Friday, October 18, 2019

The Veritas Awards 2019 dinner at the CTICC

This year's Veritas Wine Awards dinner was held in the Ballroom at the Cape Town International Convention Centre last Friday night and was a huge success. The format worked so well, the awards went quickly and smoothly, the food was really excellent this year and the entertainment was rather special. It is a black tie event and people really had dressed beautifully
Broadcaster Guy McDonald and his wife Bronwen with journalist Norman McFarlane
We think we have persuaded Guy to wear his dress kilt in future. There are two winemakers who wear theirs each year
Blaauwklippen winemaker Narina Cloete and L'Re Burger of Ernie Els Wines
Chef Christophe Dehosse, who was responsible for the excellent main course and Karin Visser CWM, Wine Negociant
MC Bennie Howard CWM made the evening just speed past in a very good way. To see all this year’s results To see all this year's results, click here: https://veritas.co.za and you can book to come and taste the top wines at the Veritas Public Tastings tasting in Cape Town on 25th October 2019, Johannesburg 29th October, Durban 6th November and Port Elizabeth 13th November 2019
SA Litho is one of the sponsors
Christo Pienaar (Chairman of SANWSA) made the opening speech. He told us that they have now fully adapted to the 100 point scoring system which has become the international standard for competitions. Therefore 96 and above would be Platinum; 93 to 95 Double Gold; 90 to 92 Gold; (something new) 86 to 89 Silver enhanced; 80 to 85 Silver; and 65 to 79 Bronze. The judges all sit in cubicles and taste blind
Wineries only enter their best wines each year
Another new item: All the 70 double golds are retasted and one wine which rises to the top is called the Vertex wine
Veritas presents the Living Legends award to honour those men and women who made a major contribution to the industry during their lifetime. Christo Pienaar, with two of this year’s worthy recipients, former Springbok rugby stars and legendary winemakers Gerhard "Hempies" du Toit and Jan "Boland" Coetzee
This year's wine industry luminaries – Jan Boland Coetzee, Kiffie de Wet, Hempies du Toit, Johan Rossouw, Kobus Rossouw, Eugene van Zyl and Gyles Webb – received Living Legends honorary scrolls for their immeasurable contributions to South African wine and brandy
Spier Cellarmaster Frans Smit, celebrating with Jan Boland Coetzee and Hempies du Toit
The menu for dinner.
The starter by Chef Michael Broughton of Terroir Restaurant on Kleine Zalze was fresh and delicious. A fine potato, apple and chive salad, topped with hot smoked salmon pastrami and a radish and pea shoot relish, dressed with parsley oil, was much enjoyed by everyone to whom we spoke
The main course was a triumph of tender duck breast, a spiced duck roulade, accompanied by a smooth carrot puree, seared king oyster mushroom slices. And four Brussels sprouts. This was in a rich and unctuous sauce Diable, which is a rich brown stock with the addition of tomato, wine, vinegar, shallots, tarragon and pepper. The chef was Christophe Dehosse who is in charge of the restaurants on two wine estates - the Vine Bistro at Glenelly and the Bistro at Joostenberg. We heard that he supervised the CTICC chefs and they had to debone at least 50 ducks
The cheese course
Gyles and Barbara Webb of Thelema with Michael Broughton and friend
Durbanville Hills Cellarmaster Martin Moore and MD Albert Gerber and Thys Louw of Diemersdal
Christo Pienaar with Tommie Corbett, Charl Schoeman and Debbie Thompson of Simonsig
The Spier team, who won more medals than any other producer
Vertex Award winners Meghan and Shane Mullis of Domaine des Dieux with Western Cape Premier Alan Winde
Braam Gericke of Wildekrans shows his Double Gold certificate to Lynne
Gyles Webb and Christophe Dehosse
Duimpie Bayly and friend
and Duimpie Bayly with Veritas manager Elsabé Ferreira
and then the dancing began
but we couldn't stay; we had to leave early the next morning to be in Elgin for the Chardonnay Coolquium
Posted by MENU at 9:42 am 0 comments

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Sommeliers Selection 2019 Awards Ceremony

We were invited to attend the Sommeliers Selection wine awards last week at 11 am and we drove through to Franschhoek, making sure that we would be on time. As we arrived, we discovered that the awards ceremony had already taken place and many of the winners were leaving. So our story is very short. We asked why we had not been invited to the ceremony and were told that they had been told by other media that it is boring! We would never find watching our colleagues, friends and compatriots whom we work with in the wine industry, being lauded and receiving awards at all boring, ever. What we do find hard to handle is driving a two and a half hour round trip to taste some wine and then driving home again after missing the important part of the story. Even though we tasted some very good wine -  but we do that anyway.
If you want to see the 2019 list, download it here https://www.thesommeliersselection.co.za/
There were some platters of fruit, cheese and cold meats
These are some of the chosen wines in their categories
There are several bubblies on the list and one or two dessert wines. Sommeliers were pouring the wines for us
Nice to see Paul Kruger from Villiera with Megan Mullis of Domaine des Dieux
Lovely views from Rocca restaurant on Dieux Donne wine estate
Paul, again with pretty ladies
Shane and Megan Mullis from Domaine de Dieux have their bubbles on the list
And they had no idea what fantastic honour was to come their way on Friday night at the Veritas awards,
where their 2015 Chardonnay was given the Vertex award for best wine in the Veritas competition. Huge congratulations
The red wines were on two tables
Brad Gold of Iona in conversation with one of the serving sommeliers
And the colourful lads from the Stellenbosch Brewing Company with their award for the...
... Whaow! Imperial Stout
At the end of the tasting at 12.30 we could taste some of the CBC Beers poured by brewer Wolfgang Koedel of CBC
We loved the Mandarina Bavaria IPA
Organiser Darielle Robertson heading home at 1, as were we
All content ©  John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus
Posted by MENU at 4:05 pm 0 comments

