Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Pruning the vines at The Vineyard Hotel, Newlands

Having bottled this year's vintage on Thursday this week, we headed back to the Vineyard Hotel on Saturday to help prune the vines. This annual event means that the old wood which bore the fruit this year has to be taken off the vine and pruned back to just two new buds at its base. It is an expert job, so the winemakers and viticulturist involved were there to assist. We had been taught previously how to do this and were allowed to properly prune the vines but, this year, it was decided that the custodians would prune the vines to the top of the second wire and the experts would take over from there. We were a bit disappointed, but there have been some bad mistakes made in the past which may have limited production, so we accept it may have been necessary
We arrived, as instructed, at the Vineyard Hotel at 10h30. It was another wet morning, but it did promise good weather later
Spring must be in the air; one of the Vineyard Hotel's giant tortoises was waking up. This one is about the size of a large dog
A very welcome glass of Kaapse Vonkel from Simonsig was waiting for us to enjoy
The Vineyard's consultant viticulturist, Kevin Arnold from Waterford, nursing a dog bite (No, not a tortoise bite – he separated two fighting dogs and paid a price) on his hand and Vineyard GM Roy Davies discuss this year's harvest while sheltering from the welcome rain
Some good canapés to strengthen our labours, which included cream cheese wrapped in Parma ham, tiny eggs Benedict - (how clever to use omelette on these tiny toasts) and warm porridge with some, OK, not enough, whisky, topped with blueberries and granola
There were four padloper tortoises sheltering in the vineyard
Roy Davies tell us about the pruning requirements
So nice to see three generations of the Ratcliffe family. Sadly we don't see Jenny very much. We all studied for and earned the Cape Wine Academy Diploma many years ago and she now lives in Johannesburg. She was there with her mother Norma , her children and two of Mike Ratcliffe's children
Mike Bampfield Duggan of Wine Concepts pruning in the rain, and on his Birthday too
Greg Landman of Country Life with his vine ...
 and busy pruning was Ginette de Fleuriot of Vinimark
That's how you do it! Kevin Arnold supervises Angela Lloyd
Lynne and Roy inspecting a vine
Claudia and Klaus Schilling pruning their vine
Norma and her man
The Ratcliffe children
He looks a little more awake as the sun comes out and we head for lunch. Was he the model for Spielberg's ET?
Some of the Wine Partners’ white wine contributions to be enjoyed with lunch. There were also some Antipodean Sauvignons, Chardonnays, Rieslings and other wines from a previous tasting; we didn't get to sample them all
The line up of reds was impressive
Lunch was served family style. This was a Caesar salad
Sliced steak topped with mushrooms and rich sauce
Green beans, broad beans and asparagus
Yellow and orange pepper with butternut and red onions, very colourful
Salmon with a Hollandaise sauce
Gnocchi in a light tomato sauce with thinly sliced grilled aubergine and topped with cheese
The entire Pruning team for 2017
Klaus Schilling presents Roy Davis with another of his paintings, this time a warthog
A selection of cheeses
Olives and two relishes
Tiny blueberry tarts
and a special Birthday serenade for Mike Bampfield Duggan with a specially made chocolate dessert
Yum
Posted by MENU at 5:11 pm 0 comments

