Rain comes to a vineyard in Rawsonville
The pot is full to overflowing. Our biggest story
of the week has been a trip to Matjiesfontein, with a half day ride to
Sutherland an its observatory thrown in. Schedules went a bit awry, which is
why this week’s MENU comes to you a little later than we’d like. With the other
activities we have to report, our Matjiesfontein experience was more than we
could fit into this week’s MENU, so we start it here and will continue that
story next week, along with a fairly hectic few days’ stories ahead of us, so
we hope that you will enjoy this first instalment and we’ll do our best to be
on time with the rest of the story
Lynne was catching up with articles for MENU
and feeling a little stressed, so John went to the annual Vinimark trade
tasting on his own. Vinimark is a huge organisation with a very large portfolio
of excellent wine producers. We have been to several wine tastings recently and
have tasted many of the wines on offer at this presentation, so John sampled as
many wines as he could from producers whose wines we haven’t tasted recently
PRO Brian Berkman invited us to lunch this
week at Den Anker in the Waterfront as he is promoting Witlof, also known as
Belgian Endive and to some of us as white Chicory. It is often confused with
the lettuce-like curly endive a.k.a. escarole or chicorée frisée in French
which is grown outdoors
Chenin Blanc Shines its Sunshine on South Africa and the world
- the 2017 STANDARD BANK CHENIN BLANC TOP 10 CHALLENGE WINNERS
This happy grape, with so many different
faces and guises is just the thing to warm up winter and cool down summer. It is the grape that is getting such good
attention overseas for the many wonderful wines being produced and so well
marketed overseas, thanks to the Chenin Blanc Association and Wines of South
Africa. It has the Chenin Blanc Association says, become our calling card,
offering such diversity of expression
August is the time of year when we get to taste
the adjudged best Chenins in the land. The weather is usually showing signs of Spring
but this year we are still in winter and it was a cold and wintry day at
Delaire Graff at the top of Helshoogte pass for the Awards ceremony over a
superb lunch....
We were invited by Michael Pownall of PMR
Group to stay at the famous Lord Milner Hotel in Matjiesfontein. It is in the
deep Karoo, straight up the N1 motorway - direction Johannesburg - and while it
seems further because the countryside keeps changing, it is a really reachable
two and a half hour drive from Cape Town, through some of the most beautiful
scenery of the Western Cape. OK, the Karoo, which you reach after about one and
a half hours, is very dry scrubland which can only sustain some sheep farming
but it is high, the air is clean and pure and the nights sparkle with stars. Even
on a wintry day, there was much to see and enjoy. In summer it will be hot. As
one of John's relatives used to say, "Once you leave the Cape, its miles
and miles of bloody darkest Africa". He obviously had never been to the
real undiscovered Africa, like the Congo! But driving long distances in the
past was very tedious in the slow transport they had then....
This is a quick winter salad with lots of
different textures. Use the best mozzarella you can find, and we don't mean
that plastic stuff that comes in blocks used on pizza. Burrata is a fresh
Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. All you need to do is some
tearing, chopping, crumbling and arranging for a great result. Witlof, white
leaf in Dutch, is also known as Belgian Endive
Delicious Winter Witlof salad
Leaves from one or two witloof - a round
Mozzarella or Burrata cheese - 1 avocado - a roll of mild creamy goats cheese -
20 mini tomatoes - 25 g of roughly chopped walnuts, pecans or pistachio nuts -
Extra virgin olive oil - balsamic reduction - salt and freshly ground black
pepper
Check that the Witlof is not sandy; wash and dry
if it is. Then remove and fan out the leaves of the Witlof on a flat salad
plate. Cut up the Mozzarella and avocado into bite sized pieces and strew them
over the plate, then crumble the coats cheese over the salad. Add the tomatoes
and the nuts. Dress with olive oil and a balsamic dressing or your favourite
French or Italian salad dressing and season to taste. Serves 4
We opened a bottle of Cederberg 2016 Chenin
Blanc from our cellar. Not the prize winning Five Generations mentioned this
week in our story about the Top Ten Chenins, but a lovely expression of this
mutable grape. Cederberg winery is up in the high mountains of the Western Cape
- they call them Wines with Altitude. Winemaker owner of Cederberg, David
Nieuwoudt makes elegant wines in his mountain farm near Citrusdal. This has
benefited from a year in the bottle; its dusty nose has whiffs of minerality
and ripe pears. On the palate, it is lean and clean with limes, grapefruit and
greengages. So good with all sorts of food. Sells for around R104
1st September 2017
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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
If you like the photographs you see in our publications, please look at our Adamastor Photo website for our rate card and samples from our portfolio
Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters and our blogs are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.
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