Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Durbanville Wine Valley Pinotage Media day at Meerendal.

It is obvious from various tastings we have experienced over the last few months that Pinotage is coming of age in a big way. And that it is doing well outside of the recognised terroirs. This was reinforced by a tasting of some the Durbanville Pinotages at Meerendal recently
Angela Fourie, the PRO for the Durbanville Wine Valley. National Pinotage Day was held this year on Saturday, 9th October and there were many Pinotage celebrations throughout the winelands
She welcomed us and explained that each wine we were tasting would be introduced by someone from that farm, where possible the winemaker
Bennie Howard, public relations officer for Meerendal Estate, talked about the Pinotages in the valley and the history of Pinotage. Pinotage is having a ball, getting great sales here and abroad. People overseas recognise it and Chenin as representing South Africa. Pinotage in Durbanville used to be the biggest planted red grape, it was all sold to Stellenbosch Farmers Winery. Then Sauvignon Blanc became popular in the 80's and took over, and farmers began to make their own wine from it. 6 farms of the 12 use it in their wines. It is easy to grow, harvest and make, can produce 12 tons a hectare and is a good cash crop. It also is an early season grape. Durbanville has an advantage because of the hills, the soils and wind cooled climate from the daily sea breezes, which produces a lighter more elegant style made for drinking, not the usual big rich and fat wines produced on the warmer mountain climes
Time to taste
Bennie Howard, King of Durbanville Pinotage
Bennie became one of the first three Cape Wine Masters in 1983
We began with the Altydgedacht 2015 and winemaker Etienne Louw took us through the wine. Incense wood with notes of herbal forest floor and smoky bacon. It is elegant and restrained with long flavours of rhubarb, mulberries and cranberries
Then winemaker Mari Branders showed us the Diemersdal Reserve 2015 which is 50% bush vine. 6 years in the ABSA Top 10 Pinotages, the wine has red velvet, bacon and cherries on the nose with morello cherries and chalky tannins on the palate. It needs time
Tasting Room Manager Douglas Swanson took us through the De Grendel 2015 Black Label Pinotage, made by Charles Hopkins. This was only a preview of the wine which is new to the range and will be released on the 2nd of November. It was our favourite wine of the tasting. Again it has that smoky bacon on the nose (is this a Durbanville characteristic or was it the kitchen smells?) It is full of rich dark red berries on the nose and palate, great fruit, lots of elderberry and soft chalky tannins. An exciting wine which will age well
Etienne le Roux from Bloemendal talked us through their light 2014 Pinotage and told us that it is their intention to make the style more like Pinot Noir, which we don't understand. It has notes of violets and red fruit on the nose and soft sweet fruit with minimal tannins on the palate. It is juicy and indeed more like the parent Pinot Noir than the other Pinotages
Wilhelm Coetzee, red winemaker at Durbanville Hills told us about the Rhinofields 2014 Pinotage, which spends one year in barrel. This has serious wood, smoky, dark toast, followed by fruit and some herbal fynbos. Silky soft on the palate with black cherries, some maraschino hints, and cranberries. One to keep and savour
Meerendal Cellarmaster Lisa Goodwin talked about their Heritage Block 2010 Pinotage. Again, smoky bacon, cherries and mulberries on the nose. Soft strawberry fruit
Mr Pinotage. Beyers Truter was a guest at the tasting ...
... and seemed to be enjoying the wines
The line up of Pinotages
And others to taste with lunch. The magnum of 1996 Meerendal Pinotage was an excellent example of how well this varietal ages
Starter was a beef carpaccio with beetroot, caper berries, olives, goats cheese and rocket. A good match to the Pinotages
Bennie making sure we have wine to drink with lunch
The main course was a game or beef pot pie with yellow rice and lovely blanched vegetables that were good dipped in the rich pie sauce. The meat was rather dry though
The brave chef produced Chocolate fondants for the large crowd and they worked, all were dark and oozy as they should be. Topped with ice cream and a strawberry they were a nice end to the meal and the tasting
Durbanville Pinotage people with two guests: Duimpie Bayly, who has done much to help them in the past and Beyers Truter. Thank you. We think Pinotage in Durbanville has a good future, No metallic tastes were found, very little banana and no rust. Well done
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

