Franschhoek Summer Wines

What a lovely festival this is. It showcases the Franschhoek wines you might want to drink in the summer: their bubblies, white wines and some rosés. It was held at under marquees on the lawn at Leopard’s Leap, where the farms set up their stalls to showcase the one wine that each was allowed, appropriate to the day. 26 Franschhoek farms were represented; the wines were chilled, so were the visitors and much happiness ensued. We tasted, chatted to the farms’ representatives, had a light lunch and bought some wine to take home

White was the cooling theme and a white tented world welcomed us. If you bought water from the water stand on the left, you will be happy to know that all the money is used to support children who would not be able to study ballet without this funding

Taking time off from harvesting, a happy, smiling winemaker, Dawie Botha of Antonij Rupert wines with his Cape of Good Hope Riebeeksriver Caroline 2013 which John really liked. It is made from Chenin from 30-year-old vines, plus Roussanne and Viognier. Oaked, tangerine citrus and classy

Always fun to chat to Nick Davis of Morena and taste his lovely Cap Classique Brut Rosé, made from 60% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay; zesty and lively

Peter Kampmeinert, our friend who visits every year at this time from Holland, with Lynne enjoying the chat and the Morena MCC

Taking a day off from her own harvest is KWV winemaker Anneke du Plessis 

Looking rosy with health, Irene Waller, General Manager and winemaker at La Bri. The Cellar Door Rosé at R65 was a steal, so summery and so refreshing

Guess what we drank with our lunch? A gift from winemaker DP Burger who refused to let us pay for it, a bottle of Glenwood's just released white Bordeaux bland of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. It is a lovely, satisfying blend with nice depth and richness from the Semillon. It is a food wine and went really well with the Pork Belly tortillas produced in the Leopard’s Leap kitchen

John was allowed into the kitchen to photograph the preparation of the simple but good food on offer. A cheese platter with fresh figs and chutney

The kitchen was very organised and there was no waiting for lunch. The girls behind the counter

The tortilla was packed full of good pork, vegetables and a spicy sauce

Sitting inside for lunch on the terrace with the cooling misters going

Girls having fun and enjoying a bottle of La Couronne Chenin blanc

Good music played all through the event

Magic 828 AM Broadcaster Guy MacDonald and Bronwen, enjoying the magic!

Oh no, up on the mountain behind us, a horrible fire broke out and raced up the mountain. They did eventually get it under control, but it was frightening to watch

Some enthusiastic tasters at the Bellingham stand, tasting the very good Old Vines Chenin Blanc with Marguerite Nel. Once you had your generous tasting portion, they crossed it off the list. There was plenty of wine to enjoy and lots to buy.

Boschendal winemaker Tammy Jaftha blowing a kiss!

Franschhoek Cellar showed their 2015 Chardonnay to a happy imbiber

Relaxing under the umbrellas. So much shade was provided this year and very much appreciated it was  too

Who has had a super day! And a large chocolate ice cream. This is the daughter of Pippa Pringle, who looks after public relations for the Franschhoek Valley and invited us. Lynne was also happy as she bought a case of La Chataigne's Kastanje 2014 Chenin Blanc. It is caramel toffee on the nose, crisp and full on the palate, a lovely Chenin with some age, just how she likes them

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017

This week’s recipe in MENU is Preserving Plums

To remind you how short our summer fruit season is and to remember to cook some of the fruits so you can have lovely puddings in the winter. It is plum season at present and a plum crumble on a cold winter day is superb. You may not realise how easy it is to make and freeze for use in a few months time.

Stewed Plums for freezing

1 kilo of red or purple plums (NOT prune plums, you want the juicy sharp and tangy plums) - ¼ t cinnamon - 1 teaspoon of butter - 2 Tablespoons water - 2 Tablespoons sugar or more according to your own taste and the ripeness of the plums - a pinch of salt

Halve the plums and remove the pips. Put all the ingredients in a deep pot and cook gently until the plums begin to melt and form a nice juice. Don't cook until it is all mush, leave some shape. Taste, adjust the sugar and add a pinch of salt to intensify the flavours. Pack into freezer boxes and freeze till you need them. 

