It’s been a while, Darling!

The only picture in a recount of a wine trip, beer bottles!

The closest wine district to my house is Darling.  For me the grape that does the best there is Sauvignon Blanc.  It so happens that it is also my favourite wine flavour.⁽¹⁾ If you were the thinking type (and let’s face it, you wouldn’t be reading this if you were not) you would wrongly conclude that I visit the area regularly.  Not sure why.  Maybe because it is easy to do, I don’t.  Please don’t think of me as the type who likes to do something difficult.  I am a big fan of easy. ⁽²⁾  Perhaps it is the tendency to overlook things on your doorstep.  Last winter I went with The Neighbour and I have not been back since.

Last weekend I went with friends who have never been wine tasting before.  So I could behave myself all sage like.  They knew about olives, which helped as all I know is that they go well with anchovies on pizza. The first place we stopped is just outside of Darling, called Alexanderfontein, trading as Darling Olives.  We were treated to a tutored olive product tasting, including bath salts.  Tastes like chicken.  The olive oil smelled like a freshly mowed lawn and that unlocked a lot of needless vernal memories. 

Olives were presented as olive salt, olive paste, olive chocolate, olive bath salt, olive soap and strangely, olives.  I now know about green olives, black olives and understand the difference between Calamata olives and Kalamata olives ⁽³⁾.  Bought some olive chutney.  There were also some yogurt balls rolled in different spices, living in a flask of olive oil.  Intriguing that, but a bit too exotic for me.  

Down the hill and into the town properly.  Up another hill and we come to Ormonde, where they sell Alexanderfontein wine?  Haven’t figured this one out yet.  Good stuff here.  The She-Friend started tasting Jay’s fluid in the whites.  A peculiar problem not experienced before.  This continued throughout the day.  I have heard that medicine can influence taste.  I hope it is this.  Strangely, it only affected the whites, which she normally prefers.  Here I bought enough wine for them to give me a magnum of red blend as a thank you.  Against type, the wines that got into the back of the Honda were mostly red.  Shiraz, Shiraz led blend and Bordeaux blend with a few bottles of the white blend. 

Arguably the best estate in the Darling district is Groote Post.  Brilliant winery, brilliant wines.  It was extremely busy, but we still received very good service.  One of the tasting room guys remembered me from somewhere.  Or perhaps my “Tastes of the Cape Wine Routes” T-shirt from various wine shows or perhaps the last visit.  They even opened a bottle of the noble late harvest (lovely stuff) for us to taste.  Here a gift bottle was also bestowed on us, simply because they saw an undisciplined wine buyer.  Sauvignon Blanc, wooded Chardonnay and Merlot joined the reds in the boot.  Happily part of the home stock is their bubbles, so no need to refill. 

Putting the Honda back on the gravel road (for a few kilometres) we headed towards Marmesbury and Darling Cellars.  I have good memories of this winery.  Way back when, when it was still called Mamreweg they made a Tinta Barocca that was a great bargain.  I broke a corkscrew on a bottle of Groenekloof Sauvignon Blanc of their’s about 10 years ago.  Lots of changes here and a reduction in their line-up, but the prices are still extremely reasonable.  They now make bubbles that came home with me as well as some Sauvignon Blanc to keep it company.  The SB being a descendant of that original Groenekloof. 

Great Sauvignon Blancs to be had in this neck of the woods.  Except, it is not woody.  For some reason I don’t recall it being so bleak either.  In late summer the place looks dreadful.  All browns and sandy coloured.  It was very hot and the harvest just finished.  Now the wait for the release of the 2011 vintage starts.  I'll come back after the rains whenit is pretty again.

By now we were all sick and tired of wine. Beer is what we needed.  So went back to Darling town and visited Evita se Perron.  It is the home of a satirical creation by Pieter Dirk Uys and Uys himself.  My words won’t do it justice, just look it up. 

I can’t describe the service as slow, as it was nonexistent.  To be fair there was a show on at the time.  So we went to Brigs Barn for beer.  They, appropriately, stock the lovely Darling brew.  I finally wrapped my tongue around the ale. Having had the lager last year with The Neighbour.  Lovely stuff this.  Some of it is (probably) made at my favourite brewery and the quality is delightful.  For the first time in my life I tasted sweet potato (patat) chips.  Interesting change to the usual apples of the ground. 

After all this we headed home to watch some disgusting rugby.

The one Darling winery we skipped was Cloof.  The Friends were tired of dry wines so it was important to catch the Darling Cellars before they closed.    Now is as good a time as any to tell the story about the Crucible.  It was another discovery made by the He-Ghanaian towards the end of a alcohol show.⁽⁴⁾  This wine simply stunned us into submission.  The 2003 Crucible from the then up and coming Cloof

It was a discovery shared between a few of us west coasters.  The Lawyer’s housekeeper drank his before he had a chance.  We drank a bottle when the He-Ghanaian got promoted ⁽⁵⁾, we drank it again (a different bottle) when he went to Ghana.  It was a special wine, but we should not have kept it beyond 2007.  But the fame spread and the price went rapidly skywards.  Now it is R450 a bottle.  And not as good as that 2003.

(1)    Cultivar for the wine cognoscenti
(2)    Interpret that any way you want.
(3)    C is the cultivar K the style
(4)    Ardbeg whisky being the other
(5)    To become my boss