Escape to Heaven!
We took off four days last weekend. It was
Heritage Day on Sunday and thence a long weekend, so we escaped to the Hemel
and Aarde valley with good friends to relax, eat good food, try out some fine
wineries and just kuier. Oh, and
catch up on some sleep. Kind friends who are travelling abroad had lent us
their cottage. The weather was not good, it was mostly bitterly cold with a
little sunshine on Sunday; we burnt a lot of wood on the open fireplace but
came home very ready to get back into the mad media season
We left at 10 on Friday morning
and headed first to Oak Valley Winery and the Pool Room where we tasted some
wines with Cape Wine Master Brad Gold, their keen young marketing manager and
the lovely Steph, who is behind the tasting counter should you call in
We loved the new label on the
Groenlandberg 2016 Pinot Noir. It is the mountain range behind the farm and the
Pinot is grown on the highest slopes. This Pinot has finesse, is deep with good
fruit and so enjoyable. They also have the 2014 Sound of Silence Pinot Noir,
different, more mature and full of flowers and berries, also very good
Oak Valley have just rebranded
their wines with some lovely new labels, each which has a story about the farm.
You can buy this box with each of the six wines in it, and they are all wrapped
in a tissue paper map of the farm. The Stone and Steel Riesling has no terpenes
in it and is a very good Riesling
The previous labels were classic;
these are softer and more modern and it has increased sales a lot
Time for some lunch. A chilly
day meant we sat inside; on a better day, it is lovely eating around the pool
Chef Gordon Manuel has put
together a good menu with many of the ingredients sourced from the farm and
local suppliers and farms. It changes regularly. The farm has its own free
range pork and beef. He sent us an amuse of his fresh mussels in broth. Such
plump mussels in a really good creamy wine broth with some chilli and coriander
green oil, served with sourdough bread and olive oil. Lynne is cautious with
mussels; she was converted
Our friends are vegetarians, so
they had the grilled vegetables with the savoury chocolate mole sauce as their
starter
and beetroot gnocchi as a main course
Lynne ordered the deep fried
calamari as her main course and was surprised when they came in a leafy salad
John ordered his favourite Pool
Room dish, the huge Oak Valley Beef Burger with superb hand cut chips. We
helped him a little with them
and for dessert was a Crème
Brulée
or a very good mini tart tatin,
followed by Espressos
The bright yellow weaver birds
were waiting for us on the lake side at de Werf
and the yellow-billed ducks
The next day, Saturday, we
ventured out to Newton Johnson and did a tasting of their splendid wines. Our
friends were so impressed with the quality of all of them. We love making
converts to the valley wines
The Tasting menu
They are also making beer, so
Lynne decided we needed three of each for the weekend. The brand name is quite
naughty; say it out loud. The Enlightened Ale is very well made, light and
quaffable. The Dutch Courage IPA is quite dark and malty, more like a stout
than an IPA for Lynne but a good beer, easy to drink. These cost R30 a 450ml bottle
We had not booked for lunch as
they were full, but chef Rickey Broekhoven wanted to cook something for us
while we were there
and made these deep fried wings of yellowtail. These are
the fins and the meat from just behind the gills which are usually cut off and
put into stock or discarded. Rather like pig or beef cheeks, behind the fin is
a lovely nugget of fish, soft and gelatinous and so good. He made an aioli
dipping sauce to go with these. Wow
For our vegetarians, he made
some cauliflower popcorn with a spicy coating
The trees in the valley are all
bursting into leaf and blossom
A young yellow bishop weaver
"in transitional plumage" according to an experienced birder friend
of ours. He does look a bit fierce with that huge sharp beak!
Lavender time
In the trees next to the house
are bird feeders so we see a lot of lovely birds. This Cape weaver had just
been indulging
It is such a beautiful valley
And then the clouds came in
The daisies all closed up
The watsonias were looking
beautiful
High in a yellow flowering tree
On a nature walk we found these
perfect little flowers. Like faces with frilly hats. Only about 4mm across
And sterretjies just beginning
to flower
Relaxing with the crossword on
the stoep
Arum season too
And hundreds of waterblommetjies
in the lakes
Looks so pretty here and would
be good in a lamb potjie too
Everything is bursting into
flower
Sunset over the sea at the end
of the valley
Next morning Lynne spotted this
spoonbill landing and sent John off with his camera
The Hadidas led it away
Sunday, despite the gloomy
weather, we ventured out to Domaine de Dieux which has fantastic views. That is
Ataraxia's Greek chapel styled tasting room on the hill on the right, with
Creation below the dam
Domain de Dieux's little
pavilion makes a perfect tasting room
We had a great tasting of all
their wines, starting with the award winning MCC Bubbly. Megan Parnell sowed us the 2016 Chardonnay, made by Kevin Grant
and the delicious, Bandol-like Petit Rosé
Sunday was National Braai Day, so we did
mainly vegetarian things, with a little Boerewors on the side for us two.
Stuffed mushrooms, grilled aubergines and courgettes, braai broodjies stuffed
with two cheeses and spring onions, not forgetting the sweet corn. We drank
rather a lot of wine. In fact we must confess that we drank nearly all the wine
we took with us. But we weren’t going anywhere that day
Monday dawned brighter after
all the rain overnight and off we went to Ataraxia which had been closed on
Sunday. We drove through his immaculate vineyards
Geometric patterns in the trees and vines
Owner/winemaker Kevin Grant built this quirky tasting room to resemble
a Greek church on a hill. The views are almost as spectacular as the wines.
Ataraksi in Greek means "a state of serene calmness"
We tasted all his wines and
bought some Serenity - our wine of the week this week. He has a just-released
2017 Sauvignon Blanc which is unwooded and has classic notes with good finesse;
a 2016 Chardonnay, as Kevin says "unapologetically" wooded and full; and
a classic, lightly wooded, elegant Pinot Noir. We suspect his wine at the Cape
Winemakers Guild this weekend - Under the Gavel Chardonnay 2016 will do very
well indeed and it deserves to. We tasted it in August and were very impressed.
We will be there on Saturday
Another view of the glorious
Hemel and Aarde valley in spring, this time looking from Ataraxia over Creation
wine estate toward Caledon. It really is a beautiful place. We went to Creation
next for a paired tasting with lunch. We will write about it in full next week
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017
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