Wellington Groenberg Festival at Welbedacht

Groenberg Wynstok Talmfees

On Saturday, three of us drove to Wellington for the Groenberg Fest held on Schalk Burger’s farm Welbedacht. The main event was always going to be music and the crowds were expected in the late afternoon and evening. When we arrived at 12 the temperature was already at 38 degrees C and we had a quick rush around the stalls to see who was there and what was on offer. Then we got invited into the cool inner sanctum for a guided tasting of wines from the Groenberg area and that is where we remained for much of a very pleasant afternoon

The festival was held on the Welbedacht Cricket Oval. Rugby may be the game that the Burgers are known for, but they are also keen cricketers

We stared with a chat with Tiaan Burger and Hardus van Heerden, their new winemaker, and a tasting of the Welbedacht wines

Tiaan introduced us to their new MCC bubbly named Mon René after his sister. It is 100% chardonnay, and unoaked

There was a talent contest taking place and these two musicians were performing. There was music all day

Nice to see a winemaker from another region enjoying the festival. Dawie Botha of Antonij Rupert was there with his wife

Too hot for shoes? Dawie and his wife were about to go grape stomping

Then on to taste some wines from Linton Park. There was a lucky draw on entry and Lynne won a case of their 2014 De Slange Rivier Shiraz/Merlot blend, which was a nice surprise. It will go to the back of our cellar to rest a while

and we met the owners of Jacaranda farm René and Birgit Reiser. It is very small with only 2.5 hectares of grapes, but they produce four different wines. New vineyards should come on stream soon

Inside for the start of three guided tastings. The first was of some of the reds of the area: 2 Merlots, 2 Shirazes and 2 Bordeaux Blends. We particularly like the Bohemian Shiraz 2010 from Welbedacht warm and smooth with a kick of spice and very silky sweet fruit, ending in white pepper and some nice soft chalky tannins. This still has a few more years. We discovered that they grow all the Boekenhoutskloof shiraz on the farm and this vineyard is next to that one. The Jacaranda Cab/Merlot also impressed with violets and dark chocolates on the nose, soft fruit and a violet crème with cherries on the silky palate

Schalk Burger senior takes us through the tasting

The second tasting was a food and wine pairing and these different canapés had been made to each match one of the wines. The plate was so generous we didn’t need lunch afterwards and some of the pairings were excellent. The Welbedacht Cricket Pitch flagship wine was paired with the Osso bucco tart, filled with rich meat and garlic, both delicious. A surprise was the match between DGB’s RibShack Red and the open wild boar burger with pesto. Yes we admit prejudice, we were not expecting to like the wine as much as we did. It’s a nice, juicy, easy drinking wine and we would order it if we saw it on a menu. It is extremely well priced. On their stand they offered a rack of ribs and a bottle of RibShack for R80. The chocolate tart was awesome but really needed a dessert wine to pair with it.

Nice to see Wayne Rademeyer of Buffalo Ridge Buffala mozzarella, whose farm is across the road. He had a stand at the festival

Then Schalk took us through the third tasting which was The Best of the Best in the area. The 2005 Chenin Blanc from Welbedacht was their first harvest – it has lasted well and the best compliment we can pay it is that we would happily buy it, its unmistakably a Chenin, rich, layered and complex

The Springbok and Western Province rugby culture is very strong at Welbedacht. Schalk senior and Schalk junior are both proud wearers of the green and gold and the blue and white “streeptrui”. The tasting had to be over by 3, so that the Stormers vs Chiefs match could be screened. Schalk jr played, but the Stormers lost

Back out into the very warm afternoon air. The boys were watching rugby

A novel way to play Noughts and Crosses, while the boys are watching rugby

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

A birthday lunch at Jardine

Rocking the taste buds at Jordan

Great food is the most important thing you want from a good restaurant. Throw in friendly and efficient staff, a warm welcome and views to charm and relax and you are getting close to perfection. Sunday saw us at our favourite restaurant Jordan for a birthday lunch of one of our visitors. He requested Jordan as it has also become one of their favourite places when visiting. We had a table right at the front of the deck with those superb views and the lunch did not disappoint. One of the qualifiers for a great restaurant is that the standard remains excellent even when the boss isn't there. George and Louise were at a birthday celebration elsewhere - the food and service were wonderful

Lunch out on the deck is the favourite spot in summer

This is where Banting takes a back seat. Who can resist those freshly made vetkoek, ciabatta rolls and seed loaf with parsley pesto, garlic aioli and olive tapenade? Not us. Vetkoek (trans. Fat cake) is a traditional South African bread made from a plain yeast dough rolled into balls, deep fried and served hot. The origin is probably the Dutch oliebollen, but the early settlers used to deep fry them in fat rendered from the fat tails of sheep. They are often served in the Cape filled with spiced mince, mixing another of our cultures with another - the Cape Malay foods

