This was a very good year for grapes from the
small vineyard at the Vineyard Hotel. The three rows of Semillon and the 5 rows
of Chardonnay produced 244 kilos of grapes which have been turned into 168
litres of wine by this year's producer, Simonsig. Klein Constantia, Meerlust
Wine Estate, Simonsig Wine Estate, Warwick Wine Estate and Waterford Wine
Estate are the Vineyard Hotel’s five official wine partners, and each takes a
turn to craft the wines. The grapes were first harvested in 2013 and this is
the 5th year in which there have been enough grapes to produce wine. We were
invited to join in and help as we are custodians of one of the vines, which grow
on the bank of the Liesbeek River
Thursday dawned chilly and wet
and we were very grateful that the Vineyard hotel had organised a shuttle to
take us to Stellenbosch
The glamorous foyer of the
hotel
We had a good coffee while the
other media and trade assembled
Lots of tempting things to go
with coffee should you visit
We piled into the shuttle for
the hour long trip to Simonsig in Stellenbosch
On arrival at Simonsig, we
headed for the wine cellar
Roy Davies, General Manager of the Vineyard Hotel, with Simonsig Cellarmaster Johan Malan swopping pictures
on their phones. Simonsig is owned by the Malan Family Trusts
Simonsig's excellent range of
Kaapse Vonkel MCC bubbles. The top wine in the range is called Cuvée Royale
We were welcomed by their
marketing manager Jacques Jordaan with a glass of the Kaapse Vonkel
The corks are all good. Joaquim
Sá of Amorim Cork knows
An introduction to Simonsig by Francois Jacques Malan
Winemaker Hannes Meyer setting
up the small filling machine, we didn't need the big one
The wine
was made in these glass carboys
First bottle on the line
Johan Malan gives us the facts
from his Harvest journal
The wine is a Bordeaux-style white
blend
Roy tells us about this year's
harvest which was a very good one. There are 177 bottles and 12 Magnums of the
blend this year, plus 33 of the Sauvignon Blanc
We all stood in line and took
turns filling several bottles
Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick,
another of the wine partners, with Ndaba Dube, Restaurant manager at The
Vineyard sampling the wine. It is a really impressive blend this year, with the
Semillon taking charge and making it full and elegant, with potential to last. We
all were impressed at how well it had been made
It takes some strength to jam
the bottles onto the filling nozzles
They were then taken by hand to
the corking machine
Brothers and partners. Cellarmaster Johan Malan and viticulturalist Francois Malan
All that heavy work over, it is
time for lunch in Simonsig's restaurant, Cuvée
With lunch, we tasted of all five
vintages of the Vineyard blend, the first made by Matthew Day at Klein
Constantia, the 2nd at Warwick by Norma Ratcliffe, 3rd at Meerlust
by Chris Williams, the 4th at Waterford Estate by Mark Le Roux and this year
was made at Simonsig by Hannes Meyer
and then three excellent
bottles of Tiara Simonsig's red 5 way Bordeaux blend;
Tables around the room, occupied by regular customers as well as the bottling party
Good bread served with pickled
spekboom, pink salt and flavoured butter
First course was a curried
lentil soup topped with toasted coconut flakes
There were two choices of main course;
this is the dark pork belly on herb mash topped with crackling, apple slices
and a good rich wine jus
Or you could have a spicy
coconut and chicken curry with a poppadum. Both were very good and paired very
well with the wines. Then it was time for the shuttle back to the hotel. But we
would be back the next day for a completely different event hosted by Simonsig
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017
