Biking for Chenin
Credit score: Gavin Harvett
Fancy attending to know South Africa’s most prolific white a bit of higher, whereas retaining energetic? You’ll discover the world’s largest variety of Chenin Blanc vines in South Africa, rooted in virtually 19,000ha of Cape soil. However whereas some winemakers (notably Ken Forrester) have ushered in a brand new respect for South Africa’s ‘work horse’ cultivar, it’s nonetheless a piece in progress as a result of unpredictability of its flavour profile. In keeping with analysis, Chenin’s very versatility confuses in any other case loyal native wine lovers in South Africa.
In an try to handle this, the native Chenin Blanc Affiliation has created the Chenin Safari, an annual six-week mountain-biking occasion that encourages riders to tour Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl, Bot River and Robertson (sadly not Swartland or Elim) to coincide with #DrinkChenin Day, celebrated globally on the third weekend of June. (The date has been in place since 2014, when a gaggle of American sommeliers and winemakers first raised a communal toast to the variability.)
The problem is to see what number of Chenin Safari stops you may go to over six weeks. Taking into account the #drinkchenin web site recommendation – ‘We realise you can not style all of the Chenins in any respect the stops and nonetheless trip’ – you should cease at a minimal of six of the 17 taking part wine farms within the time interval to win your self a free biking shirt. The thought is to create a social media storm of posts and tags as you go. However except you’re hoping to win a prize, it’s okay to only give attention to the trip: a collection of attractive loops on slopes braided with vineyards and fynbos (South Africa’s distinctive heathland), earlier than stopping at a vineyard for a tasting to see how every Chenin expresses that particular terroir.
Tip If the concept of touring vineyards on two wheels appeals to you, then Franschhoek Cycles, conveniently positioned on the Franschhoek excessive road, offers e-bikes, maps and recommendation for individuals who like to guide, and guides for individuals who prefer to comply with.
Value For the Chenin Safari, registration charges and day permits could apply – try the T&Cs on drinkchenin.co.za for particulars. Particular person vineyard tastings prices will differ.
Difficult your perceptions
Apparently it was a Roman referred to as Apicius within the 1st century AD who first coined the phrase ‘we eat with our eyes’. Intelligent chap. Millennia later, neuroscientists recognise that the mind processes visible cues sooner than it does style and odor – so inevitably seems do have an effect on style. Wine lovers aren’t immune: in 2001, PhD psychologist and winegrower Frédéric Brochet carried out an experiment on the College of Bordeaux the place 54 oenology college students had been introduced with a white wine stained crimson with an odourless dye and requested to explain the flavour. All 54 used typical crimson wine adjectives. However what about sound? Can music or white noise affect style?
Nederburg’s 5 Senses Meals & Wine Expertise explores how the assorted senses are linked by depriving you of two of them. After a welcome glass of Nederburg Cap Classique, you’re seated at a desk within the Nineteenth-century Cape Dutch manor home, then blindfolded. A pair of wi-fi headphones is positioned over your ears, filling your mind with chosen sounds. The primary of three mini-canapé programs, every one matched with a Nederburg wine, is then delivered to the desk. For every match, guided by hand, your server will assist you to to seek out your wine glass and fork, to odor, then style. The desk is cleared, and the blindfold and headphones are eliminated. The very same mixture of bite-sized dish and paired wine is then delivered to the desk so that you can expertise with all senses on board. Does depriving sure senses improve or detract from style notion? If that’s the case, how a lot? E book and discover out!
Tip Include an open thoughts
Tackle Sonstraal Highway, Dal Josafat, Paarl 7646
Tel +27 (0)21 862 3104. Accessible twice a day (at 11.00 and 15.00) day by day other than Tuesdays. Reserving important
Value R550pp (£27), minimal 4 individuals
Having fun with uncommon vintages
A memorable wine pairing is all the time a pleasure, however at Salsify there may be added poignancy. Situated in one in every of Cape City’s oldest surviving buildings – an 18th-century guardhouse tucked into Camps Bay’s wooded glen – the restaurant’s tree- fringed ocean views are lure sufficient, however the actual focus is what’s on the desk: a superlative tasting menu, every edible art work served with a number of the Cape’s rarest wines. Aptly named the Gem Sequence pairing, these are both critically restricted editions or the final bottles of a given classic truffle-hunted from high winemakers’ cellars.
