Diners Club Winemaker of the Year Awards at La Residence, Franschhoek

This glittering affair was held at La Residence in Franschhoek on Saturday night where the Winemaker of the year Award went to Johann Fourie of KWV for the Mentors Pinotage. The Young Winemaker of the year was Phillip Viljoen of Bon Courage for his NLH. It was a chance to put on one’s best bib and tucker and enjoy the good wines entered into the competition with dinner

Very welcoming staff ...

...with glasses of Graham Beck Brut MCC

Lots of canapés were served

and film crews and photographers mingled with the Black Tie guests on the terrace. John confused them by being both in Black tie and a photographer

Nederburg's Razvan Macici with journalist Norman McFarlane

Emma Borg of Painted Wolf Wines with Lynne and Carrie Adams, who had flown down from Johannesburg to attend

Judges Carrie Adams, Colin Frith and Dave Hughes with Bartinney winemaker and Colin Frith's partner Ronell Wiid

Interesting choice of socks by Dave Hughes, better known for not wearing them. Must say, good polish on those carefully looked after shoes!

We take our seats at the long tables

And get to know each other. There was a good mix of sponsors, Diners Club, Standard Bank, winemakers and media

Bartho Eksteen of the Wijnskool Project with Willie du Plessis, Head: Business Banking Western Cape at Standard Bank Group. Willie knows the wine industry very well, as his previous position was Head of Agribusiness

Bartho with his wife Suné

MC for the evening was glamorous TV presenter Jeannie D.

CEO of Diners Club in SA , Ebrahim Matthews making the opening speech

He was followed by Chris Sweeney, Chief Executive, Personal and Business Banking, International at Standard Bank, who made a most amusing speech

Two of the nominees Johann Fourie of KWV with his wife and Margaux Nel of Boplaas with her winemaker partner Leon Coetzee

Chris Sweeney and last year's winner of the Young Wine Maker of the year, JD Pretorius, about to present the award

JD told us how much the award has enhanced his career and how much he enjoyed the trip to USA wine areas which comes with the award. It is sponsored by Delta Airlines

Finalist Murray Barlow, Rustenberg cellarmaster, and his fiancée

And the winner is: Phillip Viljoen of Bon Courage for his NLH

The valiant and courageous speech by Philip Viljoen, who admitted that his slight stutter does impede him somewhat, as it is an effort to speak

He was so charming

The menu

The starter was served with Philip Viljoen's Bon Courage Noble Late Harvest.

It was an unusual, but well-matched, pairing of a rather unyielding slice of camembert with a fresh apricot and some fruit brioche, pickled onions and vegetables and micro herbs. The wine was superb

Winemaker of the year award being presented to Johann Fourie of KWV for his Mentors Pinotage 2013 by CEO of Diners Club in SA , Ebrahim Matthews

Johann, generously, said that he would share the award with the entire Mentors team at KWV, who helped to make the wine

The winning wine was served with our main course and is a classic Cape Pinotage. It needs time, but you can see and taste the potential

Our neighbours across the table, Christa and André Jonker of the Standard Bank, were enjoying it too

Main course was a meltingly tender seared fillet of beef on a parsnip purée and was complemented by a wonderful rich and sticky sour cherry and dark chocolate jus. It came with rainbow carrots, fine beans and beetroot crisps. It was a very good food pairing with the Pinotage

Dessert looked very pretty, was very sweet and was served with a glass of Bon Courage's Jacques Bruére MCC Brut. It was a good mulberry macaron, a rather thin avocado sorbet (perhaps ice cream would have been a better texture?) and a rather thick slice of coconut panna cotta with a whiff of lemongrass

One of our favourite Radio presenters from KFM/Cape Talk and journalist on the Sunday Times Redi and her husband Dr Brian Thlabi had flown down for the event. Photographs do not show Redi's vibrant beauty

The band got the dancers going especially with their rendition of HAPPY!

