Friday, August 18, 2023

Chenin Blanc take-over of The Wine Glass in Stellenbosch

We hadn't been to a Chenin Blanc tasting for rather a long time so,
when we saw this tasting featuring Stellenbosch Chenins, we decided to go
We discovered that, if you booked lunch there, you could enjoy all three tastings. A great incentive
We like the concept of three sessions, each featuring eight terroir driven wines

A new venue for us, but we hadn't been in Stellenbosch for quite a while and, to follow the tasting,
we were being sponsored by Stellenbosch Wine Tourism to stay overnight and take part in their Festival

Great to see Ina Smith, who has done so much for the Chenin Blanc Association

Inside the restaurant

Yes!

A rather headless wine drinker in the outside courtyard

A fruit eating monkey and a well-stocked bar

Ladybird Cellarmaster Francois van Zyl

Golden fruit, richness, lemon lime on end, a good organic example of what Stellenbosch can produce

Warwick representative Stefan Marais

Another classic; single vineyard, fermented in French oak, richness. Good fruit and oak are present

Jordan The Timepiece has impressed us before
A dive in nose, with lovely golden fruit, minerality and judicious wooding; made to last

DeMorgenzon Reserve 2020; a new release from a 52 year-old block
An attractive nose, silky on the palate with notes of orange and golden summer fruit,
same warmth, a very special Chenin

Two from Longridge. The 2022 dances on the tongue; well balanced, with lovely sweet golden fruit
and good wood in the background
The 2021 Ou Steen from vineyards planted in 1981 is so well made, sophisticated,
with layers of mature golden peaches and gentle wood

The L'Avenir Single Block Chenin is perfection
Spends a year in oak, but it is just there, supporting the layers of fruit. Very elegant and satisfying
The 2022 has lots of fruit on the nose. Wood is there too and on the fresh, exciting palate. A food wine

Dornier's Moordenaarskloof 2021
Shy with honeysuckle perfume, and honey on the creamy palate with good sweet pineapple and peach notes
and some good oak

On to the second tasting of eight 
Bellevue Eselgraf (Donkey's grave) had lovely fruit on the nose, crisp golden fruit and long flavours

Stellenrust has produced a Chenin bubbly modelled on Prosecco
Perfumed, with a lovely crisp tingle and lasting sparkle, it is, in our opinion, better than many Proseccos

 Final wine of the middle session was the Barrel Fermented Villiera
It was, without doubt, one of the best Chenins we have tasted in a long time
Superb nose with salty minerality, golden fruit and elegant wooding
which follows through on the full palate, which sings and pings with flavour, minerality and judicious oaking


Time for us to sit down to eat some lunch. The menu

The lambshank. Well cooked, with good gravy, young carrots and a butternut purée with crisp chips

Billed as Cap Classique Hake and chips; a disappointment
The fish was long frozen, the batter half-cooked on a bed of squashed peas (why?), tartare sauce and soggy chips

Inside the wine shop

Back to tasting
Knorhoek 2021 Old Vine 1980 has a whiff of smoke, good fruit fills the palate, long flavours
with slight bitterness of oak on the end

Steen op Hout is 35% barrel fermented and matured in old large oak
Apple pie with lemon and a good acid lift to finish. Great with food
Block W is sophisticated; subtle oak supports stone fruit and lightly salty mineral notes

Three from Raats
Original Unoaked 2022 was delicious, clean, full of fruit, elegance, spice and long flavours
Raats Old Vine is interesting; good fruit, 50% old wood and it is present in the character
It brings back memories of enjoying it with Dim Sum in Hong Kong
Haarlem to Hope blends Chenin with Semillon
Soft mouthfeel from the Semillon with delicious sweet fruit wrapped in gentle acidity

Kaapzicht 1947, the vineyard planted in that year, is special
It fills the palate with everything you want from a good Chenin, long flavours, wood just supports
The unwooded Family Chenin Blanc is excellent, leaner, crisper and with long flavours

Mooiplaas Bush Vine Chenin is a certified Old Vine wine, from vines planted in 1972
Well-balanced; cooked apple and quince with grassy notes and enough acidity to keep it fresh
The Houmoed (Keep a positive attitude) is sophisticated; flavours similar to the Old Vine, but richer with bready notes


