Never one to linger on the highways and byways, the Hungry Man is getting a new vehicle to get to the plates and between glasses with more alacrity. He was therefore in a slightly melancholic mood over lunch at the Guardian Peak cellar, though the ludicrously picturesque views soon cured both of us of any ill feeling.
Continue reading ‘Guardian Peak. 28 June 2006′
Monthly Archive for June, 2006
The Cape vintages 1995 to 1999 offer some that are considered amongst the best of the decade – the famous 1995 and the decent 1997, as well as the warm 1998 which has produced incredible wines like Kanonkop’s Paul Sauer 1998 which was still in great nick late last year and no doubt still is. When it comes to the illustrious Rust en Vrede Estate red blend, the picture is somewhat different. Continue reading ‘Rust en Vrede vertical’
Hartenberg is a winery with a commendable record of producing quality wines across its range – and at prices that have always been fair. While the former virtue even goes as far as their continued support of riesling, currently a deeply unfashionable white grape, the latter, their reasonable pricing, will now be challenged by the recent launch of three new “super premium” wines. Continue reading ‘Hartenberg launches “super premiums”’
I came across this very interesting account by a winemaker. He’s discussing how to stop fermentation and there is the traditional sulphur addition, or the addition of pimaricin – a common food additive (often used in yoghurts). But pimaricin turns out to be – an antibiotic. Read his account of how it works and decide whether you want to eat stuff with pimaricin in it. To think that yoghurt is supposed to be good for digestion… but not all use this preservative.
A minor revelation that was ignited by recent forays into the world of coffee, the bean and its roasting and grinding: for obvious reasons, chocolate also tends to be marked in quality by the sensitivity of the roast. Like the coffee bean, chocolate beans are roasted – the commercial stuff in big batch machines, the good stuff in smaller machines and with more control and interpretation of the particular bean’s character.
Commercial coffees are often over-roasted to allow them to maintain a robust “coffee” flavour for longer, but the downside is that they often develop associated bitter, dry and tannic notes as the beans are pushed out of the flavour sweet-spot. The same can be said for chocolate – I recently tasted the range of high-end Felchlin Grand Cru chocolates. Five examples that come from five places of origin, each roasted and conched in order to express its personality. Each piece did have remarkably different flavours, subtle to be sure, but distinct. None was harsh or dry, not even the 72% Arriba from Ecuador. The next night I tried an Italian dark organic chocolate (70%) that Woolies is selling as a generic and the crucial difference was in the tannic dryness and harshness of the after-palate. It has masses of flavour, but the dominant is certainly this harshness – surely the result of over-roasting.
Aside from appetites that regulate the tick and tock of our days, the Hungry Man and I share the same marque of motor vehicle, and my car’s recalcitrant side window was reason enough to meet at the dealer where HM also left his car from some TLC. We set off to the nearest spot with the potential to satisfy an average lunch hunger.
What a colossal disappointment. This wine was heralded at release, as was the Cab, but after six years the wine is a dead duck. Promising nose of meaty merlot with some cedar complexities devolves into a hard, tannic and unappealing mouthful of unbalanced wine. It even had a faulty spritziness. If you have any of it in your cellar, I’d send it back to the producer for a refund.
Caveau, the wine bar on Heritage Square, recently held its first wine festival, the theme being blended reds. Staged inside the courtyard of the square in the company of one of the oldest (if not the oldest) vine in South Africa, the ambience was pleasantly civilised.
Until the debate on Cape blends and the place that pinotage has in said blends. Continue reading ‘Cape (?) blends’
In a slighter year, a refined and most drinkable wine that proves how pleasant thoughtful wine can be – not life changing, but certainly life enhancing. Drunk over a robust lunch with a friend who used it as a description of a wine that you would not be able to wow the world with (lacking structure and weight, he described it); it was nevertheless a lithe, balanced and enjoyable drink with a good moderate alcohol. At R130 form the restaurant I certainly wish there were more honest wines like these at lower prices, but I was very happy to have it instead of some turgid concoction that clamors for my attention. It is wines like these that will have people drinking and enjoying wine – surely the most solid foundation for wine culture.
