Cape Trip - Day 3

If you ever find yourself in Hermanus on a Saturday morning, do yourself a favour and spend the morning at Hermanuspietersfontein’s Saturday market.


 There’s nothing I haven’t seen at other markets but it’s the atmosphere that makes this my favourite market by far!
The first stall you’ll find at the entrance is of course Hermanuspietersfontein’s own wine stall. 

HPF
So equipped with  a bottle of ‘Bloos’ in an ice bucket in the one hand, camera in the other we were ready to explore the rest the market has to offer. You’ll find the normal cheeses, cold meats, sweet treats, nuts & jams, pancakes and breads. Everything I tastes was fresh and delicious. 











There were also some other interesting stalls selling things like Greek mezes, cocoa chocolate tastings and interesting spring rolls and samosas.


Greek platters
Chocolate Tasting



The market is actually quite small and everything happens inside the square on Hermanuspietersfontein’s premises. There are a few tables with benches where people enjoyed the perfect sunshine day we had in the middle of the otherwise wet and gray Cape winter. 





There’s a water feature on the one side of the square with a bunch of yellow rubber ducks that kept the kids occupied the whole morning – I thought this was a clever (and cheap) way of providing entertainment for the kids.


I’m not even going to start talking about the actual wines! If you haven’t tasted their wines yet then you’ve been missing out on one of life’s little gifts! My personal HPF favourites are their No.3 Suavignon Blanc and their Kleinboet red blend.

Wine Village
A short walk from HPF is the Hermanus Wine Village. They have a huge collection of wines and vintages but more importantly the Omie there (I can’t remember his name unfortunately) has an even bigger knowledge of wine, something we don’t often find at wine sellers here in Joburg.

Some rare vintages
We were treated to a wine tasting while the Omie patiently answered all our questions and in return he shared a few stoepstories. Like the one about a wine collector who bought a 27l magnum of some exclusive wine for R15 000 at an auction and when he decided to open it years later it was filled with water!

Wine Village: Wine tasting

Next we headed to Stanford actually looking for the cheese factory. We didn’t know exactly where it was so we turned off at Madre’s Country Kitchen to ask for directions. To our surprise this was not just a farm stall but a wine farm as well. And since we were already there it didn’t take much persuasion to stay for a wine tasting.

Sir Robert Stanford is the name of this little family owned wine farm. They had a lovely everyday-drinking Rose and a well-balanced, elegant red blend called The Hansom.


The Sir Robert Stanford range
We were told to visit the stookhuis before leaving. We didn’t know what it was all about but the name sounded interesting and we could see the little stookhuis shack from the tasting room – so why not. 


The stookhuis specialty is Grappa…with espresso. I thought the espresso would break the strong alcohol taste of the Grappa – wishful thinking. This concoction will most definitely kick you into a different gear, faster or slower.



Since our palates were totally spoilt for further wine tastings and the cheese factory closed already (never got round to it) our last stop was Birkenhead brewery. You get to taste all their different beers, from stouts to pilsner to ciders.

Beer Tasting
Blacksnake

Grappa makes you hungry…so we decided to share a beer pie before heading home for the rugby and braai that evening in Hermanus. The beer pie is basically a very loooong stew baked into a pie and goes down very well with their Blacksnake stout.

Birkenhead Beer pie
Another eventful day in the Cape. I love this place!

Cape trip - Day 2

Elgin Valley
My first encounter with anything from Elgin valley was a Paul Cluver wine at a wine show here in Joburg a couple of years ago. I couldn’t remember which wine I tasted but I do remember that it was delicious.
We joined up with locals Gerda & Alro at the Peregrine padstal for a quick breakfast and then we headed to Paul Cluver.

Hermanus locals: Alro & Gerda

Paul Cluver
I enjoyed all their wines but the highlight for me was definitely the two Rieslings. The one is a sweeter Riesling almost like a dessert wine but not quite as sweet and the Weisser Riesling has the most amazing fruity fragrance on the nose but it doesn’t taste like a fruit salad at all. A very elegant Riesling.