To make the tart or crumble, put the defrosted plums into a pie plate and cover with shortcrust pastry - glaze the top with an egg wash and sprinkle with sugar, or just add a crumble top with some added chopped almonds. You can do this with other fruit too, like cling peaches, apricots and cherries

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017

This Week's MENU. Yzerfontein, Darling, Brandy Alexander, Getaway Good Value wines, Wine & recipe of the week

A flight of Black oystercatchers at Yzerfontein on the West Coast

We have had a busy start to the year, fixing things at home, taking clients on tours to the Winelands and even being part of a British TV commercial, but our world is waking up and we have stories to tell you.

•       A Summer Holiday in Yzerfontein
        A West Coast Day
        Brandy Alexander Day at Shaker with Distell
        The Getaway Best Value Wine Awards
        This week’s recipe
        MENU's Wine of the Week

This year certainly has had a dry start. The drought is severe in the Western Cape and if the rains don't come this winter, and early, we are going to be in serious trouble. Apparently we only have enough water for about 80 days. And getting the last 10% out of the dams is apparently not an option. It has rained this week, the first time in our area for months and it was lovely; it won’t be enough, so we hope for more. We are getting a lot of exercise watering a few of our precious plants by hand, the rest of the garden is dying. No hoses or watering systems are allowed

Now, it is harvest time in the Winelands and it is all GO again. We will be writing about several harvest festivals and experiences that we have been invited to. We would encourage you to go to these if you can, they are so much fun and a very good way to see how hard farms have to work in this season. Most winemakers are very short of sleep, having to work incredibly long hours, not only to get the grapes in to the cellar, but then deal with them and start the wine making process. The smell of fresh ripe grapes going into a crusher is a superb, never to be forgotten aroma. And tasting the freshly pressed grape juice, not yet fermented, is something you will never forget, it’s sensational.

A Summer Holiday in Yzerfontein     

After the hectic activity of our year, we decided to take a week off and booked a small flat at the side of a house in Yzerfontein, about 1½ hours north of Cape Town. It was at the edge of a dune. We do live by the sea but a holiday right on the front with no buildings in front of us, no traffic, fresh sea air and lazy days are what we crave. We read books, ate and drank well, walked on the beach, watched the birds and enjoyed the beautiful sunsets. A restorative for our souls, which was all too short but very beautiful....

A West Coast Day 

You might think the West Coast is quite sleepy but it is not! There are so many things to do up there. While we were on holiday there, we accepted two invitations from Darling people which included wine and food: Lukas Wentzel at Groote Post and Charles Withington of the Darling Wine shop, who was doing a wine tasting at Chicory Cheese restaurant. We decided to see them both on the same day so we could spend the other days relaxing by the sea! Tasting wine from the tanks, lunch at Hilda's and a game drive at Groote Post with Lukas

Brandy Alexander Day at Shaker with Distell     

Cocktails or straight up? We love having our predilections challenged. We like good brandy, gin and whisk(e)y. We didn't think that we liked cocktails. Distell threw us in at the deep end and taught us how to make some cocktails with their brandies. We had a ball and loved the experience, although it did have an effect on the rest of the afternoon. And yes, we took the bus there and back. First, we sampled some great brandies and imported cognacs.....

The Getaway Best Value Wine Awards     

Almost 250 wines were entered for this annual competition and we attended the awards ceremony this week. Should you want a copy, this year's Getaway Best Value Wines Guide is bagged with the February issue of Getaway, which is on sale from 23 January 2017. Results are also are also available at www.bestvaluewineguide.com  Wines to enjoy without breaking your budget.....

This week’s recipe in MENU is Preserving Plums

To remind you how short our summer fruit season is and to remember to cook some of the fruits so you can have lovely puddings in the winter. It is plum season at present and a plum crumble on a cold winter day is superb. You may not realise how easy it is to make and freeze for use in a few months time.

Stewed Plums for freezing

1 kilo of red or purple plums (NOT prune plums, you want the juicy sharp and tangy plums) - ¼ t cinnamon - 1 teaspoon of butter - 2 Tablespoons water - 2 Tablespoons sugar or more according to your own taste and the ripeness of the plums - a pinch of salt

Halve the plums and remove the pips. Put all the ingredients in a deep pot and cook gently until the plums begin to melt and form a nice juice. Don't cook until it is all mush, leave some shape. Taste, adjust the sugar and add a pinch of salt to intensify the flavours. Pack into freezer boxes and freeze till you need them.

