If you hadn’t yet noticed the appearance of @andUnionwine on The Twitter Global Network of Misinformation & Nonsense and haven’t spotted her at Cape Town’s Favourite & Only Beer Bar, let me be the one to inform you that &UNION has appointed someone in a more wine-focused role. She’s Gemma Smith, a devout wine-lover and recovering sommelier from the fine-dining scene who sports an English accent. And yes, she’s a woman – they finally hired a woman. Since I’m partial to smashing a prego/pulled pork/hot dog with a Berne/Dark Lager/Touro Blonde at &UNION on a regular basis, and do love my wine in indecent quantities, I cornered her to ask some blunt questions…
What exactly are you doing at &UNION?
I’m focusing on artisanal wines, finding the weird and the wonderful, then promoting them, and getting only the best onto the wine list.
So when do people taste these wines if they’re not on the wine list?
We’re doing winemakers evenings to promote them. Saturday nights where we’ll showcase wines that are either very boutique, one-offs or old vintages. That sort of thing.
What’s on the agenda?
There’s going to be lots, all with unforgettable wines, wines people don’t know about. We’ve got a great ‘golden oldie’ evening with winemaker Peter Finlayson from Bouchard Finlayson where we’re drinking vintage Chardonnay, going back to the early 1990′s.
And I’ve noticed you’ve started tastings on certain evenings during the week?
Yup, these are wines that I get to taste as either options for the featured winemaker evenings or potentially taking on the list. A good bottle of wine going to waste is a terrible thing, so we share it out with you guys, the plebs, people who know nothing about wine. (this last bit is directed at me, personally)
What sort of wines?
There are some gems, but I get sworn to secrecy on some, especially when there’s 200 or so bottles left and we don’t want someone else snapping them up.
How do you find these wines?
I spent three years as a sommelier so connected with loads of winemakers. Winemakers get bored easily – they’ve all got a barrel of sneaky something on the side. That’s what we want.
What’s the most interesting you’ve tasted so far?
A wine made from litchis, definitely the strangest wine. (I happened to taste it and found it sweet ‘n nasty!) The most interesting, probably the Elemental Bob wines. They’ve got a Barbera and Shiraz blend. Also a Barbera and Gewurztraminer blend called “The Turkish.” The winemaker, Craig Sheard, is here for our first winemaker evening actually.
So there are some cool vinous benefits to the customer?
Well, we’re doing 3 free tastings of wine per week., including the Saturday winemaker evenings. We’ll be introducing them to new wines they wouldn’t find, the wine list will expand with some more intriguing wines, listing around 40 wines eventually
Traditionally, the public is scared to ask about wine, which is wrong. But, that said, what is the worst thing you’re asked by people?
If you had to pick one wine to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?
If you had to pick one wine to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Okay, fine. German riesling. The JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese ’94.
What does “Wehlener Sonnenuhr” mean to the layman, aka almost everybody else but you in Cape Town?
It’s just the name of the wine. It’s the sundial at the vineyard the wine is named after. And ’94 is a year all South Aficans know pretty well.
What are drinking a lot of at the moment?
Beer actually!
Which of the beers you drinking the most of?
Berne probably.
What do you make of Versus Goliath?
A lunchtime wine – I mean lunchtime beer! People see it as smaller, but then they end up having two. Go figure. It’s the little brother. Everyone needs a little brother.
What are you eating mostly here?
A lot of soup. With bacon, of course.
What’s your middle name?
Elspithelia Horriblis*
I call you ‘The Beer Secretary,’ but what’s your official title?
I haven’t got one yet. I drink beer and wine for a living now, so I guess i’m just a beverage specialist.
Mmm, that title sounds like you need a lab coat.
Well, the initials are also ‘B.S.’
Ah, that makes more sense then.
Find out more about the upcoming wine evenings and other fun happenings at &UNION via their website www.andunion.com.
–
* I might have changed this from the more acceptable and truthful ‘Anne’ for editorial interest reasons.
