Country market at Groote Post, Darling

Sunday dawned and the weather was even better. We were so happy that we had accepted an invitation to go up the West Coast to Groote Post to attend their new monthly market. The spring flowers are all out and we had such a lovely relaxing day. It was amazingly well attended given their location and you could see people were really enjoying themselves. Just before lunch, we spoke to someone who was counting customers and she had got to over 2 000 by then. The next markets will be held on 28th September, 26th October, 30th November and 28th December, should you wish to go

Look at the colour of that sky! The lawns were green and the car parks were filling up when we arrived at about 11.30

We met PRO Posy Hazell and her daughter Amy enjoying themselves with glasses of draught Darling beer

The always friendly winemaker, Lukas Wentzel

A firm recommendation is their new Pinot Noir Rosé 2014. The grapes were meant for another farm’s Brut Rosé MCC, but they were too ripe because of last summer’s heat wave, so Lucas turned them into this impressive, dry but elegant, juicy rosé. It is only available on the farm and there might not be much left, as it was flying out - you will have to go there to try some. It was available to enjoy with lunch as well

Darling Beer was so popular that they ran out of beer. Next time, they will bring more

On the Charcuterie stall,

you could get a large platter for R70

including pickles and bread

A stall with jams, jellies and rusks

Happy, busy faces

A “Cheese Cake”

Lots of things to taste

Rusks and seasonings

Chilli sauces of all levels

A stall selling home made cakes, which was almost sold out by midday

Coconut cake

or Bakewell tart? We had one in our media pack and they were very good. Crisp pastry led us to believe it had been made with lard

Cookies and sweets

A popular stall preparing salad lunches

The braai with the garlic chilli prego steak rolls received our attention and our money. They also add extra garlic sauce if required

We had to taste the beer because of the heat

A small storm trooper

Rare or well done. Rare PLEASE!

Served on a huge bun with avocado and extra sauce

They had long queues and sold out of steak by about one. But they could still let you have Prego chicken. Probably the most popular food stand

Lots of seating on hay bales (and at one table) on the lawn

A band kept us entertained

We met a friendly couple and joined them at a table under the trees

The tasting room was also a popular place

And the cellar was lovely and cool in the heat

At two, it was time to head for the hills on a farm drive. On the left are some of the large herd of cattle

The hills are covered in spring flowers at the moment and, in the distance, one has a lovely view of Table Mountain

Charging (away from us!) Wildebees

They joined their herd and on the left is a lone Red hartebees

Lovely spring greens and daisies

More of the herd assemble

There is also a large herd of eland

There was still snow on the far Ceres mountains, but the temperature here was up to 26ºC. In the foreground, on the left, are the Groote Post vineyards

A field of yellow Rapeseed (Canola)

Looking down on Groote Post Manor House and farm with the sea in the distance. It is on the other side of the farm from the wine cellar and restaurant.

Cover crops still grow between the vines, which are waiting for bud break

We stopped for a glass of good Groote Post Brut Rosé and a cheese platter. This is the touring vehicle they use

Admiring the view

A farm bakes in the sun with snow on the distant mountains after a week of horrible cold and wet weather. Spring has sprung

The tasting room, still busy at 4pm

The procession of cars going home

Quick, take pictures of the daisies before they close. It was a little after four o’clock when we left

We should not have left it so late if we were to get the best photographs of the flowers

Reeds in the river bed

A brilliant Scarlet Bishop weaver. They make their nests in the reeds

This is classic Rhenosterveld (local name for the unique biodiverse botany of the area) Rhino used to roam here centuries ago. And another lovely view of the sea and our mountain

RETURN TO MENU

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

140829 Main Ingredient's MENU - CWG tasting, Graham Beck Blanc de Blanc, Pendock Wine Gallery, Young Wine Awards, pruning Vineyard vines, Chenin Blanc Top 10, Trade wine tastings

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The view from Delaire Graff to Thelema on a wet late winter day

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 4^th 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.

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 type of event 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 list of wine and food pairing dinners, list of Special events with wine and/or food connections, list of Wine Shows and Tastings and list of special dinner events. All the events are listed in date order and we 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

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

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen 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

Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has French cooking classes in Noordhoek 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 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

29th August 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.

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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.

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