SASSI Trailblazer Awards 2016

Do you like fish and seafood? The question is fairly rhetorical. If you do like eating fish and seafood, you should know that our seas are being overfished and we have to protect many species or they will become extinct and no longer there to enjoy. SASSI stands for South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative. They publish a list of all seafood divided into three groups: Green: Best choice, Orange: Think twice, Red: Don’t buy. Check out the website http://wwfsassi.co.za/ and download their app to your phone so that, when you’re out and ordering fish, you can make an informed decision
Six of South Africa’s finest cuisine masters have been crowned as SASSI Trailblazer Chefs for 2016. Each of the winners is accomplished in his or her own right. These six individuals have gone above and beyond in their kitchens to create and maintain a sustainable seafood hub within their industry
We live in a wonderful suburb alongside the sea that provides us with all its riches
We love going to events where we can take the MyCiti Bus, save on petrol, emissions and traffic congestion as well as enjoy a glass of wine safely
This year's event was held on the terrace at the Table Bay Hotel in the Waterfront. Chef Chris Erasmus of Foliage restaurant in Franschhoek is a previous award winner and SASSI ambassador. He is with Simon Ash of The Fat Fish who was there to receive an award
Rudi Liebenberg, Executive Chef at the Mount Nelson Hotel, is also a past winner
SASSI members of staff with Pavitray Pillay, Manager of the WWF SASSI program
A really good selection of white wines to taste
and some Rosés. Both go so well with seafood. But so does red wine with certain dishes. There are NO hard and fast rules
Clare Mack of Spill Brand Communications announced the awards
She spoke with the working docks behind her
Pavitray Pillay of SASSI
Eamon McLoughlin and Lynne, Tweeting the announcements
Past, present and future award winners listening to the speeches
More listening chefs
Rudi talks about the initiative and how he operates it at the Mount Nelson. (He is wearing the boot because he recently severed his Achilles tendon)
Diana Howell, GM of Kurland Hotel
The winners for 2016 are chefs: L to r Claire Blinkhorn-Street (Haute Cabrière), Constantijn Hahndiek (Hartford House),  Carl van Rooyen (Vineyard Hotel), Leon Coetzee (Kurland Hotel) and Simon Ash (The Fat Fish)
Andrea Burgener (The Leopard) could not be present
The Award winners with Pavitray Pillay and Jocelyn Myers-Adams, Exec Chef at The Table Bay
Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront at eventide
We were taken aback and hugely surprised to be given a Media Award. We do support the SASSI initiative in MENU our publication
Main Ingredient was our wine and food shop which closed in 2010
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

New Summer Menu at Simonsig's Cuvée Restaurant

We love getting invitations like this." How would you like to come and help us try out the new summer menu at Simonsig in an informal lunch?" said PRO Emile Joubert last week. It turned out to be a lovely, sunny late Spring day in the burgeoning winelands and a small gathering of eight. We enjoyed the great Simonsig wines and bubbly with the lunch
Some glasses of Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel to greet us
The chef Carolize shows the new menu to Emile. Its is beautifully graphic and colourful. Sadly she is leaving in a month to go to Dornier. Journalist Nicola Jenvey, on the left, was down from Durban to attend the CWG Auction, Veritas and several other events at wine farms
Making up our minds! Encouraged by a glass of the Simonsig Brut or Brut Rosé
and sending a few texts
We think the best choices are in the salad selection. Do what we did. Get a group of friends together, 6 or 8 should do it, and order one of each salad with all the accoutrements. We simply ate family style passing all the dishes around for people to help themselves. It was lovely fresh food
You can start with a portion of Boerewors with a mustard dipping sauce. You can add two side dishes to this, Tomatoes and sweet onion in a vinaigrette, or Boland dried peaches in coriander yoghurt
The Salt baked Baby Beet Salad with gorgonzola, strawberries, hazelnuts and cranberry dressing. Next to it is the local ham which you can add to your order.
The Cuvée salad with lettuce, shaved apple, celery, radish, toasted hazelnuts and a caper emulsion. Slightly similar to a Caesar, and very good. With the smoked chicken breast as an addition and at the top right, the Melon, cucumber and rocket salad with bacon, goats cheese and croutons
Two other items to add to your salad. We thought these were battered mushrooms, they turned out to be deep fried tofu and battered prawns
The charred corn salad with pawpaw and avocado, with Asian greens, tofu and a sesame and chilli-ginger dressing
Swordfish was the line fish of the day
A steak. This comes with three added sauces
We think this was a lamb loin, ordered by someone else on the table
Beef burger with good chips. The buns are basted with a spicy sweet tomato jam and it has pickled cucumber, cheddar cheese and rocket as well
Hasselback potatoes in butter comes as a side dish, extra on the menu, as are battered onion rings, and a lentil salad
The Whole Roasted, deboned chicken 'Laksa', was three pieces of very dry rolled Chicken breast with a little mild Durban curry sauce and a tomato salsa and green beans. Laksa, to us, is a Malaysian seafood and chicken soup with noodles which Lynne makes at least once a month
The dark chocolate tart was much more than expected, more like an unsweetened 85% dark chocolate delice with a biscuit base, topped with a passion fruit pannacotta, so two desserts for your money. Actually three, as good ice cream, more crumbs and tiny marshmallow meringues were on the plate as well. Other guests had the sorbets and ice creams which come in several flavours. They serve very good coffee too
We met charming Luca from Italy who has been cycling across the world for about 3 years, seen here with Adèle Steyn, Simonsig’s Digital Marketing and Social Media Manager. He has just completed a cycle ride from Kenya to the Cape and was returning home after a long time away. He first cycled around Europe for years
Simonsig has a lovely view of Table Mountain. Lunch on their terrace is a lovely experience. We will be back with visitors in the summer
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

MENU. Wednesday, September 28, 2016. Nederburg Auction 2016, Amorim Cap Classique Challenge, 1821 Grand Constance comes home, Asian Style Beef salad, Durbanville Hills Rhinofields Sauvignon