I’m not really one for habit, generally avoiding it wherever possible. At school I used to sit at different desks just to, er, sit at different desks. I even cycled different routes home for the hell of it. To break the monotony. And if anything is monotonous, it’s school. When it comes to eating, monotony kills. The fun is when you try new things, discover new restaurants, play with recipes and drink new wines. But despite this, I realized I have a serious habit. I’ve found myself eating the salmon tartare on Tuesday’s at Caveau in Heritage Square. Not Tuesday’s on purpose, mind you, just by pure random chance. They do serve it any day from their raw bar, but pretty much every Tuesday for months now, either for lunch or dinner, I’ve had this tartare. And it might be the first habit I’ve picked up that I really enjoy. I’m going to stick to it.
Steak tartare is awesome, but using salmon makes a great alternative, and it’s healthier. Mixed with chopped chives, spring onions, capers, black sesame seeds and other good things, it’s bloody delicious. Served with a side of crispy straw chips and some thin toast to scoop up the salmon with, you’ll wolf it down in a few satisfying minutes. And you won’t feel horribly full or heavy, which is a bonus. Just be warned, a week will go by and you’ll start to crave it. Then you’ll be back there eating it. And if you want to really enjoy yourself, have a glass of refreshingly crisp Jordan Riesling with it. There are far worse ways to spend an afternoon.
Here’s to habits then, well, the good ones.
www.caveau.co.za
1. Sneaking a swig of whisky out the bottle in the middle of the day.
2. Sipping gin & tonic on an international flight.
3. Drinking Zamalek out of a quart while sitting on a beer crate.
4. A big glass of red wine by the fireplace in winter while it pours down outside.
5. That first impulsive tequila you order on Friday at 5.30pm that you know isn’t the last.
6. Moerkoffie at sunrise in the bush somewhere.
7. Quaffing white wine out a plastic cup on the beach for summer sundowners.
8. Sipping rum while on a sailboat somewhere in the tropics.
9. The first sip of ice cold beer around 11am at the Saturday market.
10. Uncorking a bottle of bubbly for no occasion whatsoever.
11. Hot chocolate spiked with Drambuie – and with marshmallows – on the couch under a duvet.
12. A dirty martini with three olives on the toothpick served at a swanky hotel bar.
13. That double Klippies & Coke at the bar in a small town with a name that ends in ‘-fontein.’
14. Squeezing naartjie Energade into your mouth at the Engen on Orange at 4am.*
15. A really spicy Bloody Mary on a Sunday morning while reading the Sunday Times.
16. Drinking good wine overlooking vineyards. Any vineyards.
17. That breakfast orange juice, secretly with vodka in it, drunk at the family gathering.
18. A pint of Bosun’s Bitter on the Lookout Deck in Plett.
19. A well mixed margarita, served on the rocks, in a tumbler with a salted rim (anywhere they can serve this).
20. That unnecessary last bottle of really good wine you opened at the dinner party but barely remember the next day.
–
* – not alcoholic, but drunk due to alcohol.
(Comments below, feel free to add in any moments you feel should be on this list…)
I was lucky enough to crack a nod to the launch of Beaumont’s new flagship red blend, Vitruvian, on Saturday afternoon. It was pissing down in Cape Town so a welcome relief to head out to Botriver and the ‘partly-cloudy with scattered showers’ countryside. Wine launches can be smug affairs where the estate spends the day trying to brainwash the media into believing they’ve released the next cult wine while guests are more interested in the sushi and sharing industry gossip. The latter mostly revolves around which big-name owner is haemorrhaging the most money through their lavish estate but poor sales. Thankfully it wasn’t that type of launch on Saturday, but pleasantly far from it.
The crowd was a friendly mix of wine hacks, winemakers, trade folk and friends of the Beaumont family. The atmosphere was anything but poncy and the farm certainly one of the most naturally beautiful around. By ‘naturally,’ I mean they didn’t need a famous architect or landscaper to come in and ‘create’ the beauty. Winemaker Sebastian Beaumont welcomed everyone by the old mill, which has been restored to working order and incorporates a milling system devised by the Roman engineer, Vitruvius. The Vetruvian Man is the famous Da Vinci artwork based on Vitruvius’ concept of ideal proportions evident in man. Ideal proportions being something all winemakers have top of mind when creating a blend, hence the name of Beaumont’s new wine. At least that’s how I remember it, having already polished two glasses of Chenin Blanc since arrival.
