Thursday, August 02, 2018

2018 Muratie Flavours of Winter Festival

We were invited to last Saturday's Flavours of Winter Wine Festival at Muratie in Stellenbosch. It was a good chilly, wintry day on which to go to the farm and enjoy some Ports and other wines made from Port varietals. The sun did break through and we even got to taste some older vintages which Rijk Melck brought out of his vinoteque. And we enjoyed a well made hamburger from the kitchen for lunch

There was a little sun on the patio, enjoyed by a few brave souls
At Muratie, there will always be music and this duo was giving guests a tuneful welcome in the foyer
Some tables and ports to taste in the restaurant
The kitchen team at the food station
And in the main cellar, we found most of the tables with the Port farms showing their wares
and more tables outside. It was a well attended festival
Autumn, winter and spring in the trees
Annemie Adriaanse and Mark on the Axe Hill table were pouring the wines and the Ports
Peter and Yvonne Bayly had their wines and Ports and a jug of that marvellous White Port and Tonic aperitif
The choices from Axe Hill in Calitzdorp, which is owned by Mike Neebe
Cosy in the inside rooms
Chaloner had their jams, jellies and olive products to taste and buy
Muratie owner Rijk Melck with one of those older wines which we were lucky enough to taste. It may be cloudy, but the Fine Special Old Port, Alberta Anna Marie from the early 1980s, still had lots of flavour. We also enjoyed a Muratie Amber fortified Hanepoot, with bruléed maple syrup flavours, a good dessert wine from circa 1989
Von Geusau chocolates were very popular and they always go well with Port. Don’t you love the dog chewed wing back? And the request to not disturb the sleeping dog. Our similar chairs try hard not to be cat scratching posts. And the old Joanna
OK, that's Cockney rhyming slang for Pee-anna
The just launched Senator LBV, named for Sir Walter Ernest Mortimer Stanford KBE CB CMG. After serving as a magistrate in the Eastern Cape, he entered the Cape Legislative Assembly in 1908 as an independent member for Tembuland and was selected to represent the views of the African people at the National Convention of 1909, which led to the Union of South Africa. He argued strongly for universal franchise, regardless of race and gender but his proposal was not accepted. From 1910-29, he served in the Senate, nominated for his knowledge of the African peoples. He was a colonel with the South African forces in the First World War. In 1919 he was appointed KBE, and died at the age of 83 in 1933. He lived at Muratie in his later years
Rijk and Kim
The old fallen oak, decades old and still surviving
Talented winemaker Hattingh de Villiers on top of his tanks, fastening a lid which had popped
Cheese platters for lunch? Or hamburgers and chips, Butter Chicken or any of the other selections?
Like the T shirt!
A crested window. Not sure who's crest this is?
Those characterful and dust filled spider webs that are almost national monuments
We hope they can rescue the bottles on the windowsill?
Dogs are adored on this farm. Most of them are a bit more lively than this one
We had a lovely day, thank you Melcks and all at Muratie
Posted by MENU at 12:40 am 0 comments

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

MENU’S Wine of the Week Newton Johnson Elgin Pinot Noir 2011


After a week of tasting exceptional reds, this one charmed us. Yes, we are Pinot Noir fans
We tasted this at our wine club this week, where the theme was West Coast vs East Coast. It is a wine that we love and have bought often and have cellared. The Newton Johnson Pinots Noir win awards and regularly score 5, 4.5 and 4 stars in every Platter Wine Guide. They are deservedly popular
It’s a pale Pinot Noir, delicately perfumed with raspberries, flowers and soft vanilla from the wood, with hints of chocolate and a little licorice on the raspberry fruit palate. So enjoyable, so smooth and juicy with great elegance and follow through. A food wine to savour with game, delicate meat dishes and anything with mushrooms or truffles
Posted by MENU at 11:49 pm 0 comments

Caroline's Red Wine Review 2018 at the Table Bay Hotel

To be able to choose your favourite top red wines and put them on show for customers, wine buffs, trade and media to taste must be so satisfying. Caroline Rillema does this once a year and the tasting was held last Thursday at the Table Bay Hotel. We love these tastings because you know that the calibre of the wines is going to be high. The prices are too, but at least these wines are deservedly making money. Prices ranged from R167 to the lofty R1724 a bottle. Some are older vintages, some are new releases

We try to taste as many as we can, but to do them all is impossible, not just because your palate tires after a while, but four hours is simply not enough time to do them all justice. Not to mention standing for that long at our age! Nor can John take that many photographs or MENU would just be too long for you to read. There are a lot of superlatives in this article, deservedly so. It was a really good exhibition of what the South African wine industry can do with red wine

