Friday, March 13, 2020

CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED


For the past 335 years, Constantia has stood proud as the oldest uninterrupted wine-growing region in the Southern hemisphere, characterised by some of the finest wines in the world, iconic architecture, and a commitment to excellence.

Join us in the month of May as we peel back the patina of bygone years and unwrap Constantia as you’ve never experienced it before, through a limited edition CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED ticket, or through one of the TEN unique events on offer.

CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED TASTING TICKET
For those that prefer to meander through the valley at their own leisure, a GENERAL TICKET is available for the guests to enjoy tastings in each wine estate tasting room on the Constantia Wine Route. The wines to be tasted will be advertised in each tasting room. The ticket is valid for the month of May and can be used on any day of the week.

On completion of all tastings, the completed tasting card can be handed in at any wine estate and one lucky person will win the full range of tasting wines showcased as part of the CONSTANTIA unwrapped General tastings.

 A limited number of tickets will be available online here

EVENT CALENDAR
We have curated a calendar of incredible and unique experiences at each farm during the month of May – several opportunities to discover hidden gems within our beautiful wine route and learn more about the wonderful wines of the Valley.

1. CONCERT AT BEAU CONSTANTIA
The month begins with a KICK OFF CONCERT at the magnificent amphitheatre at Beau Constantia. Guests will enjoy a line-up of live music, kicking off from 15h00 as we watch the sunset over the gorgeous Constantia Valley. Food trucks, Beau Constantia wines and Jack Black beer with be on offer.
2. GRAND CONSTANCE AT GROOT CONSTANTIA
Groot Constantia, the oldest wine farm in South Africa, is offering an exclusive GRAND CONSTANCE experience in their private, never before used room located under the historic Manor House. Explore a flight of vertical tastings of Grand Constance, the sweet wine that put Constantia on the world map. The tasting will be followed by a plate of Cape Malay canapés with a glass of Groot Constantia Shiraz or Sauvignon Blanc. The tastings are available every Friday for the month of May 2020. By Appointment only.
3. GLORIOUS GLEN AT CONSTANTIA GLEN
Enjoy a magnificent Sunday on the beautiful Constantia Glen as you wander through the vineyards to the gravity-fed cellar for a wine tasting journey through past and present wines from the estate. GLORIOUS GLEN will showcase the beauty of the estate and its gorgeous wines followed by Charcuterie & Cheese platters at the restaurant.
4. GRAND CONSTANCE AT GROOT CONSTANTIA
A special masterclass experience will be on offer at the Buitenverwachting Manor House showcasing SPECTACULAR SAUVIGNON with Jon Meinking from The SA Wine Showcase. Guaranteed to be a memorable experience as Jon will take guests on a Sauvignon Blanc journey through the Valley. The evening will continue at Buitenverwachting Restaurant with a fine dining experience equal to none.
5. SUPERB SHIRAZ AT EAGLE’S NEST
Join Eagles Nest for an unforgettable SUPERB SHIRAZ experience; you will be taken on a 4x4 tour through the picturesque mountain vineyards, followed by a trip down memory lane in the form of a tutored tasting of 10 vintages of the iconic Eagles Nest Shiraz, perfectly paired with a gourmet dinner.
6. CONSTANTIA WHITE AT BUITENVERWACHTING
Constantia Wine Route and negociant Wade Bales will be launching the 2019 CONSTANTIA WHITE at Buitenverwachting – join us and be the first to taste this blend from the best selection of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon from the Constantia Valley. A wonderful collaboration combing the talents of the winemakers from the farms in Constantia. This wine embodies the signature regional style of Constantia. The evening also includes a walk around tasting of the wines from the estates in Constantia and a harvest style food table.
7. SAUVVY SUNSET AT SILVERMIST WINE ESTATE
Silvermist Organic Wine Estate welcomes you to a SAUVVY SUNSET evening hosted by the Silvermist and Nova Zonnestraal winemakers. Enjoy unsurpassed views of the Cape Penninsula from the very top of the Constantia Valley. Surround sound music will fill the air, Sauvignon Blanc will full your glass and a delicious South Africa braai delicacies will be served. A spell bounding  view and experience awaits you.
8. CELEBRATING VINTAGE AT KLEIN CONSTANTIA
CELEBRATING VINTAGE with a Gatsy Glamour event at Klein Constantia on the beautiful lawns of the Manor House. Enjoy live entertainment, curated hord’ouvres, ‘champagne’ tower and a wine bar with the best of Klein Constantia. An unforgettable afternoon in an mythically beautiful setting.
9. RUN THIS WAY AT STEENBERG FARM
For the fit savvy, it’s time for RUN THIS WAY with Steenberg and enjoy the beauty of the Constantia Valley as your run or walk through the vineyards on a 5km or 10km loop. Enjoy a glass of the famous Steenberg 1682 Chardonnay MCC at the finish. Delicious breakfast treats and hot chocolate will be available to purchase at the start and during the course of the morning. There’ll be some fabulous prizes given our after the race while you sip on your bubbles.
10. NORVAL FOUNDATION
Join us for a spectacular evening of the finest Art, Wine & Food at The Norval Foundation Art Museum and Sculpture Garden with The Skotnes Restaurant and The Constantia Wine Route. Wander through Norval Foundation’s galleries and enjoy tastings of 10 Flagship wines from The Constantia Wine Route, perfectly paired with canapés from Skotnes Restaurant. Enjoy live music as your senses are indulged. Info here.