Bottling the 2017 vintage of the Vineyard Hotel's own wine

This was a very good year for grapes from the small vineyard at the Vineyard Hotel. The three rows of Semillon and the 5 rows of Chardonnay produced 244 kilos of grapes which have been turned into 168 litres of wine by this year's producer, Simonsig. Klein Constantia, Meerlust Wine Estate, Simonsig Wine Estate, Warwick Wine Estate and Waterford Wine Estate are the Vineyard Hotel’s five official wine partners, and each takes a turn to craft the wines. The grapes were first harvested in 2013 and this is the 5th year in which there have been enough grapes to produce wine. We were invited to join in and help as we are custodians of one of the vines, which grow on the bank of the Liesbeek River
Thursday dawned chilly and wet and we were very grateful that the Vineyard hotel had organised a shuttle to take us to Stellenbosch
The glamorous foyer of the hotel
We had a good coffee while the other media and trade assembled
Lots of tempting things to go with coffee should you visit
We piled into the shuttle for the hour long trip to Simonsig in Stellenbosch
On arrival at Simonsig, we headed for the wine cellar
Roy Davies, General Manager of the Vineyard Hotel, with Simonsig Cellarmaster Johan Malan swopping pictures on their phones. Simonsig is owned by the Malan Family Trusts
Simonsig's excellent range of Kaapse Vonkel MCC bubbles. The top wine in the range is called Cuvée Royale
We were welcomed by their marketing manager Jacques Jordaan with a glass of the Kaapse Vonkel
The corks are all good. Joaquim Sá of Amorim Cork knows
An introduction to Simonsig by Francois Jacques Malan
Winemaker Hannes Meyer setting up the small filling machine, we didn't need the big one
The wine was made in these glass carboys
First bottle on the line
Johan Malan gives us the facts from his Harvest journal
The wine is a Bordeaux-style white blend
Roy tells us about this year's harvest which was a very good one. There are 177 bottles and 12 Magnums of the blend this year, plus 33 of the Sauvignon Blanc
We all stood in line and took turns filling several bottles
Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick, another of the wine partners, with Ndaba Dube, Restaurant manager at The Vineyard sampling the wine. It is a really impressive blend this year, with the Semillon taking charge and making it full and elegant, with potential to last. We all were impressed at how well it had been made
It takes some strength to jam the bottles onto the filling nozzles
They were then taken by hand to the corking machine
Brothers and partners. Cellarmaster Johan Malan and viticulturalist Francois Malan
All that heavy work over, it is time for lunch in Simonsig's restaurant, Cuvée
With lunch, we tasted of all five vintages of the Vineyard blend, the first made by Matthew Day at Klein Constantia, the 2nd at Warwick by Norma Ratcliffe, 3rd at Meerlust by Chris Williams, the 4th at Waterford Estate by Mark Le Roux and this year was made at Simonsig by Hannes Meyer
and then three excellent bottles of Tiara Simonsig's red 5 way Bordeaux blend;
Tables around the room, occupied by regular customers as well as the bottling party
Good bread served with pickled spekboom, pink salt and flavoured butter
First course was a curried lentil soup topped with toasted coconut flakes
There were two choices of main course; this is the dark pork belly on herb mash topped with crackling, apple slices and a good rich wine jus
Or you could have a spicy coconut and chicken curry with a poppadum. Both were very good and paired very well with the wines. Then it was time for the shuttle back to the hotel. But we would be back the next day for a completely different event hosted by Simonsig
Posted by MENU at 4:17 pm 0 comments

Tuesday, August 08, 2017

This Week’s MENU. New Savage Releases, WineMag's Signature Red Awards, Truth breakfast, Yorkshire Puddings, Savage White 2016

Antarctic exploration ship SA Agulhas 2 in the V&A Waterfront
A week of battling a nasty co'd id de dose. Fortunately medication kept the sense of smell working reasonably well for the affected party; important because of the two significant wine tasting opportunities in the diary, more about which below....

We keep talking about rain and the scarcity of water in our blessed, beautiful province. We are consistently using less than 3000 litres per month in our home. It is not difficult, just be aware of what you do with water and look after this precious resource. Don't leave the shower running while you soap, use grey water to flush, don't run the dishwasher until it is full..... We're in crisis. Think about it! This July, we received 56mm of rain. Last July, 177mm; July 2016, 247mm which was more typical of average Cape Town July rainfall. So don't think that it's OK, we've had some rain. This is close to Kalahari desert level
New Releases by a noble Savage
Duncan Savage went on his own just a year ago, when he left Cape Point Vineyards. He started making his own Savage wines a few years before, so he had a base to start with. Duncan is a Rondebosch Boys' old boy who studied wine at Elsenberg and graduated as top student in 2002. He took over as head winemaker at Cape Point in 2004 and is a peer voted member of the Cape Winemakers Guild. He won many awards for Cape Point Vineyards and his own wines have also done very well for him at the Guild Auctions. We like his wines, we like Duncan; he is straight forward and honest about what he does. So we were delighted to be invited to a trade tasting of his new releases this week. And we are really looking forward to tasting Duncan's two “Love Boat” wines, a red and a white, which he has made with Adi Badenhorst for the Guild this year
WineMag's Signature Red Awards - Pinning down a butterfly
What are Signature reds as defined by the Wine Magazine judges? A blend certainly, but not a Bordeaux blend, nor a Cape Blend (containing Pinotage), although at least one of the winners did contain Pinotage. The judges’ criteria are "those wines which are distinctive of their originators and draw particular attention in the market place". They think that "Perhaps the Rhône is a better reference point given local growing conditions" and given the effects already being shown by global warming and the current drought, we tend to agree
So it was with some interest and a feeling of exploration that we attended the awards ceremony last week, which is always followed by a tasting of the winners
Truth Counts
So, where next to go for breakfast? Lynne asked on a food site she belongs to on Facebook. Several suggestions popped up, some of which we have already been to, some were out of town and some stood out, while others did NOT. After checking on Trip Advisor and looking at the menus on line, we settled for David Donde's Steampunk Coffee House in Buitenkant Street in town. And we were not disappointed
No bookings allowed, it's a first come, first served coffee house, with food. We visited a year or two ago when David installed Colossus, his vintage Probat coffee roaster and did a media launch. He is one of the people who has done a great deal to introduce Cape Town to the international coffee culture. Who can remember when all you were served was a cup of awful instant in most places? We have been meaning to return and did so at 9 am last Saturday morning. And yes, we are coffee snobs, grinding our beans at home
What is on the MENU this week. Yorkshire Puddings

