Wyn and Wors

A good title will help sell most things.  Alliteration adds activity and action.  So if you are going to have an event with Shiraz, what would you do to spice it up?  How to pick up on the peppery notes so characteristic of the varietal?  What is spicy without being overwhelming?  Salami!  Or it can be.  So Shiraz and Salami.  That’s a catchy title, if a little too specific.  How many salami producers are there in the Cape?  Shiraz and sausages.  That is what I would have called it, but the organisers clearly thought that boerewors will be associated with the event.  The quality of wors in this part of the world is below par, so maybe that decided it.  They went for the upmarket Shiraz and Charcuterie.  How do you say that?   Sharkooturee apparently.  When given a choice I prefer not to pronounce words of French origin, because getting it right seems pretentious and getting it wrong makes you seem uneducated.  Except buffet.  I pronounce it as in Warren.  Always. 

So we went to the “Feast of Shiraz and charcuterie” at Hartenberg.  Where the focus was Shiraz and cold meats.  Having some time before the start, we visited a few wine farms. I find it nearly impossible to drive past Villiera and why would you?  The wine is so good and priced so well.  Tasted all the bubbles, stocked up on the dinky bottles, and tasted some Gewürztraminer and Riesling which also took a ride back to the stock room.  We tasted Port and noble late harvest, with the port going home for a very short stay with the navigator.  Since my last visit with thecyclists, the tasting room changed.  It is more open, modern, professional and less intimate.  Service remains as good as ever.  They don’t rush you through the range and, unusual in Stellenbosch and usual for them, they don’t charge for tasting despite the vast quantities of students that must drink there.

Lured by a MCC tasted at the overcrowded Stellenbosch wine festival last year we went to Mooiplaas. Up into the hills past Kaapzicht on a gravel road you find yourself in real farm country.  The beaten track lies somewhere off in the distance.  The tasting room is in an atmospheric converted stable.  Some of the original walls are visible and the wine served on the troughs.  The troughs are now glass covered, which would have annoyed the horses.

Service was very friendly even if she had some interesting thoughts on the continent Pinotage hails from.  The entire range is not for tasting, including the bubbles, so it was bought on memory.  One interesting aspect was the influence tasting the difference of wines poured with an aerator.  They make a “chocolate” Merlot and coffee Pinotage.  I couldn’t taste the chocolate at all, but the aerator made the coffee flavours more pronounced than without it.  An untasted Chenin joined the bubbles for the trip home.    

And so the main event.  In the cellar at Hartenberg there was a small stand on a barrel every 3 meters.  Some sold meat products, some cheese a bread with filling stand, but mostly wine.  Normally just one wine per stand, but these were heavy hitters of the Shiraz world. To name a few: Boekenhoutskloof, Thelema, with winemaker Rudi Schultz’s own, Rust en Vrede as well as Cirrus, Luddite (with sausages) and Mullineux (bought earlier in the year).  New to me was Kleinood from Tamboerskloof and wine from Boschkloof. Others took some pictures here and here. In general, the best Shiraz in the country all in one place.

At Moreson’s bread and wine a very enthousiastic Niel Jewell , sliced thin samplers, taught a lot about cured meats and sausages.  As an aside I saw how much a bottle of bubbles from Mr Bubbles (Peter Ferreira) was worth in sausage.  It is a lot!  And the sausage is very good.  Had good chat with the gentle genius Nico van der Merwe, he of his own name and Saxenburg.  A very likeable man, just like his brother at Major’s Hill.  In the end the only wines I bought was his own label 2006 and Saxenburg 2007.  He described the Saxenburg wines as lunch and his own as dinner.  With lunch being lighter and easier drinking than dinner.

Soon the noise masquerading as music got too much and we set the compass for Stellenbosch central.  After a few abortive attempts at locating De Oude Bank whilst in the car we took to Stellenbosch by foot.  Much easier on my nerves.  Clearly this town pre-dates motor cars and from their behaviour so does some of the pedestrians.   We eventually found the bakery.  Very apologetically they told us most of the bread was sold out.  We decided on drinks only and then the food of others enticed us to order a platter of remaining breads, cheeses and pestos.  All produced on site or sourced from small producers.  I had InneSense lemonade for the very first time. It is good, but not as nice as Frankie’s. Although very tempted by Eric van Heerden’s Triggerfish on draught, self control won the day.  Any place with Triggerfish on tap, deserves another visit.  So I will be back here, and maybe for the Shiraz as well.

