Thursday, December 23, 2021

A taste of Newton Johnson

There are so many excellent wine farms in the beautiful Hemel and Aarde valley,
but one we always try to visit is Newton Johnson
Why? Because they produce beautiful, elegant wine, wine we love, wine we want to buy and drink
And they happen to be a really friendly and welcoming lot!

So, as we were staying in the area and had some late afternoon time, we had to visit

Lisa Renzenbrink has managed the tasting room for many years and is an old friend. She told us about how they have coped over the past two years, the changes at the farm, the change of the restaurant chef, and the new area outside that is going to be an extension of the restaurant; a good idea indeed now that tables need to be spaced well apart and people do prefer to eat outside in the summer. Bevan Newton Johnson does the marketing and the excellent wine is made by Gordon Newton Johnson and his wife Nadia. We were lucky enough to see Gordon briefly on our way out. They win many awards and high scores for their wines. And Gordon has just been elected Chair of the Cape Wine Makers Guild

We began our tasting with the 2020 Southend Chardonnay which has a faint hint of wood smoke on the rich nose,
ripe fruit on the palate and layers and layers of lime and lemon delight. It is so well made and so drinkable

The 2020 Family Vineyards Chardonnay is from the vineyards in front of the main building
Smoky bacon, herbs, and buchu hints on the classic golden nose
It spends 11 months in French oak. White nectarine, peach and lime on the palate with fullness, length
and good wood to round it off. It is undoubtedly a good food wine

Of all the good Pinot Noirs in our winelands, these stand out as being, in our humble opinion, the best
We know they age well and they drink beautifully

The Walker Bay 2020 Pinot Noir has soft perfume, spice and cherry and is so recognisably from this terroir
On the palate, lovely fruit with layers of plum, cherry, raspberry and mulberry, with long flavours
and a hint of salty minerality on the end. Wood is there, supporting but not intruding

The Family Vineyards 2020 Pinot Noir is playful on the nose, tempting
There is a hint of wood smoke with enticing raspberry & cherry aromas
Freshness of cherry fruit on the palate, with salty licorice wood, complexity and depth, another quality, well made wine

Time for another favourite, which we have often bought and cellared and which, we can report, ages very, very well

Full Stop Rock 2019 does indeed rock. A blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, it’s Spicy!
Dark berries, cherry and mulberry in spades on the palate, pepper and some licorice.
Drinking so well now, it is fresh and cheeky, but give it some age and wait for more excitement
We are currently enjoying the 2012

Granum 2016 is more serious. It is grown on granite soil, at the very bottom of the farm
and matured in French 500 litre barrels, only a small amount in new. A blend of 75% Syrah, 25% Mourvèdre
 Perfume on the dark berry fruit nose with some spice, it is quite sophisticated
You know from the nose that it is going to be good. On the palate, you find soft chalky tannins, concentrated cassis,
black cherry and mulberry flavours and good wood, pulling all its components together in one mouthful
Another perfect wine for food - complex sauces, duck and game

A final wine to refresh our palates was the new, fresh 2021 Sauvignon Blanc. It has those classic fig leaf and green pepper pyrazines on the nose and is crisp and zingy with salty minerality and more fig and green pepper notes

As his Birthday present from Lynne, John was the recipient of three bottles of the Walker Bay Pinot Noir
and three bottles of Full Stop Rock. We look forward to drinking them together

This is the stunning view from the terrace at Newton Johnson, looking down over the vineyards and the fruitful valley
to the sea and the far mountains. It is so good to see the dams so full after the cold and wet winter,
which the vines love. Rain was coming in and we were in for a chilly night

This cottage at De Werf is owned by our friends, who kindly let us stay the night
It now sleeps six and, if you would like to stay there, they are on AirBnB

There are several dams on the farm and you can swim and walk in the grounds

It is lovely sitting on the open terrace which has an outdoor built in braai and a plunge pool

Rain sweeping in, as we lit a fire and opened a bottle of excellent local wine

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Posted by MENU at 1:42 pm 0 comments

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

MENU visits the Karoo and the Garden Route 25. Weltevrede estate, Bonnievale

The last day of our two week trip was a day of rushing off to appointments, so time had to be squashed a bit. We had intended to head home after our visit to Kranskop, but Weltevrede had called the day before and asked us not to come that day, but move the appointment to our last day. They had a media group from Cape Town coming in a bus to see and experience the new tasting room and their two different cellar tours. Could we make it for lunch? Sadly not, as we already had our lunch appointment with Newald Marais at Kranskop. We managed to re-arrange our day and our planned early departure back to Cape Town and made it by 2.45

They have made amazing changes to the farm while we have been in lock down. Such impressive new building and landscaping. They wanted to provide many more attractions for visitors and they have really succeeded

This is the new path from the car park, with outside seating and a leiwater rill

which runs from the new Tasting room entrance and fills the pond at the bottom
The entrance to the indoor tasting room has changed beyond recognition, and all for the better


A warm welcome from Elzette Steyn, who runs the tasting room and the Three Experiences,
and Marketing Manager Steyn Fullard