Our first taste of Vitruvian came on the lawn behind the manor house. With a garden of colourful flowers and views over a dam towards the mountains, I could think of many worse places to taste a wine for the first time. This would not affect my judgement of the wine however. Nor would Sebastian’s charming description of the blend, saying, “Mourvedre is the guts, Pinotage is the backbone, Shiraz the muscles and the Cabernet Franc, well, that’s the wild element.” Nor would the friendly waiters that filed out the house, carrying trays of tasty dishes to win my stomach over. Nor the genuine hospitality and genuine welcome feeling everyone commented on.
Well, that’s not entirely true. This ‘hearts and minds’ approach that Beaumont took to the launch certainly did work. And it actually did make me enjoy the wine a whole lot more. Doesn’t every wine taste better when you’re enjoying it with interesting people in a great setting? But that aside, they didn’t need to. They could have cracked open a case of the stuff under an umbrella on the lawn and served it to us in striped paper cups, we still wouldn’t have missed how good it was. Words like ‘elegant’ and ‘fresh’ were being bandied about, and for good reason. The wine was soft, ripe, stuffed with blackberry and blueberry fruits and had a finish of superfine tannins that left a slight chalky feeling on the palate. This was no overoaked showstopper, this wine had class. It was actually rather dangerously good, and perhaps the best sign of this was how people were knocking back glasses of the stuff at a rate. Or maybe it was just me. Either way, I have a feeling this maiden 2006 vintage is not going to be around for long.
At some point later in the afternoon I bid farewell to the gracious Beaumont’s and popped across the road to The Shunting Shed to meet a friend for some beer. Sebastian and a few others including his wife Nici, sister Ariane, JP Rossouw (married to Ariane) and Jardine sommelier Jaap came across to watch the rugby a short while after. Everyone was in good spirits, except the grumpy old fellow drinking Appletizer at the bar who asked us to tone it down a notch in not so polite a phrase. We all shared some pizzas during the game, knocked back several bottles of Luddite Shiraz and at some point I loudly suggested we drink some more “Vesuvius!” Despite my volcanic error, Sebastian disappeared for a few minutes and returned with two bottles of Vetruvian. I don’t think we deserved those last two bottles, and the concept of ideal proportions were mostly lost on me by then, but from the day overall, I undoubtedly do believe Vetruvian to be one of the finest red wines in South Africa.
www.beaumont.co.za
(The wine is set to retail somewhere around R350.)
Spice Route Malabar 2006. I could go on about the Swartland terroir and superb fruit character and low-yield bush vines and how winemaker Charl is such a nice guy and yak yak yak yak, but I’d rather just say that Spice Route effectively put Eben Sadie in the Swartland (he was the original winemaker) so pay some homage and get a bottle of this stuff. You won’t regret it. It’s not cheap at R380, but neither is a Range Rover. You get my point? Hint: it isn’t that they’re both slightly rugged yet refined, although they are this too.
Mountain Oaks Le Jardin Rouge 2004. An organic wine made on Eikenbosch farm in the Slanghoek Valley. It’s not that this wine is exceptionally well-crafted or balanced but that it delivers a lot of the earthy, concentrated mineral character you’d expect on a wine of much higher price. And if you like that type of thing, then you’re going to love that it’s only R49,99.
Vergelegen Mill Race Red 2006. Tasted this in a blind tasting last week with several winemakers and we all picked it as a blend over R100, maybe even R150. It’s got great classic structure with good acidity but that deliciously ripe Stellenbosch character. I get the feeling some of the higher-end Vergelegen red wines were selling slowly and thus a few barrels made it into this blend. But you’d be hard-pressed to have them admit that. It’s just too good to be made deliberately as the R70 wine that it is though.