It’s surprisingly affecting, figuring out that your tasting helps a selected classic draw nearer to its inevitable finish – and it’s additionally a daring initiative. The pairings are continuously being up to date as a result of restricted availability of the wines, requiring a resourceful and nimble sommelier – Victor Okolo has lately taken over from Samuel Ross. Provided in tandem is the Boutique pairing. If a sure wine on that record tickles your fancy then it’s attainable to ask to pattern this alongside the Gem pairing, and examine notes on how they increase or distinction the flavours on the plate. Interactive and enjoyable, the entire expertise raises edifying discussions round South Africa’s various terroir, reminiscing on the previous whereas sipping on what was bottled in that 12 months.
Tip When making a web based reserving (suggested), ask to be seated within the Sea Room for an ocean view.
Tackle The Roundhouse, Roundhouse Highway, Camps Bay, Cape City 8005
Tel +27 (0)21 010 6444
Value R3,050 (£147) per individual for the Chef’s Menu with Gem Sequence pairing; R1,850pp (£89) for the Diminished Menu with Gem Sequence pairing
Zooming round in a classic automobile
Some of the picturesque farms in postcard- fairly Franschhoek valley is the 50ha L’Ormarins, established on the foot of the Groot Drakenstein mountains in 1694, and below the custodianship of the Rupert household for the previous 5 a long time. Anton Rupert was a devoted classic automobile fanatic, as is his son Johann, who constructed the Franschhoek Motor Museum on the property in 2007 to accommodate the most important assortment of uncommon automobiles in Africa. He has greater than 220, ranging in age from a 1898 Beeston motor tricycle to a 2016 Chevrolet Brute, in addition to rarities, such because the 1956 Aston Martin DB2/4 MkII Touring Spyder with chassis quantity AM300/1162, one in every of three unique Aston Martins despatched to Carrozzeria Touring of Milan in 1955 to be fitted with what would develop into the Spyder’s distinctive Superleggera bodywork.
A revolving choice of 80 automobiles, on show in purpose-built exhibition halls, are stored in mint situation and are usually pushed. However few guests know which you can, by prior association, hop into whichever autos are working that day. For those who’re in luck it will likely be one of many open-topped beauties, corresponding to a 1915 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost or 1925 Bugatti Kind 23. After tootling alongside, feeling like Toad in The Wind within the Willows, your driver will deposit you on the Nineteenth-century manor home. You may be led by way of to the Anthonij Rupert tasting room, the place rays of daylight shine by way of massive sash home windows onto the glassware on the vintage yellow wooden desk. There are a number of wine tasting menu selections right here, so put aside a few hours. Then name it a day. An evening, even.
Tip The choice of tasting choices right here will be discombobulating, however don’t miss L’Ormarins’ cool-climates and flagship reds. Or its Eau de Vie spirit vary, distilled utilizing an Armagnac nonetheless.
Tackle R45 street, nr Wemmershoek, Franschhoek 7690
To ebook Visits should be booked prematurely. E book through the web site, or contact Cartology to rearrange this (and extra) as a part of your Franschhoek tour: cartologytravel.com; (UK cell) 07716 095680
Value Museum tour and basic automobile drive, R80pp (£4) every; wine flights from R60 (£3)
Turning into a winemaker for the day
For the final word wine lover’s exercise…
i) Pull on an outdated pair of shorts or skirt and head out to Stellenrust Wine Property, a couple of kilometres south of Stellenbosch city.
ii) Stroll by way of vineyards to fill a crate with no matter grape selection is able to harvest. In keeping with co-owner and viticulturist Kobus van der Westhuizen, the Pinotage is often ripe in January, with Cabernet Franc or Cabernet Sauvignon grapes sometimes ripening in direction of March. In case you are fortunate, the Shiraz may be out there all through the three-month harvest season, in several blocks.
iii) Return to the Stellenrust gardens, the place your grapes are upended right into a halved wine barrel.
iv) After rinsing your toes, step into your barrel and begin stomping, working the grapes till they’re fully squashed and juicy.
v) Rinse and proceed on to the cellar for a mixing problem.
vi) After receiving your tasting glasses and a check tube, you’ll style one of many Stellenrust blends blind.
vii) The problem is to then match that mix, utilizing the three varieties offered, guided by Stellenrust’s sommelier. They can even determine the winner, must you be of a aggressive bent.
