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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Revving up Rosé at Rickety Bridge, Franschhoek

Some festivals are just smarter (in both senses of the word) than others and this one outshone many others. Held in the grounds of Rickety Bridge in Franschhoek, there were plenty of tables, chairs and umbrellas, an intelligent limited lunch menu and some great and interesting, mostly Franschhoek, Rosé wines and MCCs. We took our foreign visitors and had a wonderfully relaxed day. Well done, Darielle

You didn't have to walk from the crowded parking, but could take a veteran tractor ride through the vineyards

Rickety Bridge Manor House hotel with a raft of shady umbrellas in front of it

Even though we arrived at 11h45, we still found a good table

Owner Gerard Holden of Holden Manz on their stand with Marketing Manager Wayne Buckley and their very good 2015 Rosé from Shiraz, Cabernet, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The Cab Franc adds a good savouriness and it was one of the best of the day

Ann Ferreira on the Le Lude stand with their newly released MCC Brut Rosé - so elegant and crisp, another favourite. There were some good MCC Rosés including the Haute Cabrière, another we love

Pouring a tasting for our friend Terry Rodbard, visiting from Greece

The tasting tables were right behind the seating, so you could get a glass and sit down to enjoy it. The tastings worked on a voucher system

Steve Chase of Foothills Vineyards pouring his 2014 Dry Rosé, made from shiraz, viognier and a dash of semillon

Raymond Noppé of Delheim with their Pinotage Rosé 2015

Wine cooling nicely. It was a hot day, despite the early promise of rain

Paul Gerber of Le Lude and Kean Maske chatting with Dawie Botha, winemaker of Anthonij Rupert Wines, who were showcasing the L'Ormarins Brut Rosé and the Protea Rosé, and Nic Barrow owner of Le Lude

Innocent Mpahleni of Boekenhoutskloof with the Wolftrap Rosé 2015 - as expected, a good value Rosé

Now this is one we didn't understand. You come to exhibit your wine at a festival but you don’t allow people, good potential high spending customers - and a lot of wine was sold on the day - to taste your wine. You could buy a bottle at R250 or a glass at R50. Surely you have a marketing budget like all the other wineries do? It is from Chateau d'Esclans in Provence but it was very similar in taste to the Solms Delta at R55 a bottle. We don't get the French marketing strategy

Berenike Knierim was a lovely friendly face on their stand

Estelle Oosthuizen pouring a tasting of Vrede en Lust

On the restaurant terrace, there were more tables and you could buy coffee and bottles of wine to drink with lunch or to take home

Inside the restaurant. There was a good limited menu but we don’t think they were equipped to handle 400 orders in one hour

Queuing to order and pay

GM of Rickety Bridge, Jan van Huyssteen, with festival organiser Darielle Robertson

The lunch menu

The salmon roulade, which the girls on our table chose

and the good cheese burger and, sadly, very slap (half cooked) chips, which all the men had

There was lots of entertainment for the children, jumping castles and even a water pool

and games to play

Dieter Sellmeyer from Lynx wines with their Blanc de Noir, made from Merlot. It was delicious, crisp and dry, exactly our style of Rosé

Anne Ferreira with Darielle Robertson at the end of a busy and very successful day

The wines you could taste and buy

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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Dinner at Marc's Table

We found a new (to us) local restaurant

We don't often find a place that is completely new to us and which has been open for a while. Marc's restaurant is in a hotel that quite frankly when it was painted a lurid pink and given the name of Sugar, we concluded (wrongly!) that is might be slightly disreputable. It is now painted white, still called Sugar (why?) is perfectly respectable and on the corner of Boundary Road and Main Road in Green Point. The menu is has interesting choices, the prices are reasonable for fine dining and the food was good. Both the hotel and restaurant are owned by chef Marc van Rooyen

The restaurant entrance is in Boundary Road. Here you can see the terrace

Lynne's starter of asparagus topped with micro herbs, a poached egg and hollandaise sauce, cost R65, was very good

John's starter of home cured beef Carpaccio with micro greens, parmesan and Salsa Verde. R65

Another starter, Chicken liver parfait served with croutons was rich and creamy

A main course, the line fish of the day which was Yellowtail, topped with prawns and nested on ratatouille R150

John's fillet of beef, with a roasted marrow bone, with confit potatoes and a rich red wine and brandy sauce. R190

Lynne had another starter for her main course, as we had been out for lunch that day. A fresh Salmon tartare with avocado and mayonnaise R65

The comfortable and chic interior of the restaurant

Another view

The bill, with The Entertainer discount our friends provided. It was a very good meal. We will be back

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Jordan 2016 harvest report and lunch