Avondale Brut NV. Yes, Avondale has advertisements with naked people standing around the cellar and the vineyard and they have ducks that that take care of the vineyard pests and are pretty organic-like in their farming techniques and all that jazz, but aside from all this, they also make some good wines. Like this one, a crisp, lean but slightly biscuity bubbles. The kind you should enjoy with a pretty girl somewhere with a view. R115 per bottle.
Warwick ‘Professor Black’ Sauvignon Blanc 2010. Remember the ad where the tagline was “It’s good and clean and fresh, tra la la!” Well, that’s what came into my head when I tasted this. Made very reductively, it’s so fresh you could drink it when you get up in the morning. Not actually my favourite style of Sauv Blanc (I prefer barrel-fermented) but you can’t fault what Warwick have done here. And they’ve also done a bloody good job of marketing it too. Expect this vintage to sell out as fast as the previous ones. R110 per bottle.
ClemenGolds.
Yes, these little mandarin buggers are tasty. Yes, they are also good for you. They’re easy to peel. They have no seeds. And they’re available at most Woolworths stores. They’re expensive when compared with a big bag of oranges on the side of a country road, but hell, they’re awesome, man! Disclaimer: no, I’m not sponsored by citrus farmers, I just like these things.
La Muerte.
A locally made ‘tequila’ that has the coolest fucking bottle you will ever see. It’s only appropriate to use foul language when describing this crazy shit, because it’s so good you will naturally end up drinking too much, forgetting that it still has an arsewarmingly fair deal of alcohol and probably do something stupid. But then, that’s tequila. Love her or hate her, she’s a hard bitch and will always be around. Oh, she’s also 100% fucking organic. (www.agavemuerte.com)
Bunny Chow.
It’s winter, and though it might feel like summer in Cape Town, as it always does in Durban and probably is in Joburg, now is a great time to get your chili on. Forget the rice though, and rather make bunny chow. Just make a curry and splash it into a breadroll, then garnish with some fresh chili and coriander. Done. Anyone can make curry – if you have a stove, pot, knife and a wooden spoon you can do it, no excuse. Skip the plates and use wax paper to hold the rolls. Less mess to clean up.
AA Gill.
You know this man. The original restaurant assassin. Don’t really need to say anything, really. What a legend though. Read his stuff. Checkout AA Gill is Away, an excellent read.
Kalk Bay.
If you’ve ever experienced a Sunday then you’ve experienced a Sunday where you want to get outdoors, go somewhere near the water, and enjoy fish ‘n chips. Kalk Bay is on every real Capetonian’s to-do list on most weekends, it’s just that we only get to it once a month. If we’re lucky. Walk down the road in the sun, scour antique shops and browse old books. Or skip that and go straight to the good stuff: breakfast at Olympia Bakery, fish ‘n chips to go from Lucky Fish or a long lazy lunch at Live Bait. You can also do all of this in one Sunday if you’re worried you’re not going to get back soon. Note: Kalk Bay is also open on other days of the week, though you wouldn’t think this based on how busy it is on Sundays.
Reyneke Wines.
Biodynamic doesn’t mean much to many but it means everything to some. Johan Reyneke is one of the few it means everything to. He’s crafted his entire winery around farming biodynamically: essentially in a way that views the entire farm as a living organism. Actually he’s crafted his entire life around this concept, and it has worked well for him and his wines. Each of his wines is special, tastes unlike any other wine and is deserved of praise entirely on this merit. Yet they’re deserved of far more praise when you consider how he farms, in a way that ensures the land will be productive for centuries. www.reynekewines.co.za
The wine industry is a funny business. It combines wealthy folk and beautiful scenery, yet you generally find more style at Brackenfell mall. No, you’re right, style has nothing to do with making good wine, but it does have a lot to do with successfully pulling off events of any kind, including wine. Why is it that so many wine festivals get it wrong? There are endless places with rolling lawns and panoramic views that most of the world’s wine regions would drool over, yet we completely cock it up time after time.
Franschhoek Bastille Festival big white tent is a dodgy sweatbox and their SA Cheese Festival is no better. It’s cheese that’s supposed to sweat, not guests inside a tent stickier than your local gym’s spinning class. Stellenbosch realized their festival was becoming another annual Maties drinking contest and decided to can the big tent. They’ve since copied Robertson’s Whacky Wine Weekend format of each-estate-for-themself, which may be fun, yet hardly fits in with any Arrive Alive program. Let’s face it, moneyed wine-drinking South African’s aren’t big on taking buses.
