Racing in the Swartland with Maxime and Roland

In case you missed this. I was with Maxime Graillot – you search this blog for mentions of graillot and you’ll know how stoked I was to meet Maxime and his Dad Alain – point is, we were at Meerhof tasting their ridiculously rad Chenins, and decided a race around Meerhof’s track was in order.

Yes. A track. Next year it will be tarred. Then we are doing it in a porsche.

The wines that Johan Meyer is making with the help? Guidance? of Krige visser are incredible. Natural winemaking, offering a really new expression of Chenin in the Swartland.

Freshness and ‘mineral’ is key. “Fuck primary fruit” says Krige. Yeah. Fuck em.

The Koggelbos Chenin Blanc 2011 is a crazy assed wine with layers of flavour. It’s demanding, but ultimately satisfying.

The Antebellum Chenin Blanc 2012 is cheaper at R65, but no less interesting. Far more reserved than your usual ‘unwooded’ (15% is aged in 300l old oak) but possibly because they have fucked the primary fruit so hard.

Full tasting notes to come as soon as I get my hand on a few bottles. Meanwhile, enjoy the video.

Two wines that you have to try

I’m serious. You have to try these two wines. Don’t nod and smile and say “Sure Harry I’ll give them ago at some point.” Google these two wines, find out where you can get them, buy them, drink them, and then say, “Thanks Harry, you were right, you have changed my life a little.”

Marie Claire Green Lunch

I adore lunches. A good lunch will elevate the soul and sooth one’s temperament. Breakfasts start too early, dinners can slide toward the serious, but a lunch is just right; the wonderful combination of jollity, good food, wine and company shared as the sun sails through its zenith is something of a quite specific beauty.

Aldous Huxley, I think, said it best, “A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.”

So on Saturday I joined the bus with a bunch of green luminaries, celebrities, bloggers and media types outside Associated Magazine’s offices and looked forward to, as I have said, the day’s best meal.

The invitation I received did not specify the venue, it was to be a surprise. It reminded me of when, as children, our mother would bung us in the car telling us it was time for a magical mystery tour. Thrilled we would throw up our hands in the air singing, “magical mystery tour! magical mystery tour!” until we realised that it was just a long-con to get us to go to the dentist quietly.

Saturday was no trip to the dentist, instead we arrived at The Conservatory which, as the name suggests, is glass walled and ceilinged. Letting the Franschhoek country side do the decorating was a cunning move.

As I mentioned I get rather excited when it comes to lunch, and the words of W.C Fields bounced around my head, “Some weasel stole the cork out of my lunch” as I peered at the bottle of Pongracz  filling up my glass (a standard sort of bubbles, unassuming and functional. I thought Silverthorn’s The Green Man would have been more appropriate.) Strolling around the venue I pondered this quote  – did Fields mean the waiter opening his wine before he arrived? This seems a bit rude. Or because he had finished the bottle and wanted to re-cork it and some waiter had removed it? Which makes Fields a bit of a lightweight, but either way it’s the waiter’s fault; an entirely plausible situation.

I never worked it out, because a waiter tried to get past me with out topping up my glass. I cocked my eye at him, he cocked his eye at me. We stood there, cock-eyed. It didn’t last long, and glass filled I triumphantly went outside for a smoke.

Feeling smug that I was the only one smoking green cigarettes (rollies without filters are as natural as you can get, ask John Wayne), I chatted with the green elite, the fashion experts, and a mobile guru (this sounds like a small, thin, white-bearded man sitting cross legged on roller-skates, but really I mean Nic Haralambous). I was also introduced the most extraordinary pair of shoes.

Now I am not a shoe person. Give me a jacket, blazer, suit etc. and I can get excited. Obviously not as excited as I get about wine – I’d wear a barrel to drink a fantastic Jean Louis Chave for example –  but what about shoes that smell? Scented shoes, the idea delights. I found a pair on the feet of the crisply stylish Lize Kay.