A feast for the eyes. A starter of salt and sugar cured springbok ‘tartar’ compressed into a block served with nectarines, a prune and a parsnip cream, Chantilly cream quenelles, sunflower seeds, and topped with crisp shavings of parsnip and sunflower sprouts. The tartar was roughly chopped and therefore had good texture. The contrasts between the savoury and sweet, the soft , the crisp and crunch were perfect

Local mackerel is in season in the Cape, so pan fried as a starter was irresistible to some of us. Served on a base of roasted garlic puree, topped with tomatoes and a “cosmopolitan” sauce, with watercress and fried onion, all these textures and flavours enhanced the rich oily fresh fish

Waiting for the main courses to arrive. We drank the Jordan Inspector Peringuey Chenin blanc and glasses of the Prospector Shiraz

Perfectly cooked aged Chalmar beef rump in a salsa verde, with confit tomatoes served with bone marrow dumplings and topped with thin charred aubergine crisps. The beef was meltingly tender. Oh, and a side order of their hand cut crisp chips. Well you can't have steak without chips

Beautifully, symmetrically plated line caught Yellowtail on a charred tomato velouté, with basil aioli and some crisp salt and pepper squid and roasted olives

Lynne chose the lightly salted East coast hake with a herb crust, in an artichoke velouté, topped with very light, fried potato gnocchi and deep fried cauliflower. The fish was beautifully fresh and delicious, but the herb topping was a little too salty

Dessert for the Birthday celebrant was envied by us all, even those who could not manage a dessert. It is a set vanilla panna cotta topped with strawberry compote, sprinkled with summer berries and topped with vanilla ice cream. So pretty too!

The chocoholics could not resist the Valrhona dark chocolate mousse with poached mango, buffalo labneh cheese, honeycomb pieces and a honey and walnut ice cream. The plates were scraped till clean, as usual. Coffee ended a very successful meal

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

150313 Main Ingredient's MENU - Wine Festivals, Awards, a concert and touring in the Western Cape

Vineyards and Mountains in the Helderberg Valley

In this week’s MENU:

 What’s on offer at Anthonij Rupert?

 Starlight Concert at Vergelegen

 Feast of the Grape in Durbanville

 Harvesting our grapes at the Vineyard Hotel

 Van Ryn Brandy experience

 Wade Bales and the Constantia Fire

 Wine touring in Franschhoek and Durbanville

 Opening of L’Avenir’s Pinotage Lounge

 Blaauwklippen Zinfandel and new MCC

 Taj Classic Wine Trophy Awards

 Paarl Ommiberg Festival

 Learn about wine and cooking

We write about our experiences in MENU, not only to entertain you, but to encourage you to visit the places and events that we do. We know you will enjoy them and we try to make each write up as graphic as we can, so you get a good picture of what is on offer at each place, restaurant, wine farm, festival we visit.

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.

We have had a frantically busy two weeks filled with work, wine tours, a wedding, overseas visitors and festivals. We have loved almost every minute of it, but are getting rather tired of all the PR events being clumped towards the last weekend of each month. This happened in January as well and it looks like it will happen again at the end of March. We have been so frantic that we had absolutely no time to process all of the photographs, write the text and put out MENU last week. We hope you will understand that this is the first time this has happened since we started MENU in 2003 and give us some leeway.

Our working week started with John doing a wine tour for some US guests who were here for a wedding and Lynne being invited to Anthonij Rupert – both were in Franschhoek.

What’s on offer at Anthonij Rupert?     At some wine farms you just get a tasting room experience; at others, like Anthonij Rupert, there is a selection of great experiences. It is a very beautiful farm with almost as much garden as vineyards. We started the morning with tea in the summer house, accompanied, of course, by a glass or two of their MCC. Read on

Starlight Concert     Lots of strategic planning ensured that we met up that evening at La Franschhoek, where John’s tour guests were staying, and then it was off to one of our musical highlights of the year, the Starlight Concert at Vergelegen. Read On

Feast of the Grape in Durbanville     John’s tour party was too exhausted after the wedding at Cavalli, and cancelled their planned tour of the Peninsula on Sunday, so he was able to come to the Feast of the Grape with us, held this year at D’Aria farm. We were still standing as we had left the wedding earlier than most. It was a very popular and good “one venue” festival, with all the local farms showcasing their wines, lots and lots of different food stalls and much else besides to amuse the visitors, including grape stomping. Read On

Harvesting our grapes at the Vineyard Hotel     We were summoned to the Vineyard at 7 am on Monday morning for a glass of fresh orange juice, or some bubbly, and marshalled into helping harvest the rows of grapes that grow in their small vineyard alongside the Liesbeek River. This was the third harvest from this tiny young vineyard. Our vine had over 24 bunches this year, smaller than last year and they had been sulphured to stave off the rot. We await this year’s wine (being made at Meerlust) with great interest. Read On

Van Ryn Brandy experience     Another early rising for us on Wednesday to get to Van Ryn by 8 am and then into a bus for the trip to Opstal Winery in Slanghoek valley to see the brandy grapes being harvested, taste the must and some of the rebate wine from the tank from an earlier picking during the week. Then it was back on the bus for 2 superb brandy tastings and lunch at Van Ryn. It’s a hard life... Read On

Wade Bales and the Constantia Fire     That evening we drove through to Constantia to our wine club meeting, which was held at Wade Bales Wine Society, where we did a very comprehensive tasting of Constantia wines. We were horrified to see the results of the fires which had started on Sunday and we could still see emergency vehicles in the surrounding vineyards and countryside putting out flames until we left at 10h30. Thanks to the sterling work by the local fire brigades and volunteers the fire is now out.