When we arrived, Caroline advised Lynne to go and taste the three Cabernets Franc which were grouped together: Antonij Rupert 2012; Bruwer Raats 2015 Family CF; and Warwick's 2015 which won the Old Mutual Trophy. What an outstanding opportunity, each excellent wine was true to the varietal, but different in a very good way

Our Shiraz of the evening is worth special mention, as it has been one of our most enjoyed wines in the past and is so again. Powerfully perfumed, soft ripe fruit with long complex and deep flavours, with the perfect balance of chalk, fruit acid and wood, everything it needs to keep it together for a long while. Hartenberg's The Stork 2014 Shiraz, proudly made by Patrick Ngamane

Sebastian and Nici Beaumont were there at the front to lead the pack. They were showing their wonderful savoury, dark and complex 2014 Mourvedre
Peter Finlayson was showing Bouchard Finlayson's 2016 Galpin Peak Pinot Noir, always good - one of South Africa's best Pinots, a complex blend of dark cherry and spicy earthiness; rich and delicious
Bobby Wallace and Werner Muller of Iona. Nice to see Bobby back in the Elgin Valley. They were showing Iona's 2015 Solace Syrah, aromatic and spicy, with class which we wrote about recently
Lovely to see some seating in the main room. Not that we got to use any!
David and Rita Trafford of De Trafford and Sijnn. The De Trafford wine was a classic 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon with a powerful nose, good wood and fruit, violets, some good mouth puckering tannins and some chalk to make it last the predicted half a century. Would that we would be able to taste it at that age, but we'd have to last into our 130s
Simonsig red wine maker Debbie Thompson pouring her Simonsig The Garland 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon for Diaan van Zyl of Remhoogte; one of their classics and so ready to enjoy
Chris Boustred of Remhoogte, Francois-Jacques Malan of Simonsig and Rudi Schultz of Thelema. Remhoogte showed the 2014 Sir Thomas Cullinan, a blend of juicy Merlot and Cabernet, which had the best nose of the evening. It is given 80% new French oak, has incense from the wood and pure berry fruit, soft chalky tannins and it begs to be paired with food. Thelema had the best Cabernet Sauvignon of the evening, from the 2015 vintage; a lovely nose, juicy, with layers of cassis fruit and good gentle wood
Michelle van Eeden of Grangehurst with Jeremy Walker’s superb 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. Jeremy holds his wines back in the cellar until he thinks they are ready to be released. This one is absolutely ready
JC Martin showing his The Art of Creation 2016 Pinot Noir, one of the most popular wines of the evening; they got through so many bottles. Savoury and sweet berry fruit, nicely wooded, with length and depth and some light chalky tannins on the end, the way a good Hemel en Aarde Pinot should be
David and Nadia Sadie were showing their 2016 Elpidios Rhône Blend. The grapes come from seven different Swartland vineyards. It contains Carignan, Syrah, Pinotage, Cinsault and Grenache. Raspberries, tayberries and mulberries with a whiff of wood. The fruit predominates; good acids and chalky tannins. We predict that this will become more complex with age
Having a short pause on the terrace between the two different venues
Cathy Marshall and Sue Anderson showing Cathy’s Catherine Marshall 2015 Peter's Blend. This Bordeaux Blend has Italianate flavours, a little wild from the Cabernet Franc, with lovely perfume on the nose, soft tannins, with a long savoury end. Just made for rich meat dishes
Happy girls
The Maestro. Giorgio dalla Cia with his 2015 Dalla Cia Giorgio Bordeaux blend, with juicy fruit, a classic; complex and layered with some good chalk on the end. With Nevers oak. This is a food wine
L’Re Burger and Louis Strydom with the Ernie Els 2013 Signature, a Bordeaux blend. Winemaker Louis keeps his wines for at least five years before releasing them. This one is fruit forward with wood support, cherry berry and chalk on the palate, a superb blend, and ready to drink
Kayla Oertle showing the very impressive Rupert & Rothschild Baron Edmund 2014 Bordeaux Blend. Cherry, wood, perfume, smoke on the palate. Well balanced fruit, wood and acid with lots of depth and length. An enjoyable, well made food wine, that has lots of time
Barend Barnard pouring a tasting of the Lanzerac Pionier 2015. From a high altitude, therefore cool, vineyard, it follows the trend of making Pinotage fresher, lighter and more elegant – more like its Pinot Noir parent. One to persuade the band of Pinotage haters of the varietal’s merits
Alice Verburg & friend with the Luddite 2014 Shiraz
Môreson winemaker Clayton Reabow with the 2015 MKM Pinotage which has deliciously good fruit
Paula Teixeira and Pierre Wahl who were showing the Rijk’s 2014 Pinotage Syrah blend. Quite a wild, mad blend but it works, intense and full
Saronsberg’s Full Circle Rhône Blend gets so many well deserved awards. A rich and complex blend, mostly Syrah with Mourvedre, Grenache and a touch of Viognier. The 2013 was our Wine of the Week in March
A happy Duncan Savage was showing his 2017 Follow the Line Cinsault from Darling. (You do have to be careful where you put the Darling!) It IS in that pale Pinot style which can encourage one to mistake Cinsault for Pinot, with spice and perfume on the nose
Duncan Savage and Delight Aitken
Sarah Revell with Delight Aiken and Lynne
Stuart Downes showing Shannon's Mount Bullet Merlot. Wow, if only all SA Merlots could be this good. Perfumed, great intense fruit, sweet cherries, berries with long flavours, and good wood, just supporting. An SA version of the St Emilion style, but full on. Our favourite of the night. Cellar and/or drink with good food now
Charla Haasbroek of Sijnn with the Free Reign 1st Edition Blend of three vintages 2009/10/11. It has salty Dutch liquorice flavours, with dark intense fruit
RJ Botha and Anthony van Schalkwyk of Kleine Zalze with Francois van Zyl of Laibach (Lynne was humming "I'm a lumberjack" from Monty Python)
Etienne & Marcelle le Riche. They were showing the Le Riche Cabernet Sauvignon, with its beautiful and intense nose and palate
9 pm and time to pack up. Sijnn winemaker Charla Haasbroek, weightlifter. Not really, the bottles had all been emptied for tasting, which is why she is looking so happy
Tired but happy at the end of a very very successful evening, Ray Kilian and Caroline Rillema (Mrs Kilian)
Posted by MENU at 4:37 pm 0 comments

