Wine with dinner - Windmeul 'The Legend'

Another award winning wine from one of our favourite Co-ops - Windmeul's The Legend 2010.  A gold at the 2013 Michelangelo awards and 4.5 stars in the John Platter guide.

We were actually looking for some more of the delicious Cape Blend, but it was all sold out.  So we settled for a couple of The Legend bottles.  Named after Theuns Briers who was a former Windmeul Cellar Director and Springbok rugby player.

This wine is a classic Cabernet Sauvignon based Bordeaux Blend.  A full bodied, strong wine with delicious blackberry and Cab Sav earthy, cedar wood flavours.  Went down like a treat, everybody thoroughly enjoyed it and agreed the awards are well deserved.

Together with some Saturday evening rugby and a family dinner - fantastic!  See you at the next market, 7 December, to stock up on this and of course some of the other award winners like the 2013 Chenin Blanc (Veritas Double Gold 2013). 

 A delicious red velvet cake to wash it all down at the end.  The November issue of the Taste Magazine, celebrating 10 years of the publication, had the most beautiful cakes adorning the pages.  I've been trying out a few of them and this time (celebrating my sister's birthday as well - in her absence) was their Red Velvet Cake.  Not as pretty as the magazine, but just as delicious!







WINDMEUL CELLAR
R44 off the N1 towards Wellington.  About 15km on the left-hand side.
Tel: +27 21 869 8043
Latitude:-33.671667  Longitude: 18.910278

Leopard's Leap Family Vineyards

 - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!

Leopard's Leap gave their whole tasting area, restaurant and wine experience a revamp earlier this year and it is looking superb! 

Absolutely love the "whisk" lamp shades in the dining area.  Also the individual cooking stations set up in the kitchen for their delicious cooking classes.  Even on the rainy day we visited, the high ceilings and structure made the whole place light and inviting.  We are definitely coming back for the buffet lunch, some chocolate brownies, to check out the newly opened store and to enjoy some wine on the lawn, now that summer has finally arrived!

We just tasted wine on this particular visit, and our TRH was great!  He knew all the answers to all my questions (which can sometimes be silly!) and was super friendly and efficient.  We sat up at the bar counter enjoying their really good and exceptionally well priced wines and landed up leaving with a few bottles... as you do!

Leopard's Leap itself actually doesn't grow any of its own grapes, so the ones you see on the drive in are either for decoration or belong to someone else.  Their spot in Franschhoek houses the restaurant, wine tasting and shop.  They buy in all their grapes, which actually allows them to pick and choose the very best available of each varietal.  Most of their grapes are sourced from Botrivier, Swartland and Robertson to name a few.   

The wines in the Classic Range are all great quality with nothing over R45.  Perfect to take to your next dinner.  We tasted the SAUVIGNON BLANC, which was lovely and easy drinking, hardly any acidic aftertaste.  The CHENIN BLANC, smells like "peaches and cream" and is loaded with smooth peach and apricot flavours, we took home two bottles of this one.  The CABERNET SAUVIGNON MERLOT is also another standard, easy drinking, well blended wine.

There was only one Family Collection available for tasting, the SHIRAZ MOURVEDRE VIOGNIER, which is actually made by Hein Koegelenberg himself.  Hein is currently the CEO of La Motte & Leopard's Leap (and director of Meridian Wine Distributors) and is largely responsible for their great successes over the past few years.  They also recently, together with a Chinese entity, bought the Val de Vie vineyards.  While Hein started his career at Spier Wine Farm, he moved onto to one of our other favourite wine cellars Windmeul Kelder where he moved through the ranks to CEO there, before moving to La Motte.  He is well known and respected in the wine industry and doing great things for South African wines.  Check out his blog he keeps on the side - heinkoegelenberg.typepad.com .
Okay, so back to the wine.  It has really rich berries and spice on the nose and is quite spicy on the palate, with a beautifully smooth finish.  Apparently they burn the insides of the barrels in which this wine is stored which adds to those smokey flavours.  Interesting!  Fantastic wine!
You'll see there is also an "RK" logo on this and some of the other wines which shows it is part of the family - R being Hein's wife's maiden name Rupert and K for Koegelenberg.