Opening of L’Avenir’s Pinotage Lounge     John had another wine tour in Durbanville on Thursday and so Lynne caught the bus laid on by L’Avenir to get to this lovely event which started on their lawn at sunset with their Pinotage MCC and some canapés. L’Avenir produces some of the very best Pinotage in South Africa and they have opened a lounge in the cellar with a vinoteque, where you can taste the wines of the past and hold functions. Read on

Blaauwklippen presents Zinfandel and launches a new MCC at Blues    Remarkably, Blaauwklippen is celebrating its 333rd anniversary and on Friday, to celebrate, they invited the media to their annual vertical tasting of Zinfandels, paired very skilfully with food prepared by Chef Lorenzo Magni of Blues. Read On

Taj Classic Wine Trophy Awards     This annual competition, in which South African wines are judged by visiting and local French sommeliers and wine people, is always an interesting occasion where one can see what the French palate prefers. There were some very notable winners, some predictable, some not at all. Perhaps, if more local farms entered, we might get a broader spectrum of wines in the competition. Read on

Paarl Ommiberg Festival     We decided to give this festival another chance and are delighted to report that, on the two farms we visited, it was a huge success and great fun. We started at Landskroon on the Agter Paarl and then went round “the Pearl” Paarl rock to Laborie in the centre of Paarl. Read on

This week’s recipe     We love cold meats in summer, but are always horrified at how much they can cost. So why not make some yourself. We are talking about roasting a gammon or doing salt beef. So easy as long as you can find good meat. Today Lynne has made salt beef for a picnic we are having tomorrow and there will be plenty for 8 people as part of a meal with guacamole, humus, corn chips, salads, chicken, cheese and something wicked for afterwards like brownies or small cup cakes.

Salt Beef

1 piece of salt beef 1 to 1.5 kilos approx – 1 large onion cut into 8 pieces – 2 celery sticks – 2 carrots – 2 bay leaves – a sprig of thyme – 5 allspice berries – 1 clove – 8 whole peppercorns

Turn your oven to 150°C. Put the beef into a large oven proof casserole with a lid. Roughly chop the vegetables and add to the pot. Add the herbs and spices and cover with water. Bring gently to a simmer and as soon as the water starts to shimmer, cover the pot with a layer of foil and then put the lid on tightly and transfer to the oven. Bake slowly for at least 1½ to 2 hours or until the meat is lovely and tender, but not falling apart. If the joint is larger, you may need more time. Check on it a couple of times to make sure the liquid is not evaporating. You need to slice it when it is cold. Remove it from the heat, cover and slice when needed. If you want to, you can serve this hot. It makes wonderful salt beef sandwiches with mustard and pickles.

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, has a variety of courses. 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

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.

13th March 2015

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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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Landskroon and Laborie at Paarl's Ommiberg Festival

We decided to give this festival another chance this year and are delighted to report that on the two farms we visited, it was a huge success and great fun. This year they advertised in the Cape Newspapers. We started at Landskroon on the Agter Paarl and then went round “the Pearl” Paarl Rock to Laborie in the centre of Paarl

Landskroon has lovely views across the winelands. In late summer the fields are brown and the dam is emptying

“Would you like to taste our Chenin or our Sauvignon Blancs?” For the price of R110 you received a wine glass and could taste all day at the farms involved. And you get to keep your glass

Busy in the cooler tasting room

You can even sit down and relax while tasting

Some wine to scoop

Live music and lots to eat outside on the porch

Huguette van der Merwe offering a tasting of the red wines

Some visitors intent on getting some grape stomping done

We went to Harvest restaurant at Laborie for lunch and start with a cool glass of their Blanc de Blanc MCC

Peter chooses beautifully cooked rump steak and crisp French fries with mixed vegetables

The girls go for the spicy calamari and chorizo. Just perfect for lunch

John has the starter portion

A “Hey, nice to see you again!” welcome from Zelda Oelofse-Cornthwaite, Laborie’s General Manager

Chilling over lunch

Lots of things for children to do on the lawn

And people enjoying the festival under the trees, and like us buying lots of wine in the tasting room. They had some superb specials on the day. All their MCC’s were reduced to R65 and we bought their splendid Chardonnay for R35 a bottle. So 4 cases went into our boot

Not part of the festival, but as we had to go to Franschhoek to collect something we ended up on the terrace of Rickety Bridge and with the help of our very good wine server, managed to taste a great selection of their wines

She was very helpful and answered a lot of questions. If you buy wine, they waive the tasting fee. A few bottles came home with our visitors

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015