When you can take residence a bottle out of your mixing problem, a bit of extra endurance is required in your harvest exercise. Your small-batch wine can be naturally fermented with stalks and skins for six months earlier than spending 12 months in oak, secure within the arms of Stellenrust cellarmaster and co-owner Tertius Boshoff, earlier than being bottled.
Tip To the north of Stellenbosch city, Muratie Wine Property additionally affords wine stomping alongside wine tasting throughout its Harvest Pageant, held each March (entrance R150/£7pp). Or practise your mixing expertise at Middelvlei Wine Property, designed as an exercise for 2, with a mixing package to make one personalised bottle to take residence, with further bottles out there as an non-obligatory further (R300/£14pp).
Tackle Stellenrust Wine Property, Stellenrust Highway, Stellenbosch 7605
Tel +27 (0)21 880 2283
Value Stellenrust ‘Make your personal wine’ expertise (should be booked prematurely), out there mid-January to finish March, weekdays 10:00-15:00, R4,000 (£195) for one to 10 individuals (excludes courier price for the wine). Mixing Problem, out there all 12 months, R1,800 (£88) for one to 6 individuals
Pairing up with a star chef
Credit score: Nickey Bothma Pictures
Having carried out time in Michelin star eating places, studying from the likes of Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing and Bryn Williams, chef Matt Manning decamped to Cape City to open his first restaurant, Grub & Vine, in 2018. He then launched The Chef’s Studio, an industrial-chic demo kitchen within the loft above the restaurant, earlier than increasing into adjoining areas to open Tradition Wine Bar. Tradition is arguably the best-stocked wine bar within the metropolis, providing not solely a high-quality South African choice however a superb alternative of worldwide wines too.
Manning prepares themed wine-paired demonstration dinners in The Chef’s Studio that change seasonally, however he additionally designs unique, extremely bespoke wine-paired dinners, designed round your pursuits, be it conventional South African delicacies or a selected grape selection, fastidiously deliberate with one in every of his sommeliers.
Dinner includes canapés, a bread course, starter, primary and dessert. Manning will display learn how to make two programs – often the starter and the principle – that you simply then replicate at your personal cooking station. Every course is loved on the communal eating desk, with Manning explaining the reasoning behind the actual alternative of wine, often from small-batch producers.
Tip The upstairs Wine Library hosts a daily Tradition Membership night, intimate occasions with solely 28 seats, specializing in a selected grape selection and area, and a chance to style as much as 16 wines that showcase it finest.
Tackle 103 Bree Road, Cape City 8001
Tel + 27 (0)87 1535 244
Value Wine-paired demonstration dinners, from R945 (£42); bespoke dinners, from R1,250pp (£61). Tradition Membership, from R395 (£19)
Saddling up for a connoisseur path
There’s nothing fairly like having fun with the recent scent of the earth on horseback, serenaded by birds and surrounded by magnificent surroundings. Situated within the Drakenstein Valley, Cape Winelands Using is a high outfit, with greater than 40 horses, high quality tack to present each rider and horse a snug trip, and a cautious interview course of to make sure that every rider is matched with the fitting horse, not solely by way of skill but in addition weight and character.
As a lot as attainable, riders are grouped in accordance with skill (all the time working on the tempo of the least skilled) and accompanied by guides which can be educated in regards to the atmosphere, from figuring out grape varieties and birds to offering a potted historical past of the realm. The wine-tasting trip includes a 3.5-hour jaunt to neighbouring Babylonstoren, well-known for its gardens and fabulous new wine museum, to take pleasure in a small however wonderful vary of wines accompanied by platters of delectable recent farm produce.
For severe foodie and oenophile riders, the five-day Cape Connoisseur Wine Path, led by proprietor Louis Geyer, is the one to ebook: a meandering trip by way of a number of the Cape’s finest wine estates (corresponding to Plaisir de Merle, Niel Joubert, Marianne, Anura), with personal tastings and/or meals with the winemakers. The subsequent Cape Connoisseur Wine Path is scheduled for 17-22 April 2023.
Tip To set your personal tempo, ebook an unique wine- tasting trip – it prices solely R100pp greater than the value proven under. It is usually attainable to ebook the Connoisseur Wine Path as a non-public expertise any time for at least 4 individuals (prices differ).
Tackle Off R45 street, nr Klapmuts, Paarl 7670
Tel +27 (0)21 863 3852 / Cellular (0)82 924 6728
Value Wine tasting trip, R1,050pp (£52). Cape Connoisseur Wine Path, R49, 950pp (£2,450)