Monday, October 14, 2019

MENU's UK Adventure 7. From Mallaig via Oban to Rhu, Glasgow and south to England

The next stage of our expedition was to Rhu (also known as Helensburgh on the Clyde),
one of Scotland's top 10 seaside resorts
We were to travel via Oban at the express instruction and advice from several people, both in SA and in the UK,
who said "we must NOT miss it". So we didn't

Oban is a small seaside resort with a perfect horseshoe bay, which grew up around the distillery
and was made famous by Sir Walter Scott in his poem The Lord of the Isles 

Our task and we did decide to accept it, was to locate the Green Shack,
which lurks on the dockside at the Ferry Terminal, and have some lunch there
Parking is a bit of a problem but we found some behind the ferry port and walked into town
and it was a Chinese tourist who directed us; he was also rushing there 

We had imagined a restaurant looking slightly louche, but no - it actually is a green shack
containing only cooking equipment, cooks and huge amounts of seafood
The tables are these sawn slices of tree trunk upon which you place your takeaway
and usually stand as there is not much space to sit
and it is probably the most popular place in Oban. Why? 

You look at the menu on the wall, stand in a queue,
get your spouse to hunt for a space on the 'table' while you place your order and wait for it
And, yes, it was raining lightly... This is Scotland; it is green and lush - and it rains

As you can see, the seats are fairly non functional, unless you are 2.5 metres tall

and while they don't have a loo (the railway station does - and they don't like non-passengers using it)
they do have a very necessary hand wash facility with multilingual instructions

Now, how to choose and what choices there are; these are just a few
Give up with the translating of Pounds back into your own currency; just look at the plates coming out of the kitchen
Very cheap coffee and tea for the UK too
Should have had the crab sandwich, the price doubled down south in Cornwall

Piles of fresh oysters just waiting to be shucked

Extraordinarily good fresh plump mussels

Crab and Lobster

Lynne had been longing for a good crab. We never see these in the Cape

Pa and son tuck in; silly Mum had gone shopping instead

Our order was, of course, the famous Seafood Platter for two at £32.50.  A complete steal
On top, two superbly sweet seared scallops in garlic butter;
beneath, a lobster, hot smoked salmon, crab claws, peeled prawns, calamari, cockles, langoustine
and more mussels than we could finish
Served with bread and butter, a tartare sauce, a sweet chilli sauce, lemon and Tabasco
You eat with your fingers or a mussel shell and get wonderfully involved. It was scrumptious
GO TO OBAN!, if you go to Scotland. Do not miss this
There are other places to eat seafood there, but none as good and as generous as this
Only one thing was missing: a glass of Chenin blanc would have been enjoyed!

Watching a young gull celebrating his flying skills after lunch

The gulls were about, hoping for anything dropped, but they didn’t bother us
We saw lots of young Herring Gulls

John went to see the Oban Distillery while Lynne did some shopping. 

Had a look inside at what was on offer. One can nose the whiskies free of charge. With this long drive, no tasting

Ouch! Prices of whisky in Scotland are very scary for South Africans. R1850 per bottle
We don’t have the nearly 50% duty the Scots have and so can buy it for much less here

Fishing boats in the harbour alongside the Green Shack, waiting to go out to get more

John spotted this lovely Labrador in the harbour; they love water
He swam from one side of the small bay to the other

The ferry and the hill behind. It must be a lovely place to live. Well, in the summer....

Off to the Isles

Our AirBnB accommodation in Rhu. Our friendly and helpful landlord was the local fire chief
and we invited him to come and visit Cape Town in our summer fire season
With global warming and the recent serious forest fires in Europe,
the Scottish fire service is getting training on how to deal with forest fires now; they do have many forests
Our apartment was the two windows in front of the cars. To get here, you pass the famous Gareloch Naval base

This is very close to Glasgow, perhaps half an hour's drive and Glaswegians come here to relax
Lynne had heard many happy stories of family holidays in this region
Loch Lomond is just over the hill and a very short drive away. We went, we saw, we went home. It was wet

OK it did stop for a while and we could just see the other side. We sat and ate our lunch in the car

Balloch Castle is on the other side of the loch; we thought, if we get a sunny day .....
But we didn’t, so after two nights in Rhu we were off to visit Glasgow, Lynne's mother and her family's home town
Sadly, no family is left there anymore

What to do in Glasgow on a sunny day? Visit Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
It is in one of the many spectacular Victorian public buildings in Glasgow, which has many art galleries

There is a large eclectic collection in this Museum
Here is an early hill climb car with two engines
Behind it an exhibition of fashion through the ages

It is a really magnificent building with such power and presence
There is a huge pipe organ at the end of the main hall. Entry is free and they depend on donations

Queuing for a welcome cup of tea; museums always make one thirsty
The Café is famous because Rennie McIntosh designed it
and you can still see some of the  original chairs, walls, panels and other embellishments in the Museum 

Lots of quirky exhibits

including a Spitfire, hung over Elephants and a Giraffe

and sadly, just as we headed upstairs to see some very famous paintings, we were told the museum was closing
Time goes so fast when you are having fun

so we headed off to our AirBnB apartment for the night. Third story, the balcony to the right

Comfortable lounge, well equipped kitchen

and a nice bedroom. But, sadly, no hot water at all
We were just there for the night before heading off to England for our next stop in the Lake District
All content ©  John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus
Posted by MENU at 8:00 am 0 comments
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