72 hours of Sumptuousness

In a case of coals to Newcastle The Runner dragged me to Hermanus.  The town famous for whales.  For 14 years I have lived 300km from it, yet somehow have not been there.  Maybe some subconscious trepidation at encountering a modern day Ahab prevented me.  I’ve heard about the traffic jams up Sir Lowry’s Pass and wondered what sort of martyr would endure that on a Friday afternoon.  From now on, a martyr like me. The views, the wine, the food and the company came together to create probably the best 72 hours of my life.

The Views

There is a place down the coast, the exact location I will not reveal so as not to have it trampled by tourists.  Other tourists.  From the balcony there is a view across the bay where you can spot whales in season frolicking (or feeding) quite close to shore.  It is not whale season and I did not have mirror, therefore no whale spotting for me.  Never before did I take 2 hours on a cup of coffee.  The views are just beautiful.  No amount of adjectives will do it justice.  Beautiful will have to do.  

  My late father used to describe the sea as “Foul, loud and it reeks”⁽¹⁾. I had to test this, so I ended up on a bench next to the ocean. This is the view I had to endure. In between gazes I was re-reading Dangerous Davies whilst waiting for The Runner. She was off doing that incomprehensible thing she does: Running. Slowly it set on me ⁽²⁾ this is why people endure the traffic.

So that is the view from the bottom.  They also have views from the top.  This I only realised during day 2, because they hide the mountains in the dark and we arrived quite late.  A nicely tarred road leads up to several lookout points.  From here you can look down on the sprawling tourist town, or lift your gaze for something more edifying.  If you have a driver who is not scared of gravel road you get to a piece of Hamilton Russell Vineyards normally only seen by the trial bikers.  Although I had visions of tires bursting on the rocks and having to hike down, she was quite confident (and correct) that all will go well. 

View from the top

 Having an intrepid driver holds big advantages, especially when the navigator got us onto dirt roads due to a dislike of “travelling the same road twice”.  I will not needlessly travel to Greyton the scenic way again, but I am glad my misadventure in navigation took us that way.

In the far distance mountains rise in blue grey splendour.  The gravel road winds it’s way through rolling hills planted to barley and canola.  As it descends into dale you lose sight of the peaks and your whole world becomes farm.  Cresting the next hill the mountains are suddenly a lot closer and more impressive.  They are no longer just shades of grey.  More greens become visible as the trees take on definition.  Every time it is revealed it impresses more until finally you round a bend and spot the village nestling on the slopes.   Quaint villages like this nestle.  They simply cannot do anything else.  Across a babbling brook ⁽³⁾ we return to tar to enter the tree lined streets. It is a pretty place, this Greyton. On some streets the branches arch over the road. You can cycle or hike in the mountains, but I suspect a lot of just sitting and watching the beauty happens here.

The Food

At Klein River Cheesery they have a great playpen.  In daylight it is full of children on slides and swings.  I am sure that at night the cows use it.  How else to explain the great cheese?  The cows must give happy milk.  I like the smoked one best.  This comes from the cows that are too cool to play on the swings.  They stand next to the fence smoking, thinking they are superior.  The Gruyere is another favourite of mine, luckily available at my local supermarket.  They also have a very nice shop that, besides the cheese, sells other artisanal products.  The best find was wasabi flavoured chips from Crispies.  Even better than wasabi flavoured peanuts.

Continuing in a cheesy vein, what about a mostly cheese breakfast?  At the Hermanuspietersfontein Saturday market there is a cheese guy.  A self admitted ex-advertising man has a table full of cheese and a couple of plates of ham-like meat.  We put ourselves in his hands, figuratively, as to how to fill the breakfast plates with a hard cheese preference for the boy-plate and a runny cheese preference for the girl plate.  At R50 a plate we thought “This is going to be an expensive breakfast!”  Yet strangely satisfying and no need for extra food.  A good start to the day helped along with some coffee and wine.  I am still trying to find that elusive good breakfast wine.