When it comes to wine tasting events, the pickings are slim. Mainly the smaller ones, really. Constantia Fresh seemed like a smash hit. The V&A Waterfront Wine Affair has been good before, with a neat balance of wine and food, but is undeniably inconsistent. I don’t even think there was one last year. The Dorp Street MCC & Champagne Festival inaugural event later this month could be interesting. The Swartland is also in on things with their Swartland Revolution event taking place later this year.
On the larger end of the scale is Winex. In terms of style it may be shamed by the Whisky Live event it precedes annually, but then those Whisky brands do have massive budgets. And Winex is not on a picturesque wine farm, but it is in the city centre so a taxi won’t bankrupt you. And you can pick up an early bird ticket for R90, taste hundreds of wines and, importantly, almost all the top brands are there in the room. I haven’t been to the Joburg event, but the Cape Town one always has plenty of space and the crowd is a pleasant mix of wine nerds and well-heeled Capetonians. Those other festivals can be a great party, but at Winex you can do some serious drinking tasting.
My suggestion is to go on two nights. Taste seriously on the first, then just hit the good stuff on the second and enjoy yourself. Either way, it’s a solid event if you’re keen to see what’s new and interesting in South African wine. I’m looking forward to it.
www.winex.co.za
(Cape Town 19 & 20 August / Joburg 27 – 29 October)
It’s about time they got their own festival. Except it’s not really a festival, more like a weekend with a handful of the best winemakers and winos who happen to be neighbours. The Swartland Revolution is, like the style of the poster shows, a bit of propaganda for some of the independent Swartland wineries. Guys like Badenhorst Family Wines, Eben Sadie (Sequillo/Palladius/Columella), Mullineux Family Wines and Porcelain Mountain. Porcelain who? Where’s Lammershoek? Or Annex Kloof? There are other independent producers there that should be a part of this, so I’m sad to not see them included. Surely this should be for all the independent producers? Or maybe the revolution starts with a select few… who knows. But hey, this is still a great idea and looks set to be a fun, debaucherous weekend. And the poster is pretty cool. I’m keen.
www.theswartlandrevolution.com
A regular new thing to keep tabs on the outstanding wines I get to drink. Also for myself, since I’m terrible at remembering wines, especially after the second bottle. So a list of five, not just the highest quality wines, but also the decent quaffers, the unusuals and the little unknowns. And if you wonder how you could also get to drink these wines, you should read this (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Wine Drinkers) immediately. Anyways, rather than a Top 10 or Best Ever, this will be a changing list of my Top 5 wines tasted recently, and will make efforts to include all of bubbly, white, rose, red and dessert wines whenever possible.
Niepoort Ubunto Tinto 07. A quaffer made in Portugal by Dirk van Niepoort, the tireless talent whose family winery made its name through port. The Ubuntu is a red blend of randomly-named but delicious Portuguese varietals like Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela, etc. Ripe, luscious but with enough acidity to not be over-the-top. Smash it before dinner. R80.
A.A. Badenhorst White 2008. Yes, got to try this wine this week again and it’s not as good as I last remember it – it’s better. A storm of mineral and oily aromas in the nose, buckets of fruit flavours on palate and a finish that lasts till lunch the day after. This is desert island wine here, my friends. R240.
The Goose Expression 2007. Taste this if you get a chance. You were probably thinking, “Crikey, another boring overly-extracted and overoaked penis-extension golfer wine.” Well, that’s what I was expecting, but to my cheerful surprise, it’s not the case here. This wine is well balanced and the oak plays a back seat to the beautiful Langkloof fruit. Yes, it’s well rounded, slightly dimply, with plenty of backspin on the finish and you might land in the rough after a bottle or two. Yak yak… R325.