They have created three new Experiences for visitors. The old underground kuipe (concrete tanks in which wine is made) have been drilled through and opened up to create two separate tours through them. The tour on the left is CAPTIVATED BY CHARDONNAY - Share in the worldwide fascination of Chardonnay and taste the new collection of WELTEVREDE Chardonnays. Learn about the history of wine, globally understand the terroir of the Robertson valley. And the one on the Right is CAPTIVATED BY CAP CLASSIQUE. Join the world celebration of Cap Classique and Champagne and taste the latest vintages of Philip Jonker Brut. Learn about the fascinating production process from vineyard to glass. And you get to taste some Cap Classique on the tour as well. You can book for them on line or here when you arrive at the farm


The third Experience is CREATE CAP CLASSIQUE

Create your very own bottle of Cap Classique to take home, which is on the area at the top of the new tasting room: You go from one machine to the next, with a guide, degorging, dosing, re-corking, putting on the muselet cap, then the wire, the foil, the labelling and having a LOT of fun. This experience costs R200, which is very good value as a bottle already done would cost you R150. We did not get to join in, but we had done something similar on the farm in a previous visit


A space in the cellar area for storage of boxes of wines for sale

Having enormous fun on one of the machines

Chatting to friends in the media while they bottled their Cap Classique,
we enjoyed a glass Entheos Cap Classique, 60% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir


The view looking down on the new, very impressive tasting room


This is how you put on the muselet - the wire cage and metal cap at the top which keep the cork in place
Steyn supervises and aids


Degorging the bottle is the first step - it is when the frozen impurities in the neck of the inverted bottle are removed

Marketing Manager Steyn Fullard took us on the CAPTIVATED BY CAP CLASSIQUE tour
(Wines made by the Méthode Champenois)

First, we visited the room where the remuage of the bottles is carried out. After the wine has fermented and gone through a long period of compulsory rest and maturation, several years, it comes here. Each bottle is turned a small amount each day and then moved into a slightly more vertical position. This method, done gently and over a long time, slowly brings the lees of the wine into the neck, so that when they are ready to put in the cork, the neck of the bottle can be frozen and the frozen plug of lees expelled by the pressure inside the bottle. It is then topped up and quickly corked

Explanations on the wall


Then we went into the small tasting room in the cellar where the media group had had a tasting of the Cape Classiques

A lovely display of maturing Cap Classique bottles, nicely dusty as they must not be disturbed in their quiet sleep
while they grow in stature, flavour and excellence. You can see the details of this 2014 vintage of The Ring

 

The Maturation information and the time that each different country prescribes
as a minimum maturation period for its sparkling wines

A display of some well known French Champagnes

A good selection of South African Cap Classiques

and some famous quotes about Champagne

Some storage!

The two Weltevrede Cap Classiques, The current vintage of The Ring Blanc de Blancs is 2013 (100% Chardonnay),
and the Non-Vintage Entheos, which is 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir

We then had a very special individual tour with Philip of the Chardonnay tour cellar,
when the media group had finished their day

A beautiful old and very large Foudre wine barrel, carved with the Jonker family crest
These were made in Germany and used for many years on the farm. Now they use French oak barrels

and on the base a lovely line which translates: Sing of the wine and drink to the song

Each kuip has been opened up with an arched door

In one, you can watch a very informative video
in which Philip talks about the Chardonnays he makes. It is his passion


A box of the full Chardonnay collection. There is lots of atmosphere and sound and light features on the tour


Different styles of Chardonnay, Chablis in France being one of the most sought after styles worldwide
for its tight minerality and wonderful crispness with great fruit

Philip pouring us a taste of The Weltevrede Calcrete Chardonnay

It is a classic Chardonnay from the area, crisp and zingy with lovely lime and lemon flavours
and lot of minerality from the almost impenetrable chalk soil it is grown in

A rock of calcrete in the cellar. How the vine roots penetrate this is a miracle

Many of the Chardonnays have won impressive awards

Some older bottles and packaging

One survivor from 1982

And a superb collection going back to the 1970s

A description of the Poet's Prayer Chardonnay and a picture of Table Mountain with Dutch ships in the bay. The wine industry here began after a way station at the Cape was established by the Dutch East India Company to provision their ships going to and from the East

More history is told

And some Jonker family history too

and an appropriate last word from one of the posters in the cellar
Lynne's best description of a great wine - she calls it a "Dive In" nose; 
when the wine being nosed is so good that you want to get into it - So well depicted here

Thank you to all at Weltevrede for your time. We think that the new experiences are very exciting indeed
and will bring many people to the farm to enjoy them and the wines

As we were finishing the visit and were saying our goodbyes, we realised that we could hear thunder rumbling outside and then there was lighting and, just as we got to our car, down came the rain, very heavily. Luckily, it did not last long and eased up as we headed towards Worcester to join the N1 where, thankfully, it stopped. We were home by 6.30

All our stories can be seen in the Blog Archive near the top of the column on the right

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