Friday, July 27, 2018

This Week’s MENU. Kyoto Garden Winter Special, Breakfast at Coco Safar, The Trade Show 2018, Portuguese Duck Rice, Migliarina 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay


A Sea Point winter sunset

This almost didn’t make the deadline. We planned to try and leave early from Caroline’s wonderful Red Wine Review, more about which next week. A collection of the country’s best Reds – who could leave early from that - and we still had to finalise a couple of this week’s stories. We didn’t think we’d make it before we collapsed, but here it is, accompanied by the wonderful sound of gentle rain falling outside. We hope you’ll like it

Cape Town seems to be going through an Asian experience at the moment with so many new Asian and Asian-inspired restaurants opening and being enjoyed. It has taken a while for SA to get there and we are loving it, as we so enjoy eating this style of food. Some of the successful Asian restaurants that have been around for a while are enjoying this revival and should never be ignored, as the reason they are still here is that they produce authentic Asian food. It is the season when we are invited to taste winter specials and Kyoto in Kloofnek Road invited us to visit and sample their Japanese offering

The Adelphi Centre in Sea Point has had an ongoing refurbishment, a name change (that we don’t think will work for Sea Pointers), and many of the old shops have departed. As you enter the centre, you cannot fail to see Coco Safar restaurant, which has taken up space on the left and right of the main entrance and some at the back for their Rooibos brewery. We were invited to go for breakfast this week…

Another trade wine show this week, held at Welgemeend in Gardens. Five wine representatives grouped together to show their wines at one event: Sam Brown, Michelle Stewart, Hein de Jager, Miranda Rieker and Bev Murray. Hence there were a lot of wines to taste. We can mention just a few…

This classic Portuguese dish originated in one of their Asian colonies many years ago and was adapted for the local taste. It has become a special dish that they eat at celebrations and high holidays like Christmas and New Year. Here is the recipe using a whole duck, very luxurious….

MENU’s Wine of the Week   Migliarina 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay from Elgin grapes. There were two white wines that most impressed us this week, both from the same winemaker. First, the Migliarina 2016 Chardonnay made with Elgin grapes

The other is our Wine of the Week; it is the 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay, also from Elgin, which has soft incense wood and citrus fruit on the nose. Complex on the palate, it is full with caramel, pineapple followed by a creamy lemon posset on the palate, and finishing with elegant minerality. This wonderful creaminess…

26th July 2018


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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2018
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Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169

Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005

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. 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. 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

Posted by MENU at 10:52 am 0 comments

On This Week's MENU: Portuguese Duck Rice

This classic Portuguese dish originated in one of their Asian colonies many years ago and was adapted for the local taste. It has become a special dish that they eat at celebrations and high holidays like Christmas and New Year. 