Feiteiras Cor de Rosa 2009. This is a meaty rose and that’s why I like it. Yes, it has soft perfumery and delicate floral notes, but it also has a whack of tannin. When best to drink it? A muscular rose like this is what I’d like to think of as a “24/7, 365″ wine. You can figure that out. R48.
Vin de Constance 2005. If there was ever an iconic South African wine, this is it. The only reason this isn’t better known is because it’s a dessert wine, and people don’t drink dessert wines much. Well, most don’t. This is our Romanee Conti. Our Sassacaia. Our Screaming Eagle. Our Penfolds Grange. It makes Yquem, the best (and most expensive) French dessert wine, look ordinary. Enough said. Oh, and it’s a bargain, an absolute steal. R360.
The aftermath should leave your entire table surface strewn with leftover bits of veggies on plates, scattered spoons and chopsticks, empty beer bottles and crumpled napkins. Signs of a good meal. Where? Chai-Yo. When? Well, the best Thai restaurant in Cape Town is open seven days a week, for lunch and dinner. Oh, and they’re also open on public holidays, so I’ll leave the time up to you. It shouldn’t be too hard.
Chai-Yo has thrived for well over a decade while other lesser restaurants continually come and go on the unsettled strip of Durban Road, Mowbray. And it lasts for good reason: the food is fragrant, intensely flavoured and incredibly tasty. Actually, scrap that, it’s better. Some of the dishes are just freakily, mouthwateringly magnificent. Better than I’ve had anywhere in Cape Town. Better than I’ve eaten in Thailand.
They have a dish that brought me not quite to my knees but almost. It actually got me back twice in one week, this mixed seafood curry that’s so good ‘the crave’ starts just thinking about it. It’s basically fish, prawns, calamari and mussels in a red curry sauce that comes in a cabbage parcel, with plenty of kaffir lime leaf flavour and sweet basil leaves. It could do without the mussels, but either way the dish is intoxicating; my favourite curry at the moment and perhaps of all time.
Chai-Yo’s menu spans the usual Thai genre, from satays to Tom Yum soups to curries and noodles dishes. The Pad Thai is reliably satisfying, delicate Tom Ka Gai coconut soup quite outstanding and lightly battered Kingklip served with chili and lime sauce nothing less than superb. Their dumplings can be a touch rubbery, but still very flavourful. Angry Duck was a little mild on the spice so we renamed it Mildly Agitated Duck. However, do not ask for anything to be prepared ‘hot’ on the spice scale or you will need to prepare your rear nether region for serious battle. The kitchen clearly take a ‘hot’ request as a challenge to see how much you can perspire through your forehead and cheeks. Not a problem in Thailand, where the weather hides your food-induced perspiration amidst the ample humidity-induced perspiration, but in Chai-Yo you might find neighbouring tables give you strange looks when you continually use your napkin as a sweat towel. Wristbands from your tennis kit may be a good accessory if you travel the ‘hot route.’
Aside from the food, there’s not much to draw you to Chai-Yo. You’re certainly not there for the sterile tile floors, slightly tacky wooden furniture and scant decoration efforts. Service is adequate and the wine list unexciting. But it’s all easily unnoticed when you’re slurping food this good.
A thought on Thai food and wine.
Pairing wine with food that has such unique and pungent flavours as Thai – think fish sauce, kaffir lime, aniseed – and is more often very spicy, isn’t easy. Over the last few meals at Chai-Yo and other Asian restaurants I’ve tried some interesting, floral whites, including Gewurztraminer, Rielsing and Sauvignon Blanc, with the food. Some bolder Chenin Blancs have worked, and some red with some dishes, but in reality, nothing matches with everything Asian as well as beer. I’m a serious wino but have to admit that beer really does go perfectly. Henceforth, unless you’ve got a sure bet, don’t waste your time with wine in future. As the Thai’s know, beer goes best.
www.chaiyomowbray.co.za/
(Oh, there’s also Chai Yo in Canal Walk apparently, but then who the hell would rather eat there?)
Who is the Foodie? It doesn’t really matter. Bacon is god. Wine cures anything. If you believe those two facts, then we’re going to get on fine. This means you have discovered the power of food to make life better. This knowledge is imperative to the art of living well.