Dining at Season Restaurant is a worthwhile experience.  We were slightly taken aback at dropping the average age of the patrons by about 20 years, but as no one took out their teeth during dinner, it didn’t bother us long.   Judging by the events in the kitchen, seen through a semi opaque window, I was not alone in eating the steak special.  Here, for the first time, I saw the bobotie spring roll on a menu.  Apparently a standard in this part of the world.  Across the table from me a curry was inducing happy noises.  A bottle of Raka Sangiovese at only R4 above farm price (to check on the quality of the untasted one acquired earlier the day) and some Hermanuspietersfontein Posmeester accompanied the meal.  Inducing yet more happy noises.

Lemon Butta.  I detest names like this.  Puns I like, but deliberate misspellings ⁽⁴⁾ annoys me.  So it was with some trepidation that I mounted the stairs to this irritatingly monikered restaurant.  After a short wait upstairs in their bar with a view (slightly diminished in the dark), my opinion of the place changed.  The wine list is very good.  Not just the great local stuff, but Springfield as well.  The selection really impressed.  So, my prejudice would have tripped me up again.

The menu impressed even more.  We came here for sushi, it’s been two days since The Runner last had raw fish and you could see it was starting to hurt.  A slight shaking of the hands, nervously looking around, making inappropriate comments.  It was time for her fix.  I had my stomach set on the wasabi glazed tuna steak.  I like tuna steak and eat it far too infrequently.  Unfortunately the whales ate all the tuna so I settled on a mixed tempura platter.  A delight.   The owner remembered my name from giving it to book.  A nice touch.  Graffiti on the walls can be a bit off, but here it seems like genuine appreciation for the good food, friendly and efficient service of, uh, Lemon Butta.  Like the ex-governor of California, I will be back.

If one needed an unpretty reason to visit Greyton, Von Geusau Chocolates provides it.  Sold next door to Oak and Vigne where very good coffee and delicious chocolate croissants reign.  I have a soft spot for croissants.  The size of half my rump I would say.  A very big soft spot then.  The range of chocolates is vast.  My favourites are the ones with rock salt and the one with crunchy bits.  Besides slabs they also produce those little squares jobbies with fillings and stuff.  Words fail me here, so I will stick to bloody lovely! to describe them.

The Drink

The main attraction of the trip was the wine.  The chance to taste the highly acclaimed Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Hemel and Aarde valley in their birthplace appealed to me.    So naturally the first stop then had to be a brewery. 

Birkenhead is a long established micro brewery just outside of Stanford.  The beers over the years have increased in quality and consistency so always worth a shot these days.  We had a taster set (pictured) for R20.  The Honey blonde ale is my favourite and probably their best seller.  Snakebite, the Ale, Stout and Brandy blend, is a bit all over the place with flavours, but I bought a six-pack.  It will make for good winter time drinking.  

From the brewery it was a short drive to Raka.  I knew their wines from shows like Wine-X and am glad to report that their entire range is worthwhile.  The cellar is next to the road, which makes it easy to get to.  We sat in the sun and looked across at the burnt mountainside.  Earlier the year large fires devastated a lot of the area, sparing the vines though.  The first wines to book a trip home were 2011 Chenin, 2011 Viognier and 2010 Sangiovese.  The latter, as stated earlier, bought untasted for eating with Italian food.  Friendly service, good prices and above all, good wine makes this one to put on your list of wineries to visit. 

Bouchard Finalyson was the winery I most wanted to visit.  For years I tasted with pleasure the Kaaimansgat Chardonnay at wine shows.  Never bought a bottle before, but as we entered the tasting cellar, they had a sale.  Great quality wines, no tasting fee, no pretentious snobbery.  It was fairly busy with just one woman on duty, so very efficient and business like.  Slowly we worked through the entire range and in the end bought??? Kaaimansgat Chardonnay of course.  Also some Sauvignon Blanc and a 97, 03 and 08 Pinot Noir. These reds destined for a taste-off trying to answer the question: Does age matter?

