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Thursday, February 20, 2014

140220 Main Ingredient's MENU - Bosman Family Vineyards, Durbanville Feast of the Grape, Fish curry

Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal

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In this week’s MENU:

Bosman Family Vineyards

Durbanville Feast of the Grape

Fish curry

This week’s Product menu - We carry a small range of Oriental pastes like Tamarind, Sambal Olek and Tom Yum. These make cooking very easy when you want to be adventurous. We also stock Shao Xing rice wine, Mirin (sweet Japanese rice vinegar) and black rice if you are a keen Asian cook. Lynne has used Tamarind in this week’s recipe below.

If you can find it in the supermarket, we don't usually stock it, just the products you would struggle to find... Check our online shop to see more details and prices.

Bosman Family Vineyards It is not often that we get to see experimental vines being grown, so it was with great interest that we accepted an invitation to go to see these vineyards in Hemel and Aarde valley where they grow different varieties of grapes and several different clones of each. Click here to read about these vines and to see the photographs of the day

Durbanville Feast of the Grape This superb wine festival will be held on one farm only this year, so head for D'Aria Farm on the 1st and 2nd of March. We will be there on Sunday 2nd and hope to see lots of you. After all, it is only half an hour from town and you can join in the celebration of the harvest. You will be able to sample lots of wines and good foods. Click here for their link to the festival showing you how you can book.

On Tuesday, we attended the Media launch of the festival and had a wonderful time helping to pick grapes, as the Durbanville Wine Valley is making a special wine which contains grapes from each of the 12 farms involved. Click here to read about this and our great day out.

Fish curry

If you are like us, you might find that in very hot weather (and it has been awfully hot in Cape Town this week) a curry helps to cool you down. This week’s recipe is a very quick fish curry. You make the sauce and then you put in the fish for the last four minutes and serve with rice. It could not be simpler in this hot weather when none of us want to be slaving over a hot stove. Lynne did a very silly thing on Sunday and roasted a chicken for supper. We won’t do that again in a heat wave when the temperature was in the 40’s. You can also use prawns or other seafood in this curry, but fish is the best, as it takes on so much flavour from the sauce. You can make it as hot as you care for by adjusting the amount of fresh chilli. Because of the Tamarind, it makes a sour and savoury curry. We used hake, but kingklip, monk fish or any of your favourites will work well.

1 kg of firm white fish – 2 t turmeric powder 2 onions, sliced – 2 cloves of garlic, crushed – 1 T peanut or canola oil – salt - 2 t turmeric powder– 1 t cumin power – 2 to 3 T Indian curry paste – 1 tin of coconut milk - ½ litre fish stock - 2 red chillies, sliced – 1 or 2 T tamarind paste – 2 t fish sauce

Cut the fish into bite sized cubes and rub with 2 t of turmeric powder. Put into the fridge until you are ready to serve supper.

Chop the onions into half moon slices, chop the garlic finely and fry them both gently with a little salt in oil till soft and sticky but not brown. Add two teaspoons of turmeric and one of cumin. Add 2 tablespoons of your favourite Indian curry paste (do not use Thai or Malaysian). Fry for a minute to develop the spices, then pour on the coconut milk and half a litre of good fish stock. Add the chillies and a tablespoon of sour tamarind paste and two teaspoons of fish sauce. Add vegetables at this point, if you are want them. Beans, mange tout and red peppers add volume, vitamins and colour. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning. This should be quite hot and also sour so, if it is not, add more tamarind paste. The fish sauce will add the salt. When you are ready to eat, add the fish pieces to the hot curry sauce and simmer until just cooked and serve with fluffy steamed basmati rice. Lovely with sweet mango chutney.

Buying from us On Line We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our on line shop. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Please do not pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you, then you pay and then we deliver or post. When you make an eft payment, make sure that it says who you are. Use the form on the website to email us your order. Click here to see our OnLine Shop.

Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy

There is a huge and rapidly growing variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western Cape. There are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have made separate list for each month for which we have information. To see what’s happening in our world of food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit our Events Calendar. All the events are listed in date order and we already have a large number of exciting events to entertain you right through the year. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.

Learn about wine and cooking We receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see details of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here. Karen Glanfield has taken over the UnWined wine appreciation courses from Cathy. See the details here

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking classes in Fish Hoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here. Emma Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her home in Constantia. Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite Groote Schuur hospital). Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking classes for small groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here

20th February 2014

Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our online shop for details and prices.

PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information

Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169

Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005

Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian and standard or Dutch flavoured Afrikaans.

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 these newsletters and our blogs are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually 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. Our Avast!^® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.

This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. We own our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.

KGB Unwined Wine Appreciation Courses

Wine Appreciation Courses

Whether you are looking for a new hobby, the perfect present for a loved one or friend, or just hoping to literally “UnWined”, then this is the course for you.