We actually started the tasting with some bubbles - because if bubbles are available for tasting, then they are always first on the list!  Their CULINARIA BRUT METHODÉ CAP CLASSIQUE is delicious, gentle citrus with a little caramel and a lovely balance.
The Culinaria Collection is the more sophisticated, heavier collection, with really smart labels and mostly blended wines. 

A few Culinaria notes below...

2012 CULINARIA CHENIN BLANC GRENACHE BLANC - 6 months in French oak smooths this wine out beautifully, full of fruit, but slightly drier on the palate.  Great with smoked foods.
2012 PINOT NOIR CHARDONNAY - Not a combination I have heard of before.  The wine has a beautiful golden pink hue from spending just 10hrs on the Pinot Noir skins.  It is quite a sweet wine with berry flavours coming from the 60% Pinot Noir, it is almost a little tart too.  Perfect with pork or even dessert.
2010 CULINARIA GRAND VIN - A very good Bordeaux blend, slightly more harsh and metallic than fruity.  Definite coffee beans and nutmeg.
2010 CULINARIA SHIRAZ GRENACHE - Excellent, great spice flavours and berries smoothed out by the Grenache.  Quite heavy but still versatile when pairing with anything from meat to pasta.  We took a bottle of this home.
2013 CULINARIA MUSCAT DE FRONTIGNAN - Hands down the best dessert wine we have tasted!  The nose is full of rose flavoured Turkish delights and blossoms.  It is deliciously sweet and yet still light, not nearly as syrupy or heavy as other dessert wines.  It actually only has 84g sugar vs some others that have up to 200g.  Delicious!  We took a bottle of this home too!

Did you know that here in South Africa we have Noble Late Harvest which is usually your dessert wines.  The name comes from the Noble rot (Botrytis fungus) which attaches to the grapes and drains them of their water leaving the sugary goodness behind.  Late Harvest obviously the fact that the grapes are harvested much later than other wines.  Places like Canada and Germany have Ice Wine dessert wines which also sees the grapes being drained of their water, but this is as a result of the grapes freezing in their sometimes below zero temperatures.  Random fact for the day!

Next time you go wine tasting, check out Leopard's Leap... or look out for their bottles in the stores!  We will definitely be back, they are a new favourite of ours!


LEOPARD'S LEAP FAMILY VINEYARDS
R45 Franschhoek Valley, Frasnchhoek
Latitude 33° 52’58.8″ Longitude 19°04’50″
Tel: +27 21 876 8002
Closed on Christian public holidays  

Wine and Holidays

I hope you're enjoying the long weekend... and if you are at work today - at least you know, tomorrow is a holiday!
For South Africans tomorrow is Heritage Day, more commonly known as National Braai Day, so people across the country will be coming together to enjoy some good wholesome homegrown specialties on the coals (wood if you are serious about braaiing) and a relaxing holiday with family and friends.

Canola Fields of the Western Cape

 

Kleinmond, Western Cape

This weekend was an awesome time with friends in Kleinmond, braaiing for just about every meal - ribs, chicken, steaks, you name it.  Between the group we managed to produce some great wines to  with our delicious meals.  Beyerskloof Pinotage a perfect match for a relaxed Sunday evening, with its easy drinking, always enjoyable full fruit flavours.
The Hidden Valley Hidden Secrets and Mischa Wine Estate Cabernet Sauvignon followed on from one another complimenting the ribs, braai broodjies and salad.  Lovely spice in the Hidden Secret coming through from the Shiraz and softened by the Tannat and Mouvedre.  The smooth sophistication and well rounded black cherry, nutmeg flavours of the Mischa Cab Sav were thoroughly enjoyed by the whole table.
And of course, what would the weekend be without some bubbles from JC Le Roux, La Vallée (the gold bottle) for the girls while enjoying a leisurely game of boules on the lawn.  It tastes like apple juice with the soft bubbles creating the dry finish.... delicious!