Where Bouchard Finlayson has no views in the cellar, but lots of atmosphere, Newton Johnson reverses that situation.  Chardonnay sold out, Sauvingon not great, by now I am all Pinoted out, so best purchase here?  Chocolates assembled from Madagascar, Venezuela and Sao Tome.

In valley of double barrelled wineries Bartho Eksteen had to choose a special name to stand out.  Hermanuspietersfontein is the old, full name of the town.  He also makes very good wine, so he gets away with a name that goes round the bottle.  Prices cover most of the spectrum, but concentrates on the high end.  Deliberately so, we learn.  They go for a price that just sells out so not to have a dry period.  Good problem to have.  Bought some Arnoldus, Martha and Sauvignon Blanc, including a 03, continuing with the plan to find wines like me.  White, South African and just past their prime. 

Honourable mention here of the one wine I took along for the ride.  A Muratie Vintage Port from the previous century.  Prominent tenderpreneurs were still failing woodwork when these grapes were harvested.  What a lovely wine, which due to tiredness, caution and other incomprehensibles I drank mostly on my own.  Still two bottles left in stock, will savour them on a good day.

It all came together at Creation.  The Views, the Food and the Wine.  I had probably the best wine tasting of my life here.  Except for the obvious tasting out of Claudia Schiffer's belly button it will be difficult to improve on the Creation experience.  I should have booked.  The place was filled to the gills on that overcast Saturday and afterwards I understood why.  Our tasting needs were accommodated in the overflow mezzanine area and a more serendipitous wine event is difficult to imagine.

A few couples were seated in various unmatched chairs and sofas.  The lovely lady from Worcester delivered each wine in its designated Riedel glass. I remain unconvinced that a different glass for each wine is necessary to enjoy it properly, but the logistics of fetching the glasses led to long intervals between tastings.  During these intermissions we took the opportunity to talk to some of our companions.  And we just clicked.  Brought together by our fascination with wine.  From the restaurant the chocolate, olive and bread platters were delivered to make food and wine pairings possible.  One thing I found interesting was that everyone had a designated driver that held back on the drinking and except in our case it was the man.  But I was spitting, which confused the others.  Why would the non-driver not take advantage of the good wine on offer?  The concept of designated buyer was new to them.  Although the designated buyer cannot endanger others, as the driver can, the bank balance can be damaged by purchases made under the influence. 

After tasting the entire range, a space opened up in the restaurant.  So I went through it again.  This time each wine comes paired with a little snack.  Canapés apparently.  I am used to a hit rate of these food and wine pairings of about 50%.  Here most worked. The one that worked best was the chorizo espanadita Syrah combination.   Now espanadita is a rare kind of word.   Even Professor Google shows only 14 references to it and all of the food ones are linked to the menu at Creation.  It is a small pie with chorizo and salsa inside also known as empanada.  Pie as in Cornish, not the Springbok pie that refuelled the driver across the table. 

And so at the upper end of the Hemel and Aarde valley, famous for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, I found my Sauvignon Blanc grail.  One that smells unmistakably like guava.  I don’t care if some wine writers find this undesirable esters from fermentation.  I love it!  For the three years since I first tasted the Saint Clair from New Zealand I searched local wines to try and reclaim that ecstasy.  The 2010 Arendsig tasted like that for a while, but the guava disappeared after a month or so.  By the time I got the 2011 there was nothing like it.  Both the 2012 Diemersdal (the normal version) and Altydgedacht have it, but time will tell if it will last. It was the 2011 vintage of Creation which to me means it will retain the smell for a while.  Thus keeping me happy for a long time.

Loot in the boot!

From now on my leisure time will be measured against these three days.  Filled as they were with the building blocks of hedonism: food, wine and afternoon naps. 

(1)    “Dis vuil, dit raas en dit stink” were his exact words.

(2)    If it happened at the other end of the day it would have dawned on me.

(3)    It stands to reason that if the village nestles, the brook will babble.

(4)    nite, lite and other shite