TAG YOUR SWAG
We invite you to come and enjoy the month of May in Constantia and unwrap Constantia as you have never experienced it before! TAG YOUR SWAG by posting pictures having the best time in Constantia during the month of May #constantiaunwrapped. The most incredible picture will win the full range of tasting wines showcased as part of the CONSTANTIA unwrapped General Tastings.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter: @ConstantiaRoute
Instagram: @constantia_wine_route
Facebook: TheConstantiaWineRoute
A full bouquet of images from each of the Constantia Farms is available for download and use here, including the Constantia Unwrapped artwork/promotional material.


For further information visit www.constantiawineroute.com or contact Carryn Wiltshire at info@constantiawineroute.com

This information was supplied by an outside correspondent and MENU cannot be held responsible for the content or its accuracy

Posted by MENU at 1:15 pm 0 comments

The inaugural Pick n Pay Wine & Food Festival Cape Town

will take place at the harbour’s edge of the V&A Waterfront’s glorious North Wharf from 3 to 5 April. 


Set against the superb backdrop of Table Mountain, festival goers will be able to taste wines from across the Cape winelands. Wine estates will have their top wines on offer for your tasting pleasure, and when you find your perfect match – be it a glorious Grenache or perfect pinot noir – you’ll be able to buy it right there at cellar door prices. Wine farm representatives will be only too happy to chat to you and answer any questions you may have about their wines

 Where there’s wine, there’s food, and a bounteous feast to sample and purchase awaits at the Pick n Pay Fresh Food Market – freshly baked breads, delicious cheeses and a selection of fruit and veg.  Items such as steak boards, cheese platters, burgers, sandwiches, coffee and tea, a full range of snacks for the little ones and lots more, will also be available to purchase.

 Another highlight of the event is the hugely popular Pick n Pay Tasting Room, a much sought-after experience since appearing at our various wine festivals around the country. Expert wine makers and a professional chef will indulge your senses with award-winning wines, exquisitely paired with melt-in-your-mouth canapés. Not only a gastronomic experience of note, visitors will learn how to impress their friends with their new pairing prowess! Seats for the 30-minute sessions are limited and sell out fast –book early at http://bit.ly/PnPWFF to avoid disappointment.

 Live music will complete this amazing setting and set the mood for a fun day – with family or friends –celebrating some of country’s best wine. 

 Pick n Pay has fast established itself as the ‘home of South African wines’, with our stores stocking over 100 estates and 1000 varietals. “We’ve always brought the winelands to our customers through our stores, and now we want to create a truly interactive wine and food experience for our customers that appeals to connoisseurs and novices alike – as well as families looking for a fun day out,” said Gavin Ievers, Pick n Pay’s Head of Liquor. 

 “As not everyone can visit the estates in the Cape winelands, The Pick n Pay Wine & Food Festival will be held in Johannesburg later in the year, bringing this experience to wine lovers in that region. Pick n Pay, along with its partners, plans to host more intimate wine experiences during the year.

 Tickets range from R165 to R235 (depending on the day and if you include a tasting room experience)and are available online at webtickets.co.za, or at any Pick n Pay store.

 This information was supplied by an outside correspondent and MENU cannot be held responsible for the content or its accuracy
Posted by MENU at 12:51 pm 0 comments

This Week’s MENU. Rousseau wines, Meerendal 50 sequel, Chicken Casserole, Rousseau Sacharia


Wild iris, Dietes grandiflora, one of the indigenous treasures in South Africa's rich floral kingdom

Squeezing a quart into a pint pot. This is what we are doing with our time while we try to live with Stage Four load-shedding which costs us 7½ hours of each working day. So we are late again putting MENU out this week. As we write this, we have 25 minutes until the lights go out and we will be forced to finish tomorrow morning. The cost to us is minimal in comparison to the cost borne by the many factories, retail businesses and other enterprises who are struggling survive with this and the additional weight of the Covid19 virus and the inevitable panic which comes from it. Life goes on. As we say in a story further down, Illegitimi non carborundum