This past Friday night was also the 2013 Perold ABSA Cape Blend Top 10.
The Cape Blend is in fact still a relatively new blend, the requirements being a that minimum of 30% and maximum of 70% of this red wine blend needs to be our indigenous red wine cultivar Pinotage.
The top ten winners are listed below:
 
Top 5:
Anura LB Cape Blend 2012
Clos Malverne Spirit of Malverne 2011
KWV Abraham Perold Tributum 2011
Sumaridge Epitome 2009
Viljoensdrift River Grandeur Cape Blend 2011

Runner's Up:
Flagstone Dragon Tree 2011
Namaqua Cellar Door Pinotage/Malbec 2011
Warwick Three Cape Ladies 2011
Welbedacht Hat Trick 2010
Windmeul Cape Blend 2012

I am glad to say we have at least two of those currently on our rack and will be enjoying them with our Heritage day celebrations.  So, why not get yourself a proudly South African Cape Blend to celebrate this Heritage day or even an easy drinking Pinotage.  If the sun comes out and the weather is fine, perhaps you would prefer a white to welcome the back the summer... try a dry pinotage rosé, or a crisp peachy Chenin Blanc (Beyerskloof Chenin Pinotage), there are loads of great South African wines to choose from.

What are you drinking this Heritage day?

Franschhoek Valley from the top of the Pass

 

 

 

 

Beyerskloof Pinotage Burgers

 - BOTH WINE AND FOOD - DELICIOUSNESS!!

On Saturday we decided to earn our breakfast and ran the 13km to Windmeul Market, a bit ambitious maybe but we made it.  The marker was more festive than usual with all the potjie competitions tents and waterblommetjie stations.  The usual breakfast and a few sneaky snoek and feta samoosas were delicious as always, and well earned.

 

Someone mentioned they were heading to Beyerskloof to pick up some wine for friends and family in Pretoria, and with no other plans we all decided to jump on the bandwagon.  With such lovely weather why wouldn't you want to be out and about in the beauty of the winelands!?
 
If you are ever at the Beyerskloof tasting room, find Jacques - what a treat!  Great entertainment and certainly not shy when pouring you a sample to taste... you probably will end up leaving with a few bottles in the end!
 
A few of us were shouted at for being anti-social, tasting wines while the others sat on the deck.  But Jacques was convincing us of how the 2013 Chenin Blanc Pinotage is one of the best thus far and how the Pinotage Dry Rose is so lovely - you can drink a whole bottle and not have a headache the next day, because it is DRY and not SWEET.  He even topped up our glasses as we headed out to the restaurant for some lunch.

The Chenin Blanc Pinotage is lovely, very light in colour, pears and peppers on the palate and perfectly crisp for summer!  The Pinotage Dry Rose is also great, with the rich crimson rose colour you expect that sometimes sickly sweetness, but it is not at all, it is berries and creaminess with a dry finish - really quite enjoyable!

Lunch orders were for Pinotage burgers all around, I don't think anyone even looked at the menu for other options.  They are enormous, and DELICIOUS!!!  The meat is fantastic, great quality and I'm not sure how they make their onion marmalade (except for the Pinotage inclusion), but there are definitely some secrets there.  We've tried to replicate it and failed.  On a beautiful day, paired with the Chenin - we had one very satisfied table! 
The last time we were here with a group of Londoners and they declared outright, "The Best Burger they had ever had!!"

After seeing a tray of purple coloured beers being delivered to the table next door, the boys enquired and ordered themselves one of the Pinotage Beers for tasting.  It was surprisingly quite good.  Very heavy, a bit like a dark Weiss beer - I don't think you can do more than one, unless you are a dark beer kinda guy.  Well worth the taste though.

We headed back to the tasting room after lunch to make a few purchases and sampled some of the Lagare 2010 Fortified Dessert Wine, which is quite delicious.  It is made with the typical Port varietals (Tinta Barocca &Touriga Nacional) as well as Pinotage grapes (Being Beyerskloof and embracing ALL things Pinotage).  It is very dark in colour and the Pinotage adds a lovely dynamic.  It is not too syrupy or heavy like some dessert wines, but has lovely plum and dark berry flavours.  I would like to have some vanilla ice cream on the side next time to compliment it - yum!
We took a case of Beyerskloof Pinotage home with us (a good household favourite that always goes down well - your typical plum,cherry, mocha and cedar flavours altogether in an enjoyable above average easy drinking wine) as well as a bottle each of the Chenin Pinotage & Pinotage Rose to increase the summer wine collection on our rack. 

