A visit to Tulbagh - The Tulbagh Hotel

We were invited to stay at the Tulbagh Hotel on Sunday night but our car challenge meant that we could only accept their invitation to have dinner on Tuesday night.  This hotel is somewhere we have stayed in the past and we were really impressed with the improvements that the British owner, Alasdair McRobbie, who is a pilot with Virgin Atlantic, has made and they continue.  It is apparently the go to place for all the Tulbagh residents we met for a good dinner. We agree. They also invited us to come back for breakfast the following morning. Another good meal

The outside of the hotel, early evening.

During good weather you can eat on the terrace

The restaurant still has some of that old fashioned country hotel bar feel and we assume that this will be updated in the future

Hotel guests and outside customers do come and use the bar. We had a nice table next to the fire, it was another chilly night

Lynne's starter was a familiar smoked salmon and cream cheese parcel - enough to feed three! with a tomato, avocado and raw onion salsa (sorry, raw onion is still a crime in our books) with some really good Banting crackers. Very crisp with a good nutty baked flavour

John opted for the springbok carpaccio with feta, olives and beetroot, topped with rocket and crisps

Lynne's main course was a good spicy lamb Rogan Josh, with steamed rice and a poppadom. This came with three sambals: a hot sweet chutney (Mrs Balls?) a cucumber raita and a rather strange atchar of unidentified vegetables that were very hard

We were told by our winemaker friends that the hotel is known for its great steaks, so John had the rump, which was coated in a good barbeque sauce. It came with chips and a Greek style salad and was very good meat, tender and delicious. We had no room for anything else so passed on dessert and coffee

We returned the next morning for breakfast and it was excellent. Lynne had the full country breakfast with local sausage, mushrooms and fried potatoes. The eggs were a little overdone, but lovely and fresh

John chose the triple egg omelette stuffed with cheese and bacon, it was light and fluffy, just the way he prefers it

We then did a quick tour or the hotel and were shown this newly renovated Protea room. It is very spacious and we loved the soft decor

Fitted with all the necessities of life, a desk, aircon, a flat screen cable TV, a mini bar and a kettle

It has a very modern clean lines bathroom with bath and walk in shower

In the hallway, a lending library

There is a courtyard extension of the restaurant at the back for good weather, near the swimming pool

The top floor also has this lovely sunny deck ...

... which runs the length of the hotel

A comfortable chaise longue next to the new staircase

The downstairs courtyard

The newly built staircase in the hallway

Across the road from the hotel is this annex in the historic  buildings that lead down to Church Street

It has its own courtyard

Tulbagh's main street.  It is still wide enough to turn an ox wagon.

The outside of The Tulbagh's annex

It is a very pretty town

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

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Waverley Hills - Organic wines, beautiful gardens and good food

We last met Cellarmaster Johan Delport and Managing Director Kobus du Toit of Waverley Hills winery at the Green Wine Awards last year and we have had to keep postponing acceptance of their invitation to visit the farm. Finally, on a lovely early spring day we got there. The farm is just behind Wolseley on the road to Ceres. Brenn-O-Kem owns the farm. Run by the du Toit family, of which our host Kobus is a director, Brenn-O-Kem is in the old historic Waverley Blankets factory and the wine farm has grown from their expansion. Brenn-O-Kem  recycles wine production waste: skins, seeds and lees and runs this eco-friendly organically certified wine farm. It has a lovely site on the side of the mountain looking down over the valley and they have a really good restaurant, where we had an extremely good four course lunch following our cellar tour and barrel tasting

The very modern tasting and colourful room. All their wines are organically grown and made and are low in sulphur. They have a special range called No Sulphites Added for those with sulphur allergies

We went on a tour of the wine cellars with Johan and Kobus. This is the soaring barrel cellar

We were delighted to be offered some wines to taste from the barrels. First a good 2015 Semillon with fynbos herbs, pepper and buchu with the desired 'mutton fat' mouth, lovely kiwi fruit and maraschino on the end with good wooding. A silky 2013 SMV with cherries, spice and vanilla. Then a 2015 blend of Viognier, Semillon and Chardonnay (VSC) which is beautifully perfumed with peaches with a lovely rich mouthful from the Semillon and peaches from the Viognier with lemony acidity and good fruit sugars to balance this dry wine. The 2015 Chardonnay which is a component of the VSC has the same perfume and tastes of citrus with caramel on the end from the wood. A nice concentration of gentle flavours. We found all these wines to be open and generous rather than tight and restrained. The CW 2015 Reserve Shiraz was made to honour Kobus and Wynand's late father, Chris du Toit. The elegant nose shows herbs, good wood and had delicate fruit, more a northern style of Shiraz with nice soft tannins which give it aging ability

Time for a tour of the indigenous garden below the winery

It has water features, lots of trees and many birds and insects. And there is a children's play area

Lovely views of the mountains beyond. Bains Kloof Pass gave access through them from the Cape to Tulbagh and the hinterland in the 19th Century

Spring daisies lifting their faces to the sun

Red king protea (Protea cynaroides Madiba) named in honour of Nelson Mandela

The winery and restaurant from the gardens. Beneath the restaurant is a conference venue where weddings can be held. They have their own chapel too

The flowers were attracting the sunbirds. This is a southern double-collared sunbird or lesser double-collared sunbird (Cinnyris chalybeus)