A huge thank you, once again, to the subscribers who have contributed so generously to our costs. You have been a great help to our work, publishing this journal. Our new mailing list was activated last week and MENU was sent by email to the people who specifically requested the weekly mail update. The larger list, which includes the new list, will receive it at the end of the month as a monthly digest of our activities
Tasting the wines of André Rousseau at The Homestead
Our Wine club tasting this month was held at The Homestead on Constantia Main Road. It featured wines made by Andre Rousseau. Andre trained at Elsenberg and worked first at Twee Jonge Gezellen in Tulbagh with Nicky Krone, then at Constantia Uitsig as the Viticulturist. Read On…
Another tempting invitation to a Harvest Celebration, this time from Meerendal in Durbanville with an opportunity to pick grapes, a chance to taste some of their older Shiraz starting with one from 1987 . We arrived just before 10 and were welcomed with some canapés and coffee or tea. Read On…
We had bought free range chicken pieces and fresh spinach, so Lynne came up with this recipe for supper last night, a melange of three she found on the internet which inspired her. It doesn’t look too glamorous, but the flavour is superb and it doesn’t take very long to prepare. Enjoy! We confess that we did take a slice of bread at the end to sop up the wonderful juices. Prepared in one load shedding period in the morning and cooked immediately after the one which ended at 6.15 pm. Illegitimi non carborundum. For the full recipe, Read On…
Winemag.co.za awarded it 94 points in 2019. It is a wooded Sauvignon Blanc using Elgin grapes. Andre does a whole bunch press and then the juice goes into French 2nd, 3rd and 4th fill barrels to ferment. It has a powder puff nose, then green leaves appear with a whiff of smoke. Grapes, crisp limes, lemon, wood hints on the end; a smooth texture and long flavours. Read On…
Coming events
The Pick n Pay Wine & Food Festival Cape Town
The inaugural Pick n Pay Wine & Food Festival Cape Town will take place at the harbour’s edge of the V&A Waterfront’s glorious North Wharf from 3 to 5 April. Details here

 CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED
For the past 335 years, Constantia has stood proud as the oldest uninterrupted wine-growing region in the Southern hemisphere, characterised by some of the finest wines in the world, iconic architecture, and a commitment to excellence.
Join us in the month of May as we peel back the patina of bygone years and unwrap Constantia as you’ve never experienced it before, through a limited edition CONSTANTIA UNWRAPPED ticket, or through one of the TEN unique events on offer. See details here


13th March 2020
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MENU has appeared nearly every week since March 2003, initially as a free newsletter from our shop, Main Ingredient, and is sent to our subscribers by email. Many of our subscribing readers have followed us from our earliest days and we appreciate your support
It is also published on our website, as a blog, on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram and gives our personal view of events relating to food, wine, accommodation and travel in photo stories, as well as weekly recipes and wine reviews
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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 our website and ancillary works are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are often 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
Posted by MENU at 11:58 am 0 comments

On the MENU This Week. Creamy Chicken & Spinach Casserole

We had bought free range chicken pieces and fresh spinach, so Lynne came up with this recipe for supper last night, a melange of three she found on the internet which inspired her. It doesn’t look too glamorous, but the flavour is superb and it doesn’t take very long to prepare. Enjoy! We confess that we did take a slice of bread at the end to sop up the wonderful juices. Prepared in one load shedding period in the morning
and cooked immediately after the blackout which ended at 6.15 pm. Illegitimi non carborundum
Ingredients
8 portions of skinless chicken legs and thighs - 400g bag of fresh baby spinach (not chard)
225g full fat cream cheese or crème fraiche – 125g good Mozzarella cheese, sliced

 The marinade:
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped - 2 tablespoons olive oil - 2 tablespoons of mixed herbs, preferably fresh:
oregano, rosemary, thyme, 2 bay leaves. Finely chop the herbs and mix but leave the bay leaves whole - Juice of half a lemon
optional: ½ teaspoon chilli flakes, salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Place the chicken portions into a casserole so that they all fit snugly. Add the olive oil, garlic, herbs, bay leaves and chilli flakes and season with salt and black pepper. Massage the marinade into the chicken portions and put into the fridge for at least 3 to 4 hours. When you are ready to cook, preheat the oven to 200°C. Bake the chicken in its marinade uncovered for 20/25 minutes. Remove from the oven. Cover the chicken pieces with the cream cheese. Remove from the oven. Cover the chicken pieces with the cream cheese

 Cut a small 1cm slit in the bag of the spinach and microwave for 1 to 2 minutes until it is wilted. Put the raft of wilted spinach on top of the chicken and cream cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Put the sliced mozzarella cheese on top and return to the oven for another 30 minutes or until the chicken is properly cooked. The cheese on top should be golden. The chicken will be falling off the bone and will produce a very good creamy sauce with superb flavour. Serves 4
We had it with a bottle of Limestone Hill Chardonnay from De Wetshof. The perfect wine to serve with it
Posted by MENU at 10:04 am 0 comments