These UnWined courses, previously very successfully hosted by Cathy Marston for 8 years, are being re-launched in March 2014 and powered by Karen Glanfield.

The courses offer a great setting to share any questions you have ever wanted to ask about what’s in your glass or how it actually got there. In addition, this is a wonderfully sociable and relaxed way for wine lovers to get together and of enjoy a large range of proudly South African wines. Share with your family and friends and get a group together for a fun-filled evening.

Each week a winemaker, or prominent personality from a respected wine estate, will bring a range of wines to savour. We will cover a white and red grape type and you will be treated to a variety of at least 6 wines at each session.

The line up is as follows (in no particular order):

Chardonnay & Pinot Noir

Sauvignon Blanc & Cabernet Sauvignon

Semillon & Merlot

Viognier & Shiraz

Chenin Blanc & Pinotage

All other - this can cover any mix of Other Cultivars, Bubbly, Ports, Dessert Wines etc

Where – Vineyard Hotel, Colinton Road, Newlands, Cape Town

Dates - Tuesdays, March 11th, 18th, 25th & April 1st, 8th and 15th

Time – 18h00 to 20h00

Cost – R750 per person *

* Cost includes all 6 tutored wine tasting sessions, lectures, and tasting sheets.

The wines tasted will all be available for purchase through Wine Concepts Newlands, at catalogue discount prices on the night.

Please let Karen know if you are interested in joining us or if you require more information by sending a mail to karen@kgbwine.co.za

If you are unable to join her for the first course, Karen will be hosting a further 3 courses at the Vineyard Hotel during the remainder of the year:

May 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th & June 3rd, 10th

July 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th & August 5th

September 16th, 23rd, 30th & October 7th, 14th, 21st

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Durbanville Wine Valley's Feast of the Grape launch

This annual wine festival celebrating the harvest will be held in Durbanville over the weekend of the 1st and 2nd of March. We attended the media launch of this festival on Tuesday and were told that we would be helping with the harvest, so we had to arrive early. The initiative on this day was for each farm to pick one ton of its Sauvignon Blanc grapes; these were then delivered to Diemersdal wine farm, where they were pressed and the juice from all 12 participating farms is now in tank fermenting and will be released as a single wine at the October Durbanville wine festival, The Season of Sauvignon. We hope to see lots of you at both festivals.

Different groups of media were directed to different farms. We were told to report to Klein Roosboom at 6.45 and were warmly welcomed by owner/winemaker Karin de Villiers and met fellow writers Giles Griffin of the Wine Tourism Handbook and Denene Erasmus from Farmer’s Weekly. We had some juice, coffee, muffins and fruit and then it was time to join the pickers

They started picking really early and, by the time we arrived, they were on the top row of the Sauvignon Blanc bush vines and had already picked a ton. Klein Roosboom was also contributing to Durbanville Hills' input, so they picked another ton.

Farm road through the vines with a misty view of Blaauwberg

Vernon Julies, one of the friendly, skilled pickers on the farm. Watching the team work made for a very good experience. They were fast pickers and we didn’t envy them the tangle of the bush vines, where they had to get right inside the low bushes to find the small bunches of grapes. Back breaking work,

searching for bunches over a nearly full lug box

Heading for the van with full crates. And a lovely view of Table Mountain over the Durbanville hills, with its South Easter tablecloth growing. This brought us very hot weather

Durbanville Hills winery is just across the road from Klein Roosboom

Healthy vines, full of grapes. Not all are ripe yet, so harvest will take place over the next couple of weeks

Klein Roosboom owner/winemaker Karin de Villiers with her workers

Sweet grapes with a little botrytis, noble rot

Vineyards make great patterns on the landscape

All done, we have picked two tons. It is now getting warm and the workers will only come back when it is later or earlier and cooler. Karin believes that it doesn't make sense to pick in the heat of the day; the grapes are badly affected and then so is the wine.

They head off for Diemersdal, where the grapes are to be crushed and put into tank with the other grapes from the other farms. Lynne was able to pick two bunches, so we can feel we were involved in the making of this wine, even if in a minimal way.