This mountain, part of the Witzenberg Mountain Range is sometimes covered in snow in winter. It is at the entrance to the pass to Ceres

Kobus du Toit told us about Brenn-O-Kem. They produce many things from the by-products of the wine industry such as cream of tartar. From the grape pomace: grape seed oil, tannins and grape skin by-products; wine spirits for the distilling industry. They produce pharmaceuticals: Grape Seed Extract, a powerful antioxidant, Sceletium Extract, and a range of Nutraceuticals. Even a natural tempura ingredient for Japan and the cream of tartar is used in bath fizz balls and baking sodas. The pomace waste is used as fertiliser

We began lunch with a glass of their MCC Chardonnay Brut 2013 which spent 18 months on the lees. Yeasty, crisp and dry with cooked apples, a hint of fynbos and a good sparkle

Lunch began with herb crusted salmon trout on a bed of spinach puree, topped with a poached egg and sprinkled with our local wild rosemary flowers. This was accompanied by the 2016 Semillon which is tropical with pears and melon, like a summer fruit salad. Lynne panicked rather when she heard this was the first of four courses. it was quite a large serving

The next course was empanada like, fold over pies of chicken and mushroom served with a divine truffle cream

John had some soy chicken with tempura broccoli instead of the mushroom pie

The main course was good crisp pork belly with creamy mash, pomegranate sauce and aruls, beans and courgette spaghetti. We had this course with the 2012 SMV which was spicy and peppery with full on vanilla ice cream notes then lovely ripe red fruit with a chocolate end. It was a great match as the wine echoed the fruit flavours of the sauce

And then there was dessert. Malva pudding, light and fluffy with a rich rooibos ice cream. Luckily it was not redolent of rooibos, just a nice rich and creamy complement to the pudding. Served with Waverley Hills stonkingly good Red Muscadel 2013 Dark and fruity with caramel notes this would also go so well with Christmas pudding

The meal was cooked by chef Francois du Toit who was previously at the Royal Hotel in Riebeek. We loved meeting him and talking to him about his good food. We think he will go far. We suggest you make a trip to the restaurant to try out his excellent menu and the Waverley Hills wines that are paired with it

Brilliant spring daisies flowering early on the farm.

After a coffee we left for home and an adventurous trip over Bains Kloof Pass, where we saw only two other cars on the entire trip up. Thank you for the kind hospitality, Waverley Hills

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

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A visit to Tulbagh - The houses, museums and gardens of Church Street

On Tuesday, we at last managed to book this historic tour. You meet at the church that gives Kerk Straat its name. Built for the population after the arrival of the Rev. Arnoldus Mauritius Meiring in 1743, it turned a sleepy hollow into a town. The minister had the presence of mind to sell off land in Church Street to wealthy people and soon a vibrant community was in occupation, attracting business and people to the town. In 1969, Tulbagh suffered a devastating earthquake (6.3 on the Richter scale) which destroyed many of the houses and seriously damaged others. Thanks to the Fagan brothers, architects and builders, much of this was restored and Church Street is now the jewel of the town. You can walk the length of the street with a guide and hear the history of the town

The church is now a museum filled with interesting antiques

One of our guides, Henrilene Links, who works for the tourist board

Jason Clark, who owns an accommodation establishment in the street, is the main guide and is training Henrilene to take some of the pressure off himself

The scallop and frog gable

Peaceful Church Street

It's a lovely gentle walk of about an hour and a half, learning about the street and Tulbagh

A sleepy local bandit, one of the Readers Restaurant cats

A view of the mountains behind Tulbagh. So many of these houses were damaged or destroyed. It is a triumph of reconstruction

Looking back towards the church

Many of the houses are museums, some are privately owned, some are bed and breakfasts, this is a health clinic

The house that was the famous Paddagang restaurant. It is now a Belgian café

A beautiful example of Cape Dutch gabled architecture

This is a museum

Some are restaurants

In the middle of the road, there is now an organic kitchen garden project which is open to the public to come and pick their own vegetables. Much of this produce currently goes to the Neighbourhood market in the Waterfront, held every Saturday. Jason was so inspired by the gardens at Babylonstoren wine farm that he started this for the people of Tulbagh. We went back the following day and picked ourselves a bunch of asparagus, which we had for supper on Thursday night. It was superb and the prices are very good

Readers restaurant sponsors their own patch

Jason runs this Guest House, which is opposite the house in which he lives when he is in Tulbagh

The hillside was covered in carpets of white spring daisies

The garden is laid out in a geometric pattern and they have lots of plans to expand and plant different crops

Inside one of the historic houses is a colourful shop selling local handicrafts

This historic very early photograph, taken in the 1860s, shows what the town looked like in the mid 19th Century. It was used to reconstruct the buildings damaged or destroyed in the 1969 earthquake

Several of the houses are now museums which you can visit. Sadly, they were closed when we did our walk on the public holiday. We returned on Wednesday morning but, other than the Tourist board offices, most were still closed. We did have a very quick tour of the old church

The interior of the church, still with its pulpit and choir stalls can be used for weddings and other functions

The curator of the Church, Annelien Fredericks, kindly showed us around and played this Symphonium for us. They have many extra discs for more tunes

There is some magnificent old Cape Dutch furniture

And a very old interesting map of the Cape in the 18th century

A beautiful drum table, on which Governor Sir Lord Charles Somerset signed the document declaring the Cape a British colony in 1805

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

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