Another contender in the latest blend fad to sweep through the Cape winelands, and this one is interesting in that the cellar has whacked 11% viognier into the blend, quite a way up from the usual 4-6-ish percent. Yet the wine sits in your glass at a respectable 13.9 % alcohol, not the big and unctuous levels that one usually associates with this blend and its full ripe, full sweet viognier. So what happened? The notes show that the viognier did come in at 28 degrees Balling, so very ripe and with a high potential alcohol. But the shiraz component was harvested earlier than most shiraz, at 24 degrees Balling.
The result is a wine with less of that perfumed, even cloying viognier character. As this blend goes, it is likable though I have my deep reservations about these blends – if you have good shiraz, use it on its own, don’t pep it up with the florid exuberance of viognier. And the Pierneef? One of South Africa’s celebrated landscape artists, the owners of the farm (Rupert family) have the largest collection. This is their “ultra premium” range, above (?) the “classic” range. How we hype our adjectives.
It’s a real luxury when you can launch your new red by inviting guests to a lunch at La Colombe (recently voted one of the world’s 50 best restaurants) where each course is then tailored to showcase the wine. It’s pretty seductive stuff, and a sure-fire way to get people to leave with a pretty positive impression. In this case, the reason is that La Colombe is one of three fine eating establishments on the wine farm Constantia Uitsig, home to said red wine.
Continue reading ‘Constantia Red 2003′
It’s taken me a while to write this one, many events, eatings and random liveliness got in the way, but it’s well worth recording – not so much as a Hungry Man epistle but as a notable restaurant visit.
It’s not that this place in the small heart of Pringle Bay is unknown, in fact it has a staunch following of locals and “in-the-know” Capetonians who like to think of it as their little secret. Since the place only accommodates 24-odd people, it’s easy to pretend exclusivity. Continue reading ‘Hook, line and sinker 28.05.06′
Travelling the east coast on one of my bi-yearly visits to the restaurants of the coastal towns of Knysna and Plettenberg Bay – very popular stops for visitors and therefore important for the restaurant guide. But we are behind schedule due to the weather.
And the surf. The sea claimed a solid day of our attention, and by the time we got to the first restaurant, Lush in Knysna, we were very hungry indeed. Knysna is also home to the Loerie festival, otherwise known as the pink Loerie for its gay credentials and could be that Lush was designed for this market, it’s OTT and very theatrical – red hues, curlicued wall paper, feathers and studded leather but rather tasteful even though it may not sound like it.
Of course the proof is really in the eating, and the prices are at Cape Town levels, R100 for mains. Once we had negotiated the near pre-vocal waiter who was in dire need of the most basic training, we encountered ordinary starters, greased by stale olive oil. Not promising. The mains did come to some form of rescue, clean meats and sides that had not been given too much of a work-over and were the better for it. A lesson in the less is more, especially from kitchens that are stretched just to stay consistent. A good wine along the way, without vintage (as is the wont of the wine list), Marcel de Reuck Shiraz.
Breakfast was at the legendary Ile de Pain. A masterclass in quality and integrity, this is South Africa’s home of world-class bread, decent coffee and plates of tasty food that consistently over-deliver for the price.
The owner and baker extraordinaire (he would say ordinaire, in reality-based world) couldn’t shake our hands. He’s recently taken up surfing and banged it up against some rocks.
Recently, I mentioned some of the comments from the judges at this year’s Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show, specifically their majority opinion that the industry needs to adopt screw cap on a larger scale, notably for the fresh white wines and anything that is meant to be enjoyed within one or two years.
The judges raised a few other points that had me in agreement. Carrie Adams, of Norman Goodfellows wine shop in Johannesburg, made it clear that the high alcohols in many wines are a major problem. Her customers shy away from these boozy wines, for, in her words, “you can’t share a bottle at lunch and go back to work; neither can you drive home legally”. Continue reading ‘Big alcohol’
After all the eating and drinking, one of the real pleasures (and vital for the next round) is sleep. Are you getting enough? Is there ever enough? Want to know how to do it? (you’d be surprised, judging by the number of insomniacs I know). Try this profile and find out how well you snooze.
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