Walking in the vineyards

Spraying to prevent rot in some of the other vineyards

A fluffy Muisvoël (Speckled Mousebird, Colius striatus) on the top of a tree in the gardens of Klein Roosboom. This beautiful bird is only found in Africa and is not related to any other species. You see lots of them in the Cape, especially if there are fruit or berries nearby

Beautiful Sauvignon Blanc grapes about to go into the de-stemmer

Stems are ejected and are put into the compost,

while the grapes are pumped into the press

and the fermentation tanks

On our way to brunch

Diemersdal Manor house, rebuilt in 1903

A gathering of winemakers and media. Charles Hopkins of De Grendel sits opposite Martin Moore of Durbanville Hills. Next to Charles is Thys Louw, Diemersdal winemaker, who will supervise the making of this quintessential Durbanville wine

A saucy sign on the patio

Table are laid under the vine pergola while we wait for brunch

Not only grapes are fruitful, here is an oil date palm

Diemersdal has mixed farming

Durbanville Hills cellarmaster Martin Moore and TWS Media editor Maryna Strachan in black shirts

Farm road and a Durbanville hill

Grapes go into the hopper

When it is full, the machine is turned on

and the grapes

are moved into the de-stemmer

from which the cleaned grapes and free run juice are pumped into the press

After going through cooler coils, the juice ends up in the large tanks behind Etienne Louw Altydgedacht winemaker (and chairman of the Durbanville Wine Valley) and Thys Louw, Diemersdal winemaker (no relation!)

What you need to know before you go into a cellar on a wine farm

Nitida's Winemaker Brendan Butler was also part of the celebrations and picking

Brunch is on its way as we cool off under the pergola

Benny Howard of Meerendal gives us a huge treat, as we get to taste the free run juice from the tank, which will become the wine once fermentation has taken place. It was glorious. Fresh smells of figs, granadilla, limes, pineapple and litchi and beautiful balanced crisp acidic and sweet fruity pineapples, guava, ripe figs and nectarines on the palate. Could drink this all day. Can’t wait to see how it turns out.

All of the farms involved put some of their Sauvignon Blancs on the tables for us to drink with brunch. While there are very different styles, they are mostly very identifiable as Durbanville wines.

Etienne Louw tells us he has been voted as Chairman of the Durbanville Wine Valley for the next two years and receives a big cheer.

Each table received one cheese platter, several bread platters and a couple of bowls of really good sliced duck breast and ham salad with roasted grapes, ripe figs, cheese and rocket. There were chutneys and roasted grapes and fresh grapes on the cheese platter.

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014

Vine Garden Tasting at Bosman Family Vineyards in the Hemel en Aarde Valley

The Bosman family has two farms, one in Wellington and the other called De Bos Farm in the Hemel en Aarde valley. On this farm, in conjunction with their Lelienfontein Vine Growers, they grow a library of 47 different grape varieties and several clones of some of those varieties.

This privilege is one enjoyed by only very few wineries anywhere in the world today and makes Bosman Family Vineyards custodians of their wines from their very roots. It is also the essence for the enterprise’s slogan: ‘From Vine to Wine’. Selecting from a broad spectrum of high quality foundation status plant material in the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, Ceres Karoo, Klein Karoo and Leeu-Gamka, Lelienfontein Vine Growers cultivates vines of the highest standard with minimal risk of infections and viruses. It is actively involved in research and development through representation. It is through Lelienfontein Vine Growers that Bosman Family Vineyards has established the most enviable of situations for a winemaker - a veritable library of 47 different grape varieties that are at its disposal.

Bosman Family Vineyards MD, Petrus Bosman and Winemaker Corlea Fourie guided a group of media through the vineyards, where we were able to taste many of the ripe grapes of the 47 different grape varietals grown in this location. This was followed by a forest lunch and wine tasting under the pine trees.

It was a muddy and damp day, but tasting different clones of Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Cabernet and several other varietals was an enormous privilege, as there are so few places where one might ever again get this experience at this time of the year, when the grapes are ready for harvest. Were the differences visible? Yes, indeed they were. Yet another valuable learning experience in the world of wine making.

We began the day early with a coffee at the One&Only Hotel where we picked up our transport for the rather long 2 hour journey to the Hemel and Aarde Valley .

Thank you Ian Manley for the coffee and croissants we enjoyed on the bus. Most appreciated.

On arrival we were treated to a taste of their newly released Method Cap Classique Chenin bubbly

The MCC is entitled Steen, another name for Chenin Blanc. The wine has grassy and bready notes on its faintly tropical nose, is crisp and tropical and has a good mousse

The day was a little bit damp and they had made sure lots of umbrellas were available for our trek through the vineyards and afterwards at lunch

Each varietal and then each clone has about three or four rows and each bears their bona fides. So these are Rows of Sauvignon Blanc, Clone SB 108C x R110 Lynne's tasting notes for the grape she tasted are “Gooseberries (English), one note but a good blending wine from the French.

We learnt a great deal from our guides about varietals and how to use them

A good bunch of Sauvignon blanc showing a little rot and nice ripeness in the rain

A close up of the information labelling for the varietals

Clone SB11 R is also known as the Weather Station and is widely used in South African sauvignons. As you can see, it is quite prolific. It is figgy, has a nice acidity and some hanepoot sweetness when ripe.