And then after a great evening, it was time for the shuttle back to our hotel and “Time for bed”, said Zebedee

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

RETURN TO MENU

Subscribe to MENU

This Week's MENU - Tuning the Vine, Kyoto Gardens, Great Domaines Trade Wine tasting at Bocca, 30th Anniversary of Kathy Raath Promotions and Van Loveren wines, Elgin does make great Chardonnays, This week’s recipe -Rohan's Chocolate Nemesis

MENU

The weekly Cape Food, Wine and Lifestyle E-Journal

MENU Adamastor & Bacchus Gourmet Tours Adamastor Photography The MENU Blog

60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005, Cape Town, South Africa

Phone: +27 21 439 3169  Cells: +27 83 229 1172 (John)  +27 83 656 4169 (Lynne)

email: John / Lynne

Click here to Subscribe to MENU or to contact us

Follow us on Twitter

Night view across the mouth of Cape Town harbour

In this week’s MENU:

 Tuning the Vine

 Kyoto Gardens for dinner

 Great Domaines Trade Wine tasting at Bocca

 30th Anniversary of Kathy Raath Promotions and Van Loveren wines

 Elgin does make great Chardonnays

 This week’s recipe: Rohan's Chocolate Nemesis

If you have missed and wish to catch up on a previous issue of MENU for any reason, please go to Main Ingredient. The second page of the site has links to previous issues of MENU.

To get the whole story with photographs, here and in our blog, 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.

Some fun events this week and some really great ones coming up later in the week. Don’t forget to book for the Champagne Festival at the Vineyard Hotel of Friday evening. We are going to be there having fun and enjoying the French Champagnes

I Tune you my Vine (Cape vernacular!)     We started our week last Wednesday at Tuning the Vine. This is the second time this very successful event has been held in Cape Town and there will be another on the 9th of December. You book, there are 3 starter locations in town, you get an arm band, a glass to keep and you walk from venue to venue to taste wines all over the city. To book go to http://www.quicket.co.za/events/11656-innercitywineroute/#/schedules It is cheaper on early bird tickets. Read On

Great Domaines Trade Wine tasting at Bocca     Back to Bocca in Wale Street for this trade tasting of some really good imported wines from France, and Spain. There was a couple of wines which were really familiar to Lynne, who used to drink them when she lived in London, and their prices are not expensive given the current Rand exchange rate. We hope to see them appearing in good wine shops and on restaurant wine lists soon. Read On

30th Anniversary of Kathy Raath Promotions and Van Loveren wines     This was held at Weinhaus und Biergarten (formerly &Union), just along the road from Bocca, so it was a short walk to a very good social evening and the opportunity, if you had the stamina, to taste the whole range of Van Loveren's wines. Great canapés were served by Zest Catering too. Oh those crisp fries with truffle mayo..... Read On

Kyoto Gardens for dinner      We had a business meeting at Kyoto Gardens on Friday and our colleague bought us dinner afterwards. They have slightly changed their menu to (the more usual layout of) starter, main course and dessert format and we had a great meal with well paired wines. It can be expensive but the price is worth paying for such fresh seafood and Japanese dishes. See what we ate

Elgin does make great Chardonnays     Last night, we took part in another Elgin TweetUp and were not surprised to be impressed by the wines we tasted and tweeted about. You can follow us on Twitter if you want to: Johns twitter handle is @mainingmenu and Lynne's is @MenuLynne We will be doing another Elgin TweetUp in Elgin on the 2nd of December. Thankfully, they are offering transport.

Our wines of the evening were the Paul Cluver 2014 Estate Chardonnay (Lynne has already ordered some!) the Richard Kershaw Clonal Selection 2014 which is a 5 star Platter, the Sutherland Chardonnay 2012; Elgin Vintners 2012, made by Kevin Grant and very good value, and the Oak Valley 2012, which keeps impressing us.

This week’s recipe might just suit your pre-Christmas entertaining. It's an easy peasy but rich dessert. You can use other biscuits if you like, amaretti, ginger nuts etc etc.