Their other famous wine is their Pinot Noir – light in colour, not as dark as the Hemel-en-Aarde Pinot Noir’s (more about them below). Berries on the nose but a surprising chocolaty taste on the palate. A good investment as Gerda puts it!
On the farm they also have a big amphitheater in the woods where they host music events but this was unfortunately closed during the winter months.

Paul Cluver restaurant

Tasting room

Cluver Club


Oak Valley Farms
I read about Oak Valley farms in a magazine some time ago and expected great things from it. The farm produces 4 commodities – wine, fruit, flowers and Wagyu beef (this is family of the well-known Japanese Cobe beef)
I was really looking forward to tasting a marbled Wagyu steak while enjoying more of Elgin’s finest wines and then taking a stroll through the fields, picking apples and pears (much like the strawberry farms around Stellenbosch) and perhaps finishing the day with a walk through the cut-flower greenhouses. At least this is the picture I had in my head…
What a disappointment. There is a little tasting room which can hardly accommodate more than 5 people with no seating and one has to stand at the counter/office desk while tasting. The wines weren’t that great either. I enquired about the fruit, meat and flowers and was politely informed that we had to notify them in advance should we have wished to see the flower greenhouses and that the cattle is just cattle roaming in the field and the fruit trees are just fruit trees. Such a pity that these guys don’t realise what a goldmine they are sitting on and that they are not doing anything with it. They have a beautiful forest and I can just see a massive Saturday picnic under those trees enjoying all the fresh produce and wines from the farm.

Much better outside!



Hemel & Aarde valley
Karlien commented at some stage “I wonder how many times I’ve said ‘wow!’ today”. This pretty much sums up this beautiful valley where each wine farm is situated on a more picturesque location than the previous one. The valley is also known to have the ideal climate and soil type to produce Pinot Noir.




Bouchard Finlayson
Our first stop in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley. I loved the way they combined modern and old school design and decorating in their tasting room and cellar. Their wines had the same type of surprises in store.




Blanc de Mer
A white blend of 40% Riesling, 33% Viognier, 13% Sauvignon Blanc, 11% Chenin Blanc and 3% Chardonnay. A great blend because of the high proportions of Riesling and Viognier creating a wine that can be enjoyed by everyone because it is not too sweet but not too dry either. We picked up hints of peaches and pears on the nose. A very good wine to have in your collection for those occasions where you a trying to please a variety of palates around the table.


Missionvale Chardonnay
Wooded for 7 months in French oak this Chardonnay had a beautiful yellow colour with vanilla on the nose and a well-rounded ending on the palate as a result of the wood. This was one of my favourites!

Hannibal
Give it a pass…


Galpin Peak Pinot Noir
A dark Pinot Noir with plum and berries on the nose as well as on the palate. It drinks so well, if it wasn’t that expensive it would make the perfect everyday drinking wine since it is not as heavy as a Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz. Interesting fact about the wine is that it won wine of the year (can’t remember what year) at the SA Superior Wine competition with a score of 97%!




I strolled through their cellar surrounded by the smell of the wine barrels and spotted a piano under a dusty cover in the far end of the room and had to find out more. Apparently they host classical music evenings once a month in the cellar. Our timing was out but I can just imagine what an awesome night that could be – a music evening in a dark cellar surrounded by the smell of wine in oak barrels and I’m sure they’ll serve their lovely wines at these evenings.



Next stop was Hamilton Russel.



The tasting room is in a small little thatch building with a fire place inside and their 2 wines on display. On the other side of the building you find a little patio that overlooks the farm dam and the woods on the opposite side of the dam. Tranquility.


My wife reckons that she wants to be a duckling at Hamilton Russell in her next life…
They only produce 2 wines – a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay – but they come at quite a price!


Pinot Noir
A ruby-red colour, also darker than Paul Cluver’s, with cherry and a type of smokiness on the nose. On the palate the taste is rounded off well with an aftertaste of cherries and wood. Definitely not the easy drinking Galpin Peak but I can imagine it to be a good companion with smoked pork.