Beyerskloof really have done an excellent job of capturing their market.  Their wines are reasonably priced and of a good standard, they embrace the student market rather than trying to avoid it and yet somehow still make you feel like you are wining and dining in the winelands.  A relaxed, simply designed, thoroughly enjoyable farm to visit.  We often pop in for a burger or even to share a bottle or two on the restaurant deck.  I also enjoy how they have managed to fully embrace the Pinotage grape and find ways to bring it into most of their wines, remarkable. 

A beautiful afternoon in the winelands - great wine, delicious burgers and a chilled, bustling atmosphere throughout the restaurant and winery.

BEYERSKLOOF WINE ESTATE
Along the R304 between the N1 and Stellenbosch
Tel: +27 21 865 2135

 - Closed on Sundays

Windmeul

 - FANTASTIC WINE & FARMERS MARKET!!

Their farmer's market is the first Saturday of every month and we are there just about every time. 

The last one we actually ran there to earn our delicious farmer's breakfast. 

So, it's on again this weekend and we will be there.  We have family in town who are keen to head out there and it's a great Saturday morning breakfast.  (We also need to replenish some wine stock!)

It is much more relaxed and far less busy than some of the other more well known markets, but that's what makes it so great!  Here you will find rerige boere plaas ontbyt, honey koeksusters, biltong, jams, the BEST snoek & feta samoosas and more.  Every time we go someone comments on how good their wines really are, reasonably priced and delicious.  (We actually had their Sauv B and Cab Sav as our wedding wine, so I may be biased, but they really are great).  I sometimes have a bad habit of benchmarking other Sauv Bs and Chenins against theirs when deciding whether I like them or not.

Last time we left with a bottle of their Cape Blend which has numerous awards stuck all over the bottle, a great SA wine for the wine rack.  A fantastic Pinotage based blend which has the distinct plum and coffee flavours of a Pinotage softened by the Cab Sauv, Petit Verdot and Merlot.  A lovely smooth wine to be enjoyed anytime.  We'll be getting some more of that this weekend.

This farm really does have fantastic wines and at such reasonable prices. 
The Sauvignon Blanc, which we had at the wedding, has a Veritas double gold and goes for about R40 a bottle - not too many deals like that around.  It is lovely, fresh and crisp with slight granadilla flavours.  Not too sweet or too dry, just right.  As far as I know the 2012 completely sold out. 
The Chenin Blanc has lovely peach flavours, a delicious crisp finish, more awards and also goes for about the same price. 
Even the Cape Blend is about R90 and covered in awards (4* John Platter, Veritas Gold, ABSA Top 3, Winemakers Choice Diamond).


All of the wines are available for tasting and purchase at the market.

Remember there is also a 10% discount on the wines if you buy them at the Saturday market.


It's a fantastic way to spend a Saturday morning with family and friends!  Love their wines and always have a few bottles on the wine rack at home.  See you there tomorrow!

WINDMEUL CELLAR

Latitude:-33.671667  Longitude: 18.910278
Take the R44 off the N1 towards Wellington, the farm is about 15km on the left

+27 21 869 8100 

Wine with dinner - Windmeul Cape Blend Reserve

 
 Just an ordinary sun filled Wednesday in the middle of the Cape winter and so what better excuse could you have for a braai and great bottle of wine?
With 10% discount at the Windmeul market on Saturday of course we were going to get a Reserve bottle for our friend's birthday (and one for the rack). 
One of the reasons we liked the wine was the number of awards stickers all over the bottle and the reasonable price considering it is a reserve with so many awards. And well deserved awards at that!  Just look at all those stickers.

