very busy wine-filled week. Read On
ENTER AND WIN Excelsior wine estate is celebrating 100
years of hospitality at Excelsior Manor Guesthouse - on a working wine farm in
Robertson – this month and they are giving away 100 cases of Excelsior wine in
celebration! Enter
here to stand the chance of winning 1 of 3 cases of wine
daily! Until 31st August. So do it now!
All entries stand a chance to win the Grand Prize of an all-inclusive 2-night
stay at 4 Star Excelsior Manor for you and a friend. The competition is open to
South African residents only.
Groote Post New
Sunday Market We will be attending this on
Sunday – as guests, not participants. It will be a chance to see the West Coast
flowers on our way up and on the farm and to see what Groote Post have put
together. The weather promises sunny and fine, if a little nippy. We hope to
see lots of you come out to join us. Do you know that they have wonderful game
drives, but they need to be booked.
This week’s
recipe is a Frittata, a nice quick easy supper using up some things you might have in your
fridge.
200g spinach and broccoli
– 1 onion, sliced – 1 T olive oil – 1 T butter – 6 small Roma tomatoes cut in
half -100 g spicy Spanish chorizo, cut into rounds and then halves - 4 spring
onions, chopped – 6 peppadews, sliced into chunks – 40 g grated cheese – 6
eggs, beaten – salt and pepper - 1 T smoked Spanish paprika
Steam the green vegetables
till tender, drain well and roughly chop. In a large frying pan or chafing
dish, fry the onion in the oil and butter till just turning golden. Add the
tomatoes and cook for a minute or two. Add the chorizo and fry till it is
becoming warm and slightly crisp. Add the steamed vegetables to the pan with
the spring onions and the peppadews. Cook for a moment or two to warm
everything through. Beat the eggs, season well and stir in the grated cheese.
Pour over the mixture in the pan, stir once to blend and cook till you see the
egg beginning to set on the bottom. Dust the surface with some of the smoked
paprika. Turn your grill to high and put the dish underneath it until the
surface is puffed, the cheese is starting to turn golden and the egg is cooked
through. Serve with a salad. You can also add any leftover ham or chicken or
other cooked meat you have or left over vegetables. Serves three to four.
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
The Hurst Campus, an accredited school for people who want to become
professional chefs, will soon start a new series of short courses in baking.
Check the ad in our blog page or see the details here
In addition to the
new Sense
of Taste Culinary Arts School, Chef Peter Ayub runs a
four module course for keen home cooks at his Maitland complex. 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 Thursday evenings and she has decided to
introduce LCHF (Banting classes). The Kitchen Confidence classes, which focus
on essential cooking skills and methods, have been expanded and are now taught
over 2 evenings. She continues to host private dining and culinary team
building events at her home. 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
our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and
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