Chardonnay
The bottle we tasted was very young and needs some more time on its side for it to develop its full potential. A typical vanilla and butterscotch chardonnay.



It's a hard life working on a wine farm...

Creation was our last stop before we headed home with our friends who stay in Hermanus.
I’ve heard great things about their food & wine pairing but I must admit the snack platter was WAY overpriced at R200 for a few cuts of cheese, a handful of biltong, a small bowl of Mediterranean vegetables and a small basket of bread. We even had to pay an additional R20 for an extra few slices of bread.

Seriously? R200 for this.
Their wines were good but the way in which they were served kind of spoiled it. This waitress had had enough for one day and I don’t think she spoke more than 2 sentences with us.






I’ve said this many times to fellow wine lovers/drinkers and I’m going to say it again…
A big part of how you experience a wine is determined by your mood, the atmosphere around you, the way in which it is presented and who you drink it with.
I’ve realised this many times when the exact same wines leaves me with a totally different experience than the previous time I drank it and I can almost always pin it on the above factors.
So even though I know that Creation wines are great, it was nothing special for me and I'm sure it was as a result of the long wine-tasting-day taking its toll, the unfriendly service we received and because I was irritated with the fact that we were ripped off with the food platter.

If you are tired of the same old Stellenbosch wine farms and looking for something new – take the scenic route and drive through the Hemel-en-Aarde valley! Just be aware that for the largest part you’ll be driving on a dirt road.

By now I feel like Michael Fridjhon so I’m going to leave it here.
A big thanks to my friend Gerda for helping me out with the tasting notes. She's much better trained by now to taste so many wines on 1 day than I am and to actually remember the characteristics of each one!

I’ll be back soon to share some more about our Hermanuspietersfontein experience!

Cape Trip - Day 1

We made the best use of last week’s public holiday and made a long weekend out of it. We flew down to Cape Town to visit friends and family. We’ll usually plan a few things that we’d like to do or see when we visit the Cape but Wine-farm-hopping goes without saying! This time was no exception.

What I liked most about our recent little wine tour is that we visited some of the lesser known farms  - some on purpose and some by luck!

If I want to write about all the wines and all the farms we visited it would simply be too long for 1 post. So I’m going to tackle them 1 day at a time.

Our first day out was in Stellenbosch joined by family members Piet, Lan and Divan. We visited Rust & Vrede and Eaglevlei

Rust & Vrede


The Rust & Vrede restaurant
I’ve never been to Rust & Vrede and was almost more excited to see the award winning restaurant than to taste the wines. It was ranked the 61st best restaurant in the world in this year’s S.Pellegrino world’s best list. I unfortunately didn’t get to taste anything since they only serve dinner (which I’m almost sure will be on pre-booking only) and we had a very busy little boy in our midst which wouldn’t have worked well in a classy restaurant like Rust & Vrede’s.

The D-man
I had a look at the menu though… mouthwatering as it seems this is definitely a blow-the-budget type of restaurant but I’m sure it’s worth every cent! The same goes for the wines – very expensive and very exclusive but you can taste the sophistication.
These bad boys sells for R700 each



a romantic dinner in the cellar's corner?


Eaglevlei
I just couldn’t help asking them “What’s up with the English-Afrikaans name?” Apparently the owner is English and he married an Afrikaans wife and that’s where the idea came from. I think it’s a bit silly but hey, if you have the bucks to buy a wine farm I guess you can name it whatever silly name you want to.
We also had lunch here. It’s the perfect place to come to if you have little ones because while you can enjoy the wine tasting there is a HUGE jungle gym outside for them to play on.

The tasting room

This is how you jazz up a burger




Their wines are really well-priced for the quality and taste. They range between R50 and R80 and I ended up buying their Viognier, Cab, Pinotage and Shiraz. It was easier than to choose between them…

Off to a good start, day 2 to follow...