Thanks to Leigh van den Berg who writes the Lip Gloss is My Life blog for the pic.

They are by Vivienne Westwood and Melissa, and upon some brief research I have discovered they smell like bubblegum . On giving them a thorough sniff I found a surfboard wax note, Mrs. Palmers perhaps?

After I had finished sniffing Lize’s shoes – poor girl, you really shouldn’t have your feet smelled at lunch – it was time for the festivities to commence. We took our seats and lunch, that glorious midday meal, began.

The first course was served as the impeccably vintaged out (can I use vintage in that way? I get confused when it is not simply a number) Marie Claire editor Aspasia Karras welcomed us all and spoke briefly about the June Green Issue, which is physically green rather than just the content being green focused: the envelope it is sold in is made from recycled materials and the cost of the paper is offset by trees being planted in Grootbos. Good for them. With us sure in the fact that green is now sexy – Vivienne Westwood (twice in one blog!) guest editing the edition internationally pretty much adjourns the court on this issue – we tucked in.

Starters were a sort of tomato built up tart with Bree (I think) and caramelized onion and rocket.  The wine being served was the Maison Chenin Blanc 2009 and the Klein Genot – now know as Holden Manz – Shiraz 2007 (I think). I love the Chenin, which I think balances ripeness and freshness very well. I can drink it all day. Which I believe I did. Lovely pears and sweet apples with a clean line of acidity running through it. Not sure how organic it is, but it’s style suited the day: clean, fresh, some complexity, full of sunshine. Quite similar in fact to our lunch’s musical accompaniment Hot Water.

The red, however, disappointed; coming across all overworked bacon bits and toasty oak. It lacked brightness and verve; like an old man in a moth-ball eaten blazer, stuck on a couch watching old football matches. One sip was enough.

I love lunches, I love the banter, the smokes between courses, the bellowing for refills, but I fear I may have got a little carried away. With our table slowly becoming ‘that’ table, I found myself struggling to concentrate on all the fantastic green things we must do.  Michelle and Riaan Garforth-Venter  were telling us action after action we could take to save the planet (Find them all in their new book The Green Line – a South African guide to green living).

And though by this stage of the lunch saving the planet looked as easy as opening another bottle of wine. So easy, I thought, that I would deal with it in the morning. It turns out that the next morning there were more pressing things to attend to. Things pressing on my skull.  From the inside.

The lunch began to runaway with me. The bus was arrived. I ran away with the lunch. Thank goodness the weasel had taken the cork, I had left my bottle opener at home.

Thanks to Marie Claire and all those involved, an absolutely brilliant event. If you are interested, here is a video of the day.

Some media whoring with Nederburg and Bruce Campbell.

So yesterday I was a bit of a media freebee whore, taking in a whiskey tasting in the afternoon from Brandhouse, and then a dinner at Anatoli from Nederburg.

The Whiskey tasting was held at the Westin Grand with Bruce Campbell of the Scotland from Home campaign. A funny guy who tries to convince the world that he can make as good a whiskey as the pro’s in 5 minutes. Obviously this is impossible, and as such the time honoured tradition of making whiskey is seen as the only way. A smart, tongue in cheek campaign.

We tasted through a bunch of whiskey’s and some ‘lucky’ attendees got to taste some of Bruce’s special brew. On the left here you can see Gentleman Chris Rawlinson taking a glass. His reaction to this ‘instant whiskey’. *cough* *splutter"* “Jaysus!”. I am not sure if the 20 mini burgers he went on to eat was an effect of the Campbell Classic.

It was a fun little event, and the comedy from Bruce helped break up the tasting and kept everyone from nodding off. There was some swag as well. Although most of mine was hijacked by the restaurant staff when I got back to work. I managed to hold on to the bottle of Johnny Walker. Whoring FTW.

 

 

Next up was a quick glass of wine or two at a new wine bar on Bree St, French Toast.