Rohan's Chocolate Nemesis    

250g dark chocolate - 250g butter  - 2 medium eggs - 85g caster sugar - 250g Digestive biscuits - 60g walnuts or pecans - 60g glace cherries - 150 ml brandy

Melt the chocolate with the butter, either in a bain marie or in the microwave. Do not let it get very hot.  Beat the eggs with the sugar till fluffy and add to the warm chocolate. Stir till incorporated then add the brandy. Break up the biscuits and nuts and chop the cherries. Add them all to the chocolate mixture. Pour into a buttered smooth mould and refrigerate. Turn out and decorate with cream, cherries and nuts.

18th November 2015

PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information

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.

If you like the photographs you see in our publications, please look at our Adamastor Photo website for our rate card and samples from our portfolio

We apologise if MENU caused your phone to bleep in the early hours. To send to our huge list of subscribers takes a long time and many of them receive it in the middle of the night. Might we suggest that your phone should not be activated to receive messages from us or from other sources in the witching hours? If your boss needs to contact you at that time, (s)he’s intruding on your valuable personal time.

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.

This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. We own our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.

Subscribe to MENU

This week’s recipe: Rohan's Chocolate Nemesis

This week’s recipe might just suit your pre-Christmas entertaining. It's an easy peasy but rich dessert. You can use other biscuits if you like, amaretti, ginger nuts etc etc.

Rohan's Chocolate Nemesis    

250g dark chocolate - 250g butter- 2 medium eggs -- 85g caster sugar 250g Digestive biscuits - 60g walnuts or pecans - 60g glace cherries - 150 ml brandy

Melt the chocolate with the butter, either in a bain marie or in the microwave. Beat the eggs with the sugar till fluffy and add to the warm chocolate. Stir till incorporated then add the brandy. Break up the biscuits and nuts and chop the cherries. Add them all to the chocolate mixture. Pour into a buttered smooth mould and refrigerate. Turn out and decorate with cream, cherries and nuts.

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

RETURN TO MENU

Subscribe to MENU

Supper at Kyoto Gardens

We had a business meeting at Kyoto Gardens just off Kloof Nek Road on Friday and our colleague bought us dinner afterwards. They have slightly changed their menu to (the more usual layout) starter, main course and dessert format and we had a great meal with well paired wines. It can be expensive but the price is worth paying for such fresh seafood and Japanese dishes

Our starter of sea urchin sushi. Tastes of the sea. Different and enjoyable

This plate was going to another table but we couldn't resist taking a photo as it was so pretty. Snow crab and asparagus, we think

Probably the most delicious beef we have had in a year or three. Thin slices of just seared Kobe beef - meltingly tender and very, very flavourful with a very simple dressing and sprinkled with sesame seeds

Our main course of thin slices of kingklip on lemon rice topped with bok choy

There was plenty for two and some rice was left over. We were enjoying the food so much we forgot to take more photographs

We were not expecting to stay for supper, so the only camera we had with us was our old Nokia Windows Lumia 920 (with a cracked screen for the last several months nogal), still arguably the best camera phone in the business. All photographs taken without flash, under the restaurant's dim lighting, with minimal editing

© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

RETURN TO MENU

Subscribe to MENU

Van Loveren celebrates 30th Anniversary with a tasting at Weinhaus & Biergarten

This was held at Weinhaus and Biergarten in Riebeek Square, just along the road from Bocca, so it was a short walk to a very good social evening and the opportunity, if you had the stamina to taste the whole range of Van Loveren's wines. Great canapés were served by Zest catering too. Oh those crisp fries with truffle mayo.....

Louise and Mark Herd of Sunset Beach Wines, greeted by our friend Bonita Malherbe, Van Loveren’s Marketing manager

The new style of wine in a bag by Van Loveren - it fits perfectly into an ice bucket for picnics

Something different to taste on nearly every table.

NO one can Bant when faced with these - Nici Beaumont's amazing French fries

It was very well attended

Bonita Malherbe and Dane Raath having a cuddle. They have worked together now for several years. Dane is Kathy Raath’s son and is also in the business

Nice to meet Shan Pascall from Oneiric in Elgin there and have a chat about the wine industry while tasting, no, confess, drinking some of the magnificent top of the range and a 4 star Platter wine, the Christina Van Loveren Limited Release Chardonnay

 © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

RETURN TO MENU

Subscribe to MENU