Thursday, March 12, 2020

MENU's Wine of the Week. Rousseau Sacharia Sauvignon blanc 2018

Winemag.co.za awarded it 94 points in 2019. It is a wooded Sauvignon Blanc using Elgin grapes. Andre does a whole bunch press and then the juice goes into French 2nd, 3rd and 4th fill barrels to ferment. It has a powder puff nose, then green leaves appear with a whiff of smoke. Grapes, crisp limes, lemon, wood hints on the end; a smooth texture and long flavours
This impressive wine is now available at many of the top restaurants in the Cape like La Colombe and their other restaurants, Fyn, etc. We scored it 18/20. It definitely has the potential to age, as the 2016 & 2017 we tasted showed. It was full on the palate with lovely rich fruit, a very good food wine with blackcurrant hints and light wood on the end
Posted by MENU at 11:32 pm 0 comments

Tasting the wines of André Rousseau at The Homestead

Our Wine club tasting this month was held at The Homestead on Constantia Main Road. It featured wines made by Andre Rousseau. Andre trained at Elsenberg and worked first at Twee Jonge Gezellen in Tulbagh with Nicky Krone, then at Constantia Uitsig as the Viticulturist. In 2002, Andre took his vineyard knowledge more actively into the cellar and started making wine full time for Constantia Uitsig, where he introduced new styles and cultivars, earning 4½ stars in the Platter Guide for his 2004 vintage and 4½ stars for his 2005 Semillon. Realising that there is a trend to a lighter style of Chardonnay, Andre also introduced the first unwooded Chardonnay at Constantia Uitsig in 2015. With new ownership of Constantia Uitsig, Andre took a leap of faith and started his own winemaking company, Rousseau Wines. He works and consults with other wine farms and is currently consulting at Rhebokskloof for this harvest
Andre's sister Elaine owns the excellent catering company Food Fanatics and her venue, The Homestead,
which can be hired to use for many different events like weddings, birthdays, and other celebrations or for work events


The line-up of wines we were to taste
We began with the 2018 Grace Sauvignon Blanc which does have a small amount of Semillon added. The grapes are from Steenberg. Classic Sauvignon Blanc nose of green peppers and fig leaves, which follows through on the palate. Crisp, lean and zingy, with good mutton fat texture from the Semillon. Some blackcurrant and passion fruit on the crisp end. R100 Much appreciated. We also tasted the new 2019 which has lots of ripe pink fig and fig leaves with some dusty notes from the Semillon on the nose. Lovely mouthfeel, rich, fresh passion fruit, gooseberry and friendlier than the 2018, John found it very hard not to spit! It went perfectly with the figs and the cheese on the buffet later. 18/20
Next the Sacharia, which Winemag.co.za awarded 94 points in 2019. It is a wooded Sauvignon Blanc using Elgin grapes. Andre does a whole bunch press and then the juice goes into French 2nd, 3rd and 4th fill barrels to ferment. It has a powder puff nose, then green leaves appear with a whiff of smoke. Grapes, crisp limes, lemon, wood hints on the end; a smooth texture and long flavours. This impressive wine is now available at many of the top restaurants in the Cape like La Colombe and their other restaurants, Fyn, etc. 18/20. It definitely has the potential to age, as the 2016 & 2017 we tasted showed. It was full on the palate with lovely rich fruit, a very good food wine with blackcurrant hints and light wood on the end
A lively table of tasters
The final wine was Andre's 2017 Babette (all the wines are named for women in his family). Just released. It is a blend of 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Merlot, 17% Cabernet Franc, 15% Shiraz and 4% Petit Verdot. The 2017 has cherries and a hint of violets on the nose and good licorice flavours. It is rich, full and multidimensional; full of good fruit and some pepper and spice from the Shiraz. The 2016 was a different blend of 60% Cabernet Franc, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot. Rich fruit, savoury hints and some wildness. Intense violets. and some wood smoke on the nose. Nice fruit, but then a lot of wood. Sharp rhubarb, oak, licorice on the end. R145. All Andre's wines are exceptional value for money
The Homestead bar
Lots of different cheeses to enjoy
There was a huge spread with olives and fruit, cold meats and some salads for us to enjoy after the wine tasting. 
Huge plates of assorted local charcuterie
Fresh and preserved figs and parmesan cheese
The dish of seared courgettes and aubergine in olive oil, lemon and herbs was delicious
A successful event for Andre; cases of his good wines were bought that evening by our members
Posted by MENU at 10:47 pm 0 comments
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