From my barstool

I like the place. It offers 100+ wines by the glass, which are dominated by local wines with a few international offerings. It’s not exactly a bargain spot, but the selection is good. I will write up a proper review next week with a tasting of some of the wines along with prices.

With a glass of Mullineux White 2009 in me I was off to Anatoli in Greenpoint for a dinner served with some Nederburg wines. I hadn’t tasted through Nederburg’s wines in awhile so I was looking forward to giving them a swallow. Anatoli is a Turkish restaurant run by Tayfun Aras who has become good friends with Nederburg wine maker Razvan Macici of Romania. They found that they had many national dishes in common, so the idea of having a dinner prepared by Tayfun paired with wines by Razvan came about.

We started with the Nederburg Winemaster’s Chenin Blanc 2009 which was made from Durbanville and Darling fruit, with a portion  barrel fermented. It started off a little sweaty but this soon blew off. The nose gave some rich pear notes with a touch of toasty oak. The palate was full of tropical fruit and some buttery flavours underneath. The oak gave a creamy edge but the acidity was fresh and bright which balanced the wine nicely. I was slightly disappointed when the wine warmed up a little as the alcohol started to rear its head a little aggressively. The wine was paired with meatballs in a walnut sauce which was spot on; the food enhanced the fruit flavours of the Chenin and the nuttiness of the sauce worked with the creamy texture of the wine.

Next up was the Winemaster’s Reserve Riesling 2010 with a mezze platter. This wine is very young and rather tight and shy. The residual sugar of 7.2 g/l is mopped up by the puckering acidity. This created a light footed sweet/sour experience on the palate. Despite its youth and lack of complexity (at the moment) this the acid sweetness aspect makes for a scrumptious little number.

The main course, riblets served with courgettes stuffed with burghul and tomato, was served with wines I have been wanting to try for some time; the Ingenuity White 09 and Red 07. The white is a blend of 8 different varieties. You ready? Here they are:  Sauvignon blanc (30%) from Groenekloof and Durbanville; Chardonnay (25%)  from Durbanville and Paarl; Semillon (15%) from the Philadelphia area; Chenin Blanc (15%) from Darling and Stellenbosch vineyards, Nouvelle (6%) from Paarl; Riesling (5%), and a splash of Viognier (2%) and Gewürztraminer (2%) from Durbanville and Paarl. All are vinified separately and then blended.

Whoah! four and a half lines of components. The reason I went through the painstaking task of copying and pasting them here is that you can feel the wine is made from all of this. I am not saying I could have picked all 8 blind, but the wine has a ‘this-way-and-that’ character. It is fresh and rich, floral and grassy, tropical and taught. I found a slight nittiness, with some sweet apple on the palate as well as floral peachy flavours and a wonderfully refreshing acidity. I really liked this wine. It wears it’s tutu with stripy leggings, Doc Martins and a tweed blazer , but still manages to be cool, sexy even. My wine of the evening.

The red impressed me less. Nicknamed the Italian it’s a blend of Sangiovese (45,5%), Barbera (45,5%) and Nebbiolo (9%) grapes. I enjoyed it, but it just seemed less characterful than the white, a touch flat. There was some sour cherry and leather on the nose which followed through to the palate. The tannins were fine and the acidity refreshing. This all sounds good. I’m not sure what it was that didn’t sit right with me. I tasted and re-tasted, and was simply underwhelmed. It packed a punch, but a somewhat sluggish one, it needs to do some skipping, get lighter on its feet, but still be as big and bold.

Finally there was the Wine Maker’s Reserve Noble Late Harvest 2009 which was poured generously, and drank even more so by me. I love sweet sticky wines. This one has all the dried apricot, apple and honey goodness that makes NLH’s so decadent and dastardly delicious. It’s not shy with 220 g/l of residual sugar but is well balanced by the acidity. Young, tasty and sticky. A vinous Lolita perhaps. Come to think of it I have the right initials for that comparison.

