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.
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| 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.
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| Paul Cluver restaurant |
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| Tasting room |
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| 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.
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| Much better outside! |
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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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!
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