This is the recipe using a whole duck, very luxurious, OR what you can also do is use a duck carcass that still has plenty of meat on it and less rice. We go to our local Chinese restaurant for special occasions and often order the Peking duck. You have paid for the whole duck, so ask for the carcass to take home – don’t let them chop it up. Put it into the freezer, whole, until you want to make this dish. Use just one cup of rice

If using a whole duck, this serves 6 - 8 people. If using a duck carcass, just 2 or 3, but you do end up with lots of extra duck stock which you can freeze till you are ready to make soup from it

A 2 kilo whole duck, cut up into 8 pieces - 2½ cups rice - 5 cups duck stock (from cooking the duck) - half of a Chorizo - 2 medium onions, quartered - 1 peeled carrot - 1 leek – 1 celery stalk, trimmed - 2 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole - 2 bay leaves - 4 cloves - 6 stalks of fresh parsley - 4 sprigs fresh thyme - 1 teaspoon whole Black peppercorns – 1 star anise – 1 T duck fat - salt- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Method: Push the cloves into pieces of the onion. Wash the leek very well and roughly chop it. Peel the carrot. Trim and wash the celery. Roughly chop both. Rinse the parsley and the fresh thyme

Wash the whole duck and cut into 8 pieces

In a big pot, add the duck, onion with cloves, leek, celery stalk, carrot, garlic, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, star anise, peppercorns and cover with water. Season with salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered with a lid, for 1 hour. Remove the lid and allow to cook for a further 45 minutes until the duck is very tender and almost falling of the bones. This will slightly reduce and concentrate the stock. Do not overcook it or you will have a pot full of small bones. If using a carcass, leave it whole and cook until it is easy to take the meat off the bones, no more than an hour and a half

Remove the duck from the stock and let it cool. Remove the flesh, shred it into big pieces. Discard the skin and all the bones – be very thorough, because the duck has some very small bones

Pour the duck stock through a sieve– you will need 5 cups for the recipe. The stock will be very rich and have a lot of fat from the duck, which will give the rice its special flavour. If the duck was very fatty and SA ducks often are, there will be a very thick layer of fat. You can let the stock go cold in the fridge and take off some of the excess duck fat. Keep this for roasting potatoes, they are the best

In a big pan with a tight fitting lid, over medium heat, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of duck fat and sauté the rice for a minute or two until it is well coated in the fat and almost sticking to the pan

Add the duck stock, stir and scrape off any rice attached to the pan. Check the salt, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, tightly covered, for 17 minutes. During this time DO NOT uncover or stir the rice

Remove from the heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes without uncovering the pan or stirring the rice

Fluff up the rice, so you don’t have any lumps

Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C / 375°F

In a deep oven-proof serving dish, spread half of the fluffed-up rice and add some of the chopped garlic. Spread  the shredded duck on top. Cover with the remaining rice and the rest of the chopped garlic. Or you can just mix in the duck and garlic with the rice if layering doesn’t work for you

Slice the chorizo and scatter the slices on top of the rice

Bake in the centre of the oven for 15 minutes or until the top layer of the rice is lightly golden and beginning to crisp at the edges. The chorizo should be crispy too. Sprinkle with some parsley or chopped chives and serve immediately. Great with a green salad and a good Chenin Blanc to cut through the richness and the spicy chorizo
Posted by MENU at 1:21 am 0 comments

MENU’s Wine of the Week. Migliarina 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay from Elgin grapes


There were two white wines that most impressed us this week, both from the same winemaker. First, the Migliarina 2016 Chardonnay made with Elgin grapes
The other is our Wine of the Week; it is the 2015 Single Vineyard Chardonnay, also from Elgin, which has soft incense wood and citrus fruit on the nose. Complex on the palate, it is full with caramel, pineapple followed by a creamy lemon posset on the palate, and finishing with elegant minerality. This wonderful creaminess comes from the fermentation on the lees. The light vanilla wood is there to support, not overwhelm
This wine will last and improve. It was scored highly by some of the British wine writers like Jamie Good and Greg Sherwood at 93/100. Boutique vintner Carsten Migliarina, who is a trained sommelier, says "I do not own a wine farm, I am not unhappy about this as it allows me the freedom to source the best grapes from the best vineyards I can find”. He buys in all his grapes each year and has many interesting and noteworthy wines. From R190 a bottle. We liked several of his other wines on show, so he is someone to watch
Posted by MENU at 1:07 am 0 comments
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