Time
for another wine tour, this time to Constantia. High Constantia has great wines
and also great bird watching facilities on its deck and in the garden. Our
friend Terry is a Twitcher, so it was the obvious place to start
In the small cellar, you can see them readying for
harvest
Out on the porch is the perfect place to taste
wine and watch the local bird life
We started our tasting with High Constantia's two
excellent Sauvignon Blancs, presented by Sannalie
The Silverhurst 2013 and the High Constantia 2014,
both fresh and lively
The trees are always full of birds, These are Common wax
bills
The pond attracts many birds and the trees are
full of feeders
We really liked the High Constantia Merlot 2007.
Owner David van Niekerk does not release his wines immediately, so they go on
sale ready for drinking. Great if you don't have a cellar but want to drink
mature wines
An acrobat squirrel getting his morning drink!
Then we were off to Steenberg for a long lunch at
Bistro 1682 and an extensive tasting in their tasting room
We appreciated their Disabled Parking sign
This was our first
opportunity to taste Executive Chef, Kerry Kilpin's food and it was a very good
experience. We will return; we liked her fresh and appealing food very much.
And, when it's cooler, we would love to sit outside next to the water features
Steenberg GM John Loubser, very kindly, brought us cold glasses from the tanks of unfermented Robertson chardonnay juice and juice which had been fermenting for a day
The menu. We had nice cold glasses of the Graham Beck Chenin Blanc
for John and their Klein Steenberg Sauvignon Blanc for Lynne, both excellent
matches for our lunch. Terry, our driver, had a soft drink
Line fish of the day was herb crusted angel fish
served with coriander yoghurt, a chickpea and olive ragout, curry oil and
tomatoes
Lynne had the crisp and well spiced Calamari as a
main course. It was a delight. It is served on avocado and comes with Harissa
mayo and is topped with a sweet, crisp sesame tuile
John enjoyed the open steak sandwich, medium rare,
with a Chimichurri hollandaise, sundried tomato pesto, crispy onion rings and
excellent crispy chips – too good not to succumb to temptation, but he did avoid the bun
After lunch we ventured into the tasting room, where we found GM John Loubser and his colleague Abram Mahlangu
and enjoyed a comprehensive tasting, ably assisted
by Jennifer Holmes
We first met Jennifer when she worked at
Cape Point Vineyards
The tasting counter is 'crowned' by a mural of
white and red glass grapes
©
John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2016
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