A bee harvests the delights of an orange blossom
We wish all our Jewish readers Shanah Tovah and well over the Fast
Another great week of wine and some good food. Our car came back to us just in time for a period of intense travel. The festival season is beginning and we are having to visit Franschhoek, Stellenbosch, Durbanville, Darling and Robertson all in the next couple of weeks. Our petrol bill goes sky high and we really appreciate it when the event organisers arrange transport for us. This is the height of the media season and the diary is rather full so we will have lots to tell you about
We are having a problem sending MENU by email. When we called our service provider, MWeb, to ask why we could only send out to about 20 addresses per hour, we were told that they have a new policy which means that bulk mailing is no longer possible from any account and that this applies to all service providers. They said that the only way round it is to re-jig our mailing list of over 5000 addresses into groups of 20 instead of the 250 or so we've used up to now. Eveb that isn’t working, so we are looking at alternative ways of sending the email version to you
What we need to ask of all our subscribers is to follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, so that all our stories and MENU can be accessed as they are published, so that we can all get round this obstacle
The Nederburg Auction 2016      This year's Nederburg Auction had 146 items, 1034 lots, 10 506 litres of wine to auction and made a final total of R7 593 200 with total sales increasing by 23% over last year, in spite of a slightly lower volume on sale of 4% from the 2015. Tsogo Sun was the top buyer for 2016, with a total of just over R1 million, followed by the SPAR group and the Singita group of luxury lodges. We attended on Saturday and had an interesting and enjoyable day. We didnt buy anything this year, the high prices were daunting
A total of 18 lots were sold at the exciting annual Nederburg Charity Auction taken by Roland Peens during lunch, which raised just over R500 000 for two community-based organisations, the Breytenbach Centre in Wellington and the Hope Through Action project in Paarl. The highest price achieved was R70,000 paid for a single 750ml bottle of Petrus, 1988, signed by Christian Moueix that was donated by auctioneer Anthony Barne MW. If you would like the see the results in details go here https://www.nederburgauction.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/2016-Results.pdf
A Historical “Home Coming” at Groot Constantia     Groot Constantia brought home an 1821 bottle of its famed Grand Constance. Groot Constantia was the successful bidder recently in an overseas auction for a 195 year old bottle of Grand Constance 1821, a wine that was produced in the Groot Constantia Cloete Cellar. They were so delighted at acquiring the wine and returning it to its origin that they invited a group of us to celebrate its return last week. They also promised a surprise event during the day
The 15th year of the Amorim Cap Classique Challenge     The awards ceremony for this prestigious competition, sponsored by Portuguese cork producer Amorim, was held last Wednesday at the Twelve Apostles Hotel. There were 113 entries for the four categories: Blanc de Blancs, Rosé, Blended Brut and a Museum Class for wines including and before the 2008 vintage. And there were a few surprises this year. The labels usually at the top were not up there and two producers both took home two top awards. The wines are tasted blind by a panel of experienced judges and this year there was a change in judging procedures in that categories were narrowed, with judging no longer being done separately on vintage and non-vintage wines. And to promote inclusivity among producers, entries were open to non-members of the Cap Classique Producers Association. The winners are: Best Brut and Overall Competition Winner: Anura Brut 2011; Best Rosé: J.C. Le Roux Pinot Noir Rosé 2010; Best Blanc de Blanc: Colmant Brut Chardonnay NV; Best Museum Class: J.C. Le Roux Scintilla Vintage Reserve 2008; Frans Malan Legacy Award: John and Erica Platter
On the Wine Menu this week: Durbanville Hills Rhinofields Sauvignon blanc 2013     Lees and pears on the nose complemented with vanilla. Layers of crisp clean fruit delight in their complexity. Pears, apricots, pineapple add to the tingle. Such a good wine to pair with food.
This is an easy to assemble salad using left over-beef. You can add lots of other different things like blanched mange tout peas, or thin beans, baby corn, bok choy, baby spinach, pea shoots, radishes or whatever edible items you have in the garden or in the fridge. Lynne used spekboom, nasturtium, and huge oxalis leaves
300g cooked beef from a roast, cut in thin slices - Sesame oil - Ponzu sauce - Tamari sauce - watercress - rocket - carrot strips - celery thinly sliced - one small bulb of fennel, thinly sliced - 8 baby tomatoes , sliced in half- herbs and assorted foraged leaves from your garden - basil leaves, torn - pumpkin seeds - sunflower seeds - black and white sesame seeds - light soy sauce - sweet chilli sauce - hot chilli sauce - soba noodles
Dress the beef with a dessert spoonful of both Ponzu and Tamari and set aside
Salad dressing
1T Ponzu - 1 T light soy sauce - 1 T sweet chilli sauce - 1t sesame oil - 1 t freshly grated ginger - 1 t hot chilli sauce
Cook the soba noodles, drain and while still hot pour over a teaspoonful of sesame oil, 1T sesame seeds - 1 T light soy. Allow to cool.
When the noodles are cool, put them into a wide dish. Mix up the salad ingredients and layer them on top of the noodles, arrange the beef slices on top and when ready to eat, pour over the dressing
1 T = 1 Tablespoon 1t = teaspoon





27th September 2016
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