I finished off the evening back at French Toast with a glass of LBV 2005  Port from Dirk Niepoort whom I shall be writing about in the next instalment of “Harry drinks through Europe” as I spent a week with him in the Douro.

The evening was finished by trying to tell my fortune from the grounds left over in my cup of Turkish coffee. The cup is turned upside down onto the saucer and left for a minute before being righted, and the patterns on the side are supposed to give you a glimpse into your future. I got a man with a beard. Hmmmm, it is Movember.

Moulin Tochais, so much better than a caberet

Easily some of the best wines I have ever tasted passed my lips last week at Carloine’s Fine Wine Cellar. We enjoyed a vertical tasting of Moulin Tochais from the vintages ‘98, ‘95, ‘91, ‘90, ‘82, ‘80, ‘77, and ‘75. The tasting  was presided over by the jovial and quotable Ken Forrester of Ken Forrester Wines.

Moulin Touchais is situated in the Coteaux du Layon region of the Loire Valley, and their sweet wines come from that grape of many guises, Chenin Blanc. It is no secret that I am rather partial to Chenin; I am continually amazed at how many different expressions this grape is capable of, and last Thursday I was introduced to some supremely good examples.

Ken Forrester is one of South Africa’s biggest Chenin advocates, and he claims  that Chenin is the world’s finest white grape. I think he might have a point, although I know a few people who would shake their heads tut tutting and and say that Riesling is the finest white grape in the world. As for me? I’ll take a bottle of each thanks.

The tasting kicked off with the Ken Forrester Chenin 2009 which was a typical example, pear drops on the nose with a whisper of toasty oak; the palate was quite tight and the acidity had great lines. A pretty good bargain at R72 from Caroline’s.

One the big boys of South Africa Chin is The FMC which is made from a single vineyard of 42 year old bush vines that are meticulously cared for, for example each bunch can only have 17 leaves which means that in terms of maintenance these bush vines are better manicured and cared for than me.

We tasted the 2008 whose nose was large and rich with hints of botrytis coming though in the form of dried apricots that followed on to the palate accompanied by a minerally edge. This wine is wide, quite creamy and voluptuous rather than fat, sticky and flabby. The sturdy acidity keeps the 12.5 grams of residual sugar under control. Although I prefer a little more elegance in my Chenins this is undoubtedly still one of SA’s Chenin flag bearers.

Then came the wines that made me feel like a house built by fool-hardy pigs, and these wines hardly had to huff or puff. We started with the ‘98 and immediately the length struck me, one of my notes reads “this is what length is about”. The time all their flavours spent on the palate was almost never ending; seriously, after leaving the tasting, driving to a restaurant and ordering a bottle of wine I could still feel those wines hanging about. That’s longer than Ron Jeremy my friends.

The way these wines are harvested seems to be the secret to their longevity (in bottle not palate, but I’m sure it helps the latter as well). Some of the grapes are picked quite early ensuring lots of acidity, while thew rest are picked at later and later stages allowing for high sugar levels and concentration. Although I have read that these wines are unaffected by noble rot, I found that some Botrytis came through on the ‘95 which was elegant, rich and so so fresh .  I began to understand what I had read about these wines only starting to show their quality after a decade. This one made some of our more recent Noble Late Harvests seem geriatric.

The ‘90 was dainty and restrained, and Ken waxed lyrical comparing it to a light-footed ballerina (what is with men and their wine and women comparisons?). I picked up a sort of latex note which made me tell crude jokes about Ken and ballerinas. They were not very funny. There was a leaness to this wine which I guess is where Ken was going with daintiness; not my favourite but that’s like saying I prefer Shakespeare to Milton, it is a stylistic thing, not a qualitative thing.

The ‘82 was my favourite, it was more complex than the mind of a woman and just as beautiful (me too, I know). The flavours ranged from onion skins to tropical fruit, with a shrubby character somewhere as well, but also lemon, honey and spice. The acidity was taught and gave the wine a linear feel. I have not tasted a better sweet wine. Possibly the best wine I have ever tasted; I could have had the whole bottle to myself, in the corner, giggling all the while. The sugar – as in each and every wine – was handled deftly by the acidity, and not once did I get any cloying, flabby or sticky vibes.