To make the tart or crumble, put the defrosted plums into a pie plate and cover with shortcrust pastry - glaze the top with an egg wash and sprinkle with sugar, or just add a crumble top with some added chopped almonds. You can do this with other fruit too, like cling peaches, apricots and cherries.

MENU's Wine of the Week: Altydgedacht Gewürztraminer 2014     

We showed this wine in a tasting of Teutonic varietals with our wine club recently. It is one of very few bone dry examples of this varietal in produced in South Africa. Like Riesling, Gewürztraminer does not have a large following, largely because it is not well understood. It is a delicate and aromatic wine, typically with roses and a little spice on the nose (gewürz is the German word for spice) and Turkish delight and litchis on the palate with lightly spicy notes   Many people assume....

7th February 2017
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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. 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. 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.

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MENU's Wine of the Week: Altydgedacht Gewürztraminer 2014

We showed this wine in a tasting of Teutonic varietals with our wine club recently. It is one of very few bone dry examples of this varietal in produced in South Africa. Like Riesling, Gewürztraminer does not have a large following, largely because it is not well understood. It is a delicate and aromatic wine, typically with roses and a little spice on the nose (gewürz is the German word for spice) and Turkish delight and litchis on the palate with lightly spicy notes

Many people assume that a Gewürztraminer will be a sweet or semi-sweet wine, and there are good examples of this style too, but dry wines like this are a delicious accompaniment to Middle Eastern and other lightly spiced foods. It is also a very good wine to serve as an apèritif

The Altydgedacht website has not been updated for several years, but expect to pay around R120 per bottle at good wine shops for the current vintage. Platter gave it 4 stars

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017

The Getaway Best Value Wine Awards

Almost 250 wines were entered for this annual competition and we attended the awards ceremony this week. Should you want a copy, this year's Getaway Best Value Wines Guide is bagged with the February issue of Getaway, which is on sale from 23 January 2017. Results are also are also available at www.bestvaluewineguide.com

It was held at a new venue for us, The Eatery Wood Fired Grill in Belvedere Square, Claremont There is a list of national restaurants in the guide where you can drink these wines as they allow you to Bring Your Own good value wines

All the wines were laid out for us to taste at our leisure. There are a few more wine farms we would like to see entering these awards next year

They produced some very good canapés to ease down the wines. These were Bruschettas of tomato, olives, cheese and basil. Messy but satisfying

They have a lovely shady terrace where the winners were announced.

Kathryn Frew is the organiser of this event for Getaway magazine

Neil Piper, Getaway Publisher, told us about these awards, which have been presented since 2002. The statistical model that rates each wine was developed by UCT academic Dr David Priilaid after more than a decade of analysing the results of various wine competitions and tastings. Dr Priilaid’s system uses the data he’s collected to work out each wine’s value, quality and price. All the wines are available on shelf for R80 or less

Fiona MacDonald, head judge, told us about the process. All the wines are tasted blind and by two separate panels of judges. They were tasted in specific categories: Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, white blends, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Pinotage, Merlot, red blends, Almost 250 wines were entered for this annual competition and, this week, we attended the awards ceremony. Should you want a copy, this year's Getaway Best Value Wines Guide is bagged with the February issue of Getaway, which has been on sale from 23rd January. Results are also are also available at www.bestvaluewineguide.com 

The Getaway team 

The awards were presented by Sonya Schoeman – Getaway Editor

Here she is with Ken Forrester and Shawn Mathyse of Ken Forrester wines, who won for the Petit Sauvignon Blanc

Jean du Preez receiving his award for the Du Preez Rockfield Cabernet Sauvignon

Theunis van Zyl of Imbuko in Wellington swept the board with three separate Awards - Imbuko Merlot, Van Zijl Coffee Pinotage and Shortwood Red Blend 

and therefore won the Overall Best Value Producer award

Brendan Butler of Mount Vernon won the award for the best value Rosé

Calamari and chips motivate us to make a booking soon

Chilli poppers

Very good, lean seared steak topped with a green herb sauce

 And Bobotie spring rolls with a sweet chilli dip, dessert wines and bubblies

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017