Koelenhof Bushvine 1679 reminded us of Villiera chenins; their terroir across the road is similar
Sweet golden fruit and rather a lot of oak which might soften with age
Koelenbosch 2022 Chenin has a golden nose and palate, very fresh with a whiff of oak. Enjoyable, well priced

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Lunch at Eike, Stellenbosch

 Chef Bertus Basson has always produced exciting and unusual food in his restaurants,
so we were very keen to go to his new Eike restaurant in Stellenbosch
An invitation from the Stellenbosch Wine Tourism board fulfilled that wish
The restaurant is at 47 Dorp Street. One does not, however, enter from the front
There is a small alley next to the restaurant and you drive through that to find a good parking area
(finding street parking in popular central Stellenbosch is not easy)

The rear of 47 Dorp Street. It is not the restaurant

 which is behind this rather hidden, inconspicuous entrance which has no signage

The interior shows the wonderful old building off well, with its yellowwood ceiling and the open kitchen at one end

The current seasonal menu
If you are allergic to anything, do let them know when you book; they are very happy to oblige

The three "Happies" (small bites) were excellent
L to R: Onion Jolly Jammer is a take on a Jammy Dodger sweet biscuit but much better
Two small crisp sablé biscuits filled with flavourful cream cheese and a dab of onion jam in the centre
The partnership of crunch and flavour was such fun

Next a small souttert (savoury tart) filled with powdered biltong and topped with Huguenot cheese
The more we experience this cheese we see how good it is and how much it adds to food

The Jamestown Daltjie is a tiny crisp deep fried Chilli bite

Our solution as to what to drink with a menu as varied as this is a light crisp Rosé
The Rainbow's End Cabernet Franc Blanc de Noir fitted the bill well

The bread course arrived next with crisp crunchy crusted mini loaf of Potbread,
a life changing dip of chicken schmaltz with fermented fruity garlic honey, dotted with tiny pieces of crisp chicken skin
We refused to give it back and kept adding it to other dishes
The dish of pickled beetroot, carrot and fresh baby radishes was also much appreciated
A nice touch which we have also had when in France

Now we were primed for the First Course of Potato and Leek soup, topped with a perfect poached egg
with the yolk runny and able to be incorporated into the soup
Small potato croutons, onion ash and a green sorrel oil all added to the complexity of the dish

A close-up of that poached egg

The restaurant has some very good features that would help them toward a Michelin star, if we had them in South Africa
The handles on the backs of the comfortable upholstered armchairs,
the small table for handbags or camera bags which is supplied to each table
Service was impeccable, responsive and friendly
Thanks to Manager Piet Pretorius, who takes care of all the customer needs, and our waitress Busi Mqumbisa
We were also thrilled when Bertus' wife Mareli, who runs the business, came to say hello
and then Chef Daniel Oosthuizen came to chat to us at the end of service
He is quite young to be in charge of a restaurant, obviously competent after the food he served us, and adventurous
He was well trained at the CIA, has an impressive resumé and, no doubt, will go far
And thank you Bertus for inviting us! We loved it

Some homely kitchen touches at the other end of the restaurant

The Second Course had an ingredient we have not had before, a thin slice of air-dried Yellowtail fish,
not quite bokkoms (salted, air-dried fish) and not quite fish biltong
 It was served atop a slice of tender barbequed salted belly of pork and set in a mild Butter curry sauce
and topped with daikon radish and turnips and spinach leaves

Third Course was a choice
Lynne chose the really satisfying Lamb from Frankie Fenner's butchery, rolled and beautifully braised,
so tender and well-seasoned
  Topped with tiny lambs' kidneys (a favourite of Lynne's who regrets that we don't see them very often),
accompanied by a Jerusalem artichoke purée and topped with tiny deep-fried slices of that excellent vegetable,
also rarely found, and baby nasturtium leaves

We were also served one of the side dishes, the (Not) Slap chips, Maldon salt (and malt vinegar, which we passed on)
They are actually rosti, formed into chip shapes and deep fried till crisp

John chose the fish, braaied Kabeljou, mussels and fish soup,
with courgettes, fennel and dune spinach wrapped around the plate, much enjoyed

Then a Savoury. Shaved, frilled and petalled creamy and intense Dalewood Huguenot cheese
on a slice of pear with cream and macadamia nuts
One to copy even if we don't get the presentation right

