It is lovely to be on the
receiving end sometimes. Last week some friends from Australia took us and some
of their friends from Australia on a wine tour with lunch to Franschhoek. We
began at Anthonij Rupert with a tour of the Motor Museum and then moved to the
historic Manor house
Note: You do need to make appointments at both should you
want to visit
The manor house is from a
past age and is furnished in mid 19th Century antiques
You can taste their Cape of Good Hope and Anthonij Rupert wine ranges
They have an MCC
and nougat paired tasting and you can enjoy high tea in the beautiful garden
We enjoyed a glass of the Brut Rosé MCC while chatting
and then took a short tour of
the house, which has magnificent bedrooms with bathrooms dressed to perfection
in the Victorian style. They do have lots of other things to do on the estate:
another venue called Terra del Capo for wine tasting, and a restaurant and a
tram that connects all of them. And you can book all of these for one price.
Look at their website for details. https://www.rupertwines.com/estate.php
We then sat down at the long
table for our guided wine tasting. Because of the timing of our lunch booking, we could only
do a small tasting
We began with the Ou Bosstok 2017 Chenin Blanc with smoke
and figs on the nose, a lovely full mouthful of lively lemons and limes
Then
the 2015 Laing Semillon. Rich nose, almost olive oil, crisp, sophisticated and
interesting on the palate, a food wine.
The Cape of Good Hope Serruria 2016
Chardonnay is perfumed with golden fruit, and full of limes, lemon, butter on
the palate, made for serving with cheese
Next, a red wine from the next door
farm, the 2014 Optima Bordeaux blend; 60% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot, 20% Cabernet
Sauvignon. Rich red fruit on the nose, plums and cherries on the palate, soft and
silky with some umami flavours and wood on the end
Then the Anthony Rupert
Cabernet Sauvignon. Cassis and red velvet on the nose, chalky tannins, soft
cassis fruit and long flavours
The final wine was the Syrah. Rich on the nose,
huge fruit, warm alcohol, berry bursts of purple fruit, cherries, plums, spice and
pepper notes with soft chalky tannins. Very, very good. We should mention that
almost all the wines score 4.5 to 4 stars in the Platter Wine Guide
Then our hired minibus
delivered us to La Motte for lunch in the Pierneef restaurant
The lunch menu. All the
dishes are paired with wines which you can have by the glass, which most of us
opted to do
The menu is not detailed, the dishes are, so pick your favourite
ingredient and you will be delighted
We were sent a salmon mousse
amuse bouche and some good bread accompanied by whipped lard and some humus
Many on our table ordered the
mussels starter and said it was fantastic, in a creamy seafood sauce
The starter La Motte
Garden salad with cured egg, herbs and cheese
Lynne ordered the lamb rib, which was served on a bed of rosemary and another aromatic herb
Coated in
sesame seed, it was beautifully flavoured and the meat fell off the bone
It was accompanied by a dish
of chakalaka, which is a robust dish of onion, tomato, pepper, chilli, garlic
and ginger
Lynne detected some nuts in it and it was on a bed of pulled lamb, which itself was on a thin pancake of polenta
They went so well together, warm,
spicy and zingy
This was the vegetarian
option of potato dumplings with spinach and morel mushrooms
The Belly of Pork was in a
rich broth and a rhubarb chutney and was topped with tempura baby leeks and
nasturtium leaves
Many of us could not resist
ordering the duck and it was a great choice. Two slices of meltingly tender, pink duck breast, perfectly rendered crisp skin topped with nuts. Accompanied
by a whole roasted fig, a tiny vol au vent filled with fig and duck geziers and
liver; fig reduction dressed the plate with some ash. Served with a small salad
and creamy pomme purée
The cheese course - four
local cheeses, some watermelon konfyt and a relish, lavash and soft bread
The Chocolate
cremeux and Passion fruit yogurt sorbet with honeycomb and a brandy snap was
said to be very enjoyable
Our chef was Erik Bulpitt whom we know from when he was with George Jardine, then Newton Johnson restaurant in
the Hemel and Aarde and most recently at Avondale. He is a very good chef, using good
local ingredients and keeping the flavours real
One of the delights at La
Motte is the wonderful Pierneef Gallery
in which we spent some time after lunch
looking at his range of works
The beautiful porcelain
plates from the 17th Century were made in China and brought here by the Dutch
East India Company. So the not very realistic depiction of the animal, proteas
and Table Mountain on each of them is from a description, not experience. They
were made for use in the Cape and, we believe, come from the wreck of the Oosterland which was wrecked in Table Bay in 1697. Lynne's brother-in-law, Christopher, was one of the divers who found her
Here is another depiction of
Table Bay and the mountain and it also shows Lions Head and the Twelve Apostles
There
are huge chandeliers made from pieces of this porcelain, which you can see in the photograph of the interior
We then went to visit the
Cheetah Project in the grounds of Grande Provence
These are rescued animals who, we
were told, cannot be reintroduced into the wild
You get to stroke them while the
handler holds their heads. They purr a lot, so appear to like it
We did a quick stroke
But we
were concerned that this much contact all day long by visitors must surely be
very tiring and stressful for the animals
Their fur up close is so
beautiful
He's watching you, John
Wonderful paddy paws, shaped
like tear drops on this fastest of all animals.
A group photo with our
friends Phillip and Diana Loots