The ‘77 was richer than the previous wines and was more oxidative in character, with a brandy like nose that I enjoyed while some at the table didn’t. It was slithery and squishy at the same time; also very complex with dried pineapple and apricots, and a spicy nutty element. Like chewing on some roasted almonds while walking past a spice shop. Understand that these flavours and smells were fleeting and mingled amongst each other, hard to pin down, but making the experience of drinking all the more enjoyable.

What amazed me most about these wines was their freshness, especially as two of them were over thirty years old. I would love to taste them again in another thirty years time or more as these wines can age for 100 years (reread that: 100 years, wow, I’ll never make it that far), but unfortunately for me the few bottles that were left for sale (at silly prices, they were only around R300-R400) were snapped up before I could get to the shelf. When I reached the shelf some old crones were hugging the bottles to their bosoms cackling at me; I wanted to tell them they’d be dead before these wines peaked.  Instead I just smiled and said, “ooooh lucky you” before scouring the tables for any left-overs of the ‘82.

An interesting point was made by Ken before the tasting began, he said “Chenin has the ability to remember its flavour and return it twenty to forty years later,” which was absolutely true here. You could taste the Chenin in these wines, the fruit still expressing itself 30 years later. Amazing.

Some Chenins, a Serbian, and a late night

Last Thursday I was at another tasting with Under the Influence at The Roundhouse. Remember The Roundhouse? This place:

  Yup, the one with the awful view.

I was there for a Chenin Blanc tasting, which was excellent and we were treated to some really top class examples. In all the excitement (read: drinking) that happened afterwards I lost my tasting notes. So I’m just going to quickly mention some that stood out. The Teddy Hall ‘Summer Moments’ Chenin Blanc 2009 is  a super value wine. At around R30 ex-cellar, it over delivers on quality. Typical Chenin qualities of a tropical fruit, with some weight on the palate and a cleansing acidity; all the elements were  pretty straight forward in the Teddy Hall, but in fine balance.

The Beaumont 2009 was my favourite of the unwooded. It had a complex and delicate nose of fragrant spices, rose water, and dried fruit. The palate was elegant and restrained. It was drinking beautifully.

I had decided to bring a bottle of Chenin with me. It was one that I have been enjoying immensely the last couple of months, and it has a gentle price-tag of R75 from Vino Pronto.  The Crios Bride 2009 is made by Carla Pauw using grapes grown from about 30yr old Swartland vines. The production is quite small. I loved the waxy texture and flavour concentration. It went down well at the table and stood up to the better known Chenins. Harry’s taste in Chenin: un point.

The last four we had were all superb: we had the Raats, De Trafford, De Morgenzon, and Robusto. And when I have a little more energy I’ll try write some tasting notes. Which could be difficult because I lost them. The notes were proabably not that helpful with expletives followed by something like, ‘awsome’, ‘terrific’, or ‘long’ and a few flavour descriptors. Thus a note would read something like:

Fuck me this is ridiculous. So long. Good lord

fruit punch, some honey. great acidity.

Fucking brilliant.

Not going to be a wine judge just yet.

Now to the ‘after party’ but first a Comixed version of the events.

  

You gotta love the reaction guys.

I am kind of understating it a little, as we had two of the Shannon Pinot Noirs not just the one. It was all thanks to our Serbian friend and wine lover Dusan Jelic who, as a sort of going away party before he returns home this week, decided that we should all drink exceptional wines until late in the night. Dusan led by example and found himself getting rather intimate with a bush later that night, but that, as they say, is another story.  A further reason he ordered all these fantastic wines was because, in his words, “I don’t give a fuck about what the critics say, I have only understood a wine when I have drunk it with friends.”  Fair enough.