And, to finish, dessert. We must admit that, while the dishes are small, we were feeling very replete
It changed John's entire lifelong opinion of guavas
Deseeded, peeled and poached gently in orange, in a guava consommé, topped with a guava sorbet
and an excellent, sweet, crisp Sablé biscuit and served with a rich vanilla-redolent Crème Anglaise
Heavenly, and we don't often do desserts
A tour de force of excellent, interesting food moments; a big experience

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Monday, August 14, 2023

A walking tour of Stellenbosch with Johan Nepgen

 Johan Nepgen is a tour guide in Stellenbosch. He takes you on walks in this historic and very beautiful University town
and knows all the interesting and intriguing stories that bring the city to life
We were lucky enough to be invited to do a tour of the art, photography and history
when we visited Stellenbosch for their festival 

The city is filled with superb sculptures by well-known artists
We began the tour opposite our hotel Coopmanshuis in Church Street;
these were on the opposite pavement. Buck in flight, not named, but possibly Vincent da Silva

We loved the Sprinting Hare
"The Race is on, Ever sprinting, Never there" 
by sculptor Stephen Rautenbach

and his Kraken

Goddess. That beastly North Westerly Wind. Bronze. Also by Stephen Rautenbach

We peered into the window of a showroom further up the street filled with many scuptures

There are many very large format photographs displayed about the town. 

Some from international photographers


Stellenbosch Library Cat, sitting outside the Stellenbosch Library

Time for a break

A tribute to President Nelson Mandela in Mandela Square by renowned landscape artist Strijdom van der Merwe

De Nieuwe Molen (The New Mill) water wheel, which dates back to 1749

and this oak in Mill Street which is almost a national monument, it is so old and large
The Checkers building was built by OK Bazaars in the 1950s
The Stellenbosch Council would not allow them to take out the tree,
so they had to make a hole in the parapet to accommodate it

and in Dorp street we visited an art exhibition in GUS Gallery
Housed in the old Lutheran Church, the beautiful historic façade is in complete contrast to the displays inside
It is an off-campus extension of the University of Stellenbosch’s Visual Arts department,
where practice-based research artists and students display their works

On display was some modern jewellery

In a shop window, a bronze of one of our endangered wild dogs, which we are concerned for and love

The famous Heuer Pianos shop in Stellenbosch, a mecca for musicians and music students

and another nod to South African history, "OLD MAC - Digging For Happiness",
a tribute to South Africa's mining legacy. Madge and George Lang created the figure in 1956

The houses in Dorp Street were all re-numbered when the tidy British were in charge
but the city has kept the original numbers, incorporated as tiles in the pavement

The stump of a huge oak tree is still there,
incorporated into the terrace of this historic house at 162 Dorp Street which is now part of the Stellenbosch Hotel

It must have been a very large oak

Some street advertising for the hotel. Signs have to conform with the strict standards imposed in Dorp Street
It is the second oldest road in the country, and it and its buildings are national monuments
The authorities in this popular university town have always been very concerned with preservation of its character

Dorp Street has one of the longest rows of surviving old buildings of any major town in southern Africa
It is filled with historic houses from different periods, from Cape Dutch to Georgian and Victorian
Most are national monuments and are protected
The channel of water, known as the Lywater, mill stream releases water at prearranged periods for different areas
so that people can access the water for irrigation. It also helps to clear the gutters

 Saxenhof was formerly known as Neethling House. In 1889 the house was sold to Dr. Johannes Henoch Neethling,
who, shortly after, converted the old single-storey house into a charming Georgian style double-storey house. 

Many Seventeenth Century buildings went through "updating" conversions in the subsequent centuries,
before strict standards were applied

At the top of Church Street is the historic N.G. Moederkerk (Dutch Reformed Mother church)
This congregation was founded in 1686

The Seminary, now the Faculty of Theology at Stellenbosch University

In the Seminary gardens, a statue of John Murray and N.J. Hofmeyer,
two major religious figures in the life of Stellenbosch and South Africa

The tallest tree in Stellenbosch is in the garden; it's a Norfolk Pine planted in the grounds of The Seminary

The facade of Hofmeyer Hall in Dorp Street, now a conference centre


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