We spent a lovely day on Jordan farm tasting the new just picked juices of several grapes, the newly fermenting wine and listening to the undisputable facts of the effect on global warming, El Nino and drought on wine farming. It is not all gloom and doom and Gary Jordan has plans in hand to stay in business planting grapes that will adapt to the raise in temperature and the lack of water. We followed this with a delicious lunch on the deck at The Bakery

Into Jordan’s Safari vehicle to drive to the top of the hill, where we had a short walk to climb even further where we had the most wonderful views of the estate and the surrounding country

As we look down the Stellenbosch Kloof, Stellenbosch and Paarl winelands shimmering in a heat haze

Just a small climb. This is what keeps us fit

Looking through the pines down at the vineyards and the dams

People working in the vineyards at harvest time

Onward! Hats and sunblock obligatory

Tables and umbrellas and water and wine had been organised. This is soon to become a venue for wine tasting and events

Looking down at some of Jordan's water points and storage. They have recently sunk several boreholes, most of which were found by consulting Geologists after Gary Jordan originally trained as a geologist, surveyed his own property. They have had to drill down below sea level. There is one which was found by a water diviner. Water is a growing imperative for sustainable wine farming with rises in temperature. They plan not to use permanent cover crops anymore as they take up too much water

Jacques Steyn, Jordan's viticulturist, tells us about the vineyards, the current plantings and the future plans. They have recently bought some hilltop land from neighbour Beau Joubert (which far has now been sold to Johan Reyneke) and this will be planted with Chardonnay and possibly some hot climate grapes like Grenache, Mourvedre and Tempranillo on the new 20 plus hectares. They are also looking at planting Assyrtiko, a grape grown in Greece (a first for South Africa) on the eastern windy slopes

A view of the farm from a drone owned by John Meinking showing the new ground awaiting new vines. We heard the worrying facts and figures of how the predicted 2 degree rise in temperatures worldwide caused by global warning will affect the grapes that can be grown and the different way that wine farming will have to change and adapt

A graphic of the changes in temperature is at the end of this blog

Jacques also told us about irrigation the temperature difference on Jordan from the centre of Stellenbosch, they are much cooler and they do benefit from breezes and mists coming from Table Bay. If it is 42 degrees C in Merriman Street in central Stellenbosch, they have 36 degrees C. They are not affected by the South Easter. The forest above us in the picture will be kept as a nature reserve for the local buck and other animals

John Meinking launching his drone

More people coming up the hill to join us

The drone in flight

Some later comers!

brought by Gary Jordan

Judy Brower of wine.co.za with a glass of refreshing chilled Jordan Chameleon rosé made from 50% Merlot and 50% Shiraz full of juicy strawberries and cranberries. We also tasted the newly released Jordan Riesling The Real McCoy, the grapes for this wine come from Elgin

Gary Jordan

The drone hovers close to us to take a group picture

The Stellenbosch Kloof by John

Kathy Jordan

Gary telling us the facts about global warming

And shows us samples of the two different layers of granite on the farm

Vineyards in the heat

We tasted some newly harvested merlot grapes

Thea offers some to WOSA's CEO Siobhan Thompson

Then time to taste some of the newly harvested grape juice from several different grapes and also some of the fermenting juices. The flavours are incredibly intense, the sugar is high but you can see the character of the wine to be coming through. Lynne joked that they could go into the juice business as these were so wonderful to drink! The new Sauvignon blanc, on the nose, was full of nettles and cucumber with ripe figs and pyroxene, as it should be. On the palate layers of white peaches. The Chardonnay juice also was full of ripe golden peaches, apricots, litchi and some herbs with warm winter melon. The fermenting Chenin Blanc had cat's pee and candy apple peaches on the nose and lots of rich white peaches on the palate.

This is the fermenting merlot which was yeasty cherry juice. Can't wait to taste it when it has finished fermenting

Then a short walk back to the transport for some, and a long walk back down to the restaurant for others

We had a lovely gemütliche media lunch at a long table under the trees on the deck of The Bakery

Superb breads, pesto, tapenade and aioli for dipping were served with the cold gazpacho soup. This is what you too can eat if you go to the Bakery at Jordan

Put The Bakery menu here

Lynne chose the fish of the day, which was butter fried yellowtail, in a rich spicy garlicky tomato and fennel velouté, with pillows of very light potato gnocchi, topped with spinach and grated parmesan. One to repeat another time

John chose the sliced Chalmar sirloin beef topped with pesto, semi roasted tomatoes, caramelised onion, parmesan cheese and fresh rocket. We drank Jordan Chenin, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. And we finished with cheese boards and a selection of the Bakery's amazing pastries including the salted caramel chocolate tart