We bought some excellent fillet of beef this week, so well hung it was almost gamey. And so before winter is out, Lynne decided to prepare Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sunday. If you can get good beef (and afford it!), it can be a magnificent meal. She made a rich red wine jus, duck fat potatoes and lots of vegetables. We thought you might like her Yorkshire Pudding recipe, it has been handed down. There are many variations, this works for us. It is quick and easy but it is also better made the day before and kept overnight in the fridge to allow the glutens to expand
1 cup of plain flour - 3 eggs - 200 to 220 ml full fat milk - salt - a teaspoon of oil - a teaspoon of cold water, For roasting you will need either beef dripping, duck fat or some canola oil.
Break the eggs into the flour, and stir. When it starts to become sticky, start adding the milk, a little at a time. Make sure you gather in all the flour from the bottom of the bowl and beat very well, so there are no lumps. You want it the consistency of pouring cream, coating the back of a spoon. Use more milk or another egg if you need to. Add the salt to taste, the oil and the water. Beat well, pour into a jug and put into the fridge overnight
We use deep muffin tins to bake them in. This makes eight. If you have smaller pans, you will get more. Or you can make a whole pudding but they tend to be less successful and do not rise as well
You need to turn your oven on to 220⁰C and put a teaspoon of some dripping, duck fat or oil in the bottom of each depression. Put muffin pan into the oven to get smoking hot, give the batter another good stir and pour it into the tins. Put into the hot oven and bake for about 35 to 45 minutes, or until they are nicely puffed up and going golden brown on the tops
MENU's Wine of the Week. Savage White 2016

Made by Duncan Savage. The pure white label has the name embossed into the paper; he likes simplicity. It is a blend of 54% Sauvignon Blanc, 29% Semillon and 17% Chenin Blanc. Limes and pineapple on the nose, it was familiar. Duncan has always impressed us with his long lived white wines. Crisp with limes and granadilla, William pears and some seashell minerality. Long satisfying flavours with a lovely full mouthful from the semillon influence. Like his previous award winning white wines, a wine that is great now and which will reward with more time


8th August 2017
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Posted by MENU at 11:12 pm 0 comments

What is on the MENU this week. Yorkshire Puddings

We bought some excellent fillet of beef this week, so well hung it was almost gamey. And so before winter is out, Lynne decided to prepare Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sunday. If you can get good beef (and afford it!), it can be a magnificent meal
 She made a rich red wine jus, duck fat potatoes and lots of vegetables. 
We thought you might like her Yorkshire Pudding recipe, it has been handed down. There are many variations, this works for us. It is quick and easy but it is also better made the day before and kept overnight in the fridge to allow the glutens to expand
1 cup of plain flour - 3 eggs - 200 to 220 ml full fat milk - salt - a teaspoon of oil - a teaspoon of cold water, For roasting you will need either beef dripping, duck fat or some canola oil.

Break the eggs into the flour, and stir. When it starts to become sticky, start adding the milk, a little at a time. Make sure you gather in all the flour from the bottom of the bowl and beat very well, so there are no lumps. You want it the consistency of pouring cream, coating the back of a spoon. Use more milk or another egg if you need to. Add the salt to taste, the oil and the water. Beat well, pour into a jug and put into the fridge overnight 
We use deep muffin tins to bake them in. This makes eight. If you have smaller pans, you will get more. Or you can make a whole pudding but they tend to be less successful and do not rise as well
You need to turn your oven on to 220⁰C and put a teaspoon of some dripping, duck fat or oil in the bottom of each depression. Put muffin pan into the oven to get smoking hot, give the batter another good stir and pour it into the tins. Put into the hot oven and bake for about 35 to 45 minutes, or until they are nicely puffed up and going golden brown on the tops
Posted by MENU at 8:59 pm 0 comments

MENU's Wine of the Week. Savage White 2016

Made by Duncan Savage. The pure white label has the name embossed into the paper; he likes simplicity
It is a blend of 54% Sauvignon Blanc, 29% Semillon and 17% Chenin Blanc. Limes and pineapple on the nose, it was familiar
Duncan has always impressed us with his long lived white wines. Crisp with limes and granadilla, William pears and some seashell minerality. Long satisfying flavours with a lovely full mouthful from the semillon influence. Like his previous award winning white wines, a wine that is great now and which will reward with more time
Posted by MENU at 8:31 pm 0 comments
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