The wines? Truly superb. The Mount Bullet 2007 was just as good last time, but it really deserves a bit of decanting. Actually all the wines did. The Shannon Pinot Noir 2007 was also excellent with an earthy nose underneath the bright cherry and strawberry fruit. The palate was very good with very concentrated fruit flavours mingling well with the toast and vanilla from the oak. The tannins were very smooth and the finish long and sensual.This is a very complex wine and a short tasting note like this is almost insulting.

And if that was almost an insult this will be a slap in the face with a halibut, because the next wine was the Columella  2007 made by that most charismatic of gentleman Eben Sadie. A blend of Syrah (80%) and Mouvedre (20%) it was dark and dense with flavours and smells abounding. I remember an earthy character, with notes of aniseed, bacon, sour cherry, a lean mineral edge, did I say complex? I meant fucking complex. It kept on evolving in the glass and getting better and better. The tannin and acid structure was exquisite and I wish I had a cellar full of it to drink for the next good few years.

As the moon casually made its way across the sky we enjoyed the last bottle of the Pinot Noir and listened to Dusan shouting various Vivas to all and sundry. I would have loved to have been at a table inside the restaurant  when, from the murky depths of the garden, there boomed a loud Serbian voice: “Viva Eben Sadie! Viva!”

 

 

Deconstructing Chenin

Off to another deconstruction with Under the Influence tonight. I’m really looking forward to this one as we are ‘deconstructing’  Chenin Blanc. I love Chenin. I mean I really love it, like Sherlock loves his clues, like a bergie sniffs his glue, or how Piglet loves Winnie the Poo, that’s how much I love it. There is even the possibility that I was suckled on Chenin Blanc. It is incredibly versatile, from bone-dry to a Noble Late and everything in between. It is our most planted vine with over 500 hectares of the stuff growing in every region; this counts for about 18% of the total land under vines. We Saffas love our Chenin. When our own semi-sweet Lieberstein was the worlds biggest selling wine brand, part of the blend was Chenin.  Today there some brilliant bottles around, and Rand for Rand I reckon Chenin is the best value wine in the country.

I was slipped the line-up for tonight’s tasting. When I read it I started salivating quicker than one of Pavlov’s dogs. Sorry, I wasn’t given the vintages:

No 6 Remhoogte (Haven’t tasted this one)
Raats (flagship Chenin)

De Trafford (Can’t go wrong with a De Trafford)

De Morgenzon (Gobsmackingly delicious)

Robusto (Oh yeah, bring out that big boy)

Lammershoek (woot!)

Beaumont (You know I already like this one)

Teddy Hall (Mr. Chenin himself)

I have decided to bring along a bottle myself this week to see what the others think. I’ll let you know what it was and what they thought tomorrow.

Have Gone North For the Winter and Found a Wine for the Flu

Like an antipodean swallow, or one that had too good a winter and stayed on for summer, and from then on just got a little confused, I have travelled North for the winter, to Durban. Ah, the mild winters of my youth. I have come up here to see the folks and my ailing Grandmother, but while I’m here I will also be sampling the wines of KwaZulu-Natal and trying to find out whether any pro surfers drink wine.at the Mr. Price Pro.

Arriving home I was doubtful as to whether there would be any decent wine to drink. But I was happily surprised to find a bottle of Welmoed Chenin Blanc 2008. Cheap (that’s why it was in the fridge) but so devastatingly drinkable. Lemony goodness really, I reckon there’s probably some Vitamin C in here what with all the citrus going on: a flu fighting Chenin maybe? There’s also other tropical fruit on the nose (touch of guava and green melon) and the palate, but the citrus dominates. I also had a kind of honey moment earlier, it has been on the lees for a bit so that might be why; as I said Lemon and Honey, a proper flu wine. This is a value wine, not complex for sure, but without question over performing at under R30.

Family for now, then a wine trip to the Midlands and a surf party whether wine is involved or not. Oh and the camera is working, so there will be photographic evidence of the planned exploits. Going to pour the last glass of the Welmoed now.