Our braai guests had the choice of any bottle on the rack and settled for the Windmeul Reserve Cape Blend.  So, a Cape Blend by in general is a red blend with a significant percentage of Pinotage in the blend.  Pinotage being a varietal founded and bred in South Africa, a cross between a Pinot Noir and Cinsaut (Hermitage).  The blends are usually similar to a Bordeaux style with the exception of the Pinotage which adds more berry flavours to the blend and less spice from the Cab Sav.
A blend we can be proud of here in the Cape!

We will definitely be getting a few more bottles for the wine rack at the market next month.

My other half's notes in the little black book...

WINE:  Windmeul Reserve Cape Blend
VINTAGE: 2009
PRODUCER:  Windmeul Cellar 
REGION & COUNTRY: Agter Paarl, Western Cape
GRAPE VARIETY:  Cape Blend - 60% Pinotage, 30% Cab Sav, 5% Merlot, 5% Tannat
BOUGHT: The Market at Windmeul, first Saturday of every month
PLACE TASTED: At home


APPEARANCE:A dark red, almost purple colour.
NOSE: Earthy and fruity. Coffee beans.
TASTE: It has the smoothness of a blend, it is fruity with an edge and not too earthy. It has a subtle coffee flavour when you are drinking it, but none of the bitterness.
FINISH:A slight dark chocolate, like 85% Lindt dark chocolate finish. A smooth and soft finish.
OVERALL IMPRESSION: Excellent! It is actually quite reasonably priced considering
OVERALL VALUE: Exceptionally well priced for a fantastic uniquely Cape blend.


A fantastic wine which complimented our lamb ribs and roasted vegetables beautifully!


WINDMEUL WINERY
+27 21 869 8043
Off the N1 onto the R44 towards Wellington
Latitude:-33.671667 Longitude: 18.910278

Mother's Day Food & Wine Pairing

 - WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA AND AMAZING EVENING!!


In order to fit all the moms, grandmoms, mom-in-laws and their schedules in we ended up with one of the Mother's Day celebrations being on the Friday night.  My sister-in-law came up with the brilliant idea of having a food & wine pairing.  Brilliant, I thought, until I received the e-mail listing 11 different pairings highlighting 5 of which were my responsibility!!  Never to back down from a cooking and wine challenge I researched all the recipes I needed, sent my other half to get those wines that we couldn't find on our rack, donned my apron and got stuck in under masterchef time restrictions (after traffic and the shops, to be ready by 7pm)!

 

Everything turned out very impressive, we even had individual plates/tiles to serve each canape on, the table was beautifully decorated, the food was all delicious and quite gourmet if I do say, the wines were most appropriately paired and the time seemed to just disappear before we realised it was well past 1am and we should probably get some shut eye.



No wine notes tonight (that would be rude), but a snippet of the pairing menu below and a few photos of the canapes we were most proud of.




MOTHER'S DAY PAIRING MENU
 
1. Bruchetta with goats cheese and roasted aubergine paired with Windmeul Sauvignon Blanc.

 

2. Chicken Curry on a sweetcorn blini paired with Tulbagh Winery Colombard.



  3. Avocado Ritz on Choux Pastry paired with Creation Chardonnay.

4. Salmon roulade with potato crisps and apple mousse with Darling Reserve Chenin blanc.


5. Wild mushroom and pesto tart with Tulbagh Winery Pinotage/Shiraz.

6. Butternut soup with Barefoot Merlot.

  7. Thinly sliced beef with Balsamic reduction and beetrootmicroleaves with Windmeul Cabarnet Sauvignon


   8. Lamb Riblette with Tamato Chilli Jam and   Porcupine Ridge Syrah.

   9. Pear & Chocolate Cake dessert (Tart Belle Helene - http://tuis.co.za/nuus/bon-appetit/) with Windmeul white muscadel.



 

 10. Chocolate truffles and rose nougat with with Laborie Rose MCC.

11. and last but not least 15 year old KWV served with ginger nougat.





Honestly, the food was amazing and so well paired with each of the wines. It seemed like a bit of an effort, but what a fantastic idea and evening. We will definitely be doing this again,perhaps next time with not as many pairings.







Truffles and MCC



Chocolate and Pear Tart