Stellenbosch at Summerplace

Wine festivals and exhibitions in Jo’burg are on a major growth spurt right now. Besides the regular suspects like WINEX, there are a few great, smaller exhibitions that bring out the best of a region or varietal as well as a huge number of tasting and pairings happening across various restaurants.

What’s great about this is that it really is making wine a much more accessible item to us Jozinites and it’s great to experience what a lot of Capetonians get to experience every day. I recently popped in at Stellenbosch at Summerplace to check it out for the first time, and had a great time.

The wines had been split into their varietals and spread out across Summerplace’s main hall. In addition to the wines, chefs from five different (and fantastic) Stellenbosch wine farm restaurants had prepared a dish to perfectly pair with one of the varietals. Here’s a taste of what went down with the chefs present:

“Michael Broughton of Terroir and his beef wellington; Bertus Basson of Overture Restaurant and his sensory creation of crisp potato and beef brisket; Christiaan Campbell of Delaire Graff Estate and his salmon trout tartare fritter and cauliflower ‘risotto ; Gregory Czarnecki of Waterkloof Restaurant and his duo of free range lamb stuffed with bone marrow, and Tanja Kruger of Makaron Restaurant at Majeka House who made her event debut with aplayful terrine of Paradyskloof quail and guinea fowl.”

Not only did this give me the chance to taste food from chefs I’ve been reading about for a while now, but it was also a chance to experience some of these farms’ flagship wines, ones you don’t always get the chance to taste. The wine farms were generous with their tasting portions too, which was great since I had arranged a lift home.

The musical group AmaZinkLive were present to provide some really upbeat entertainment, as well as some sultry dance moves, although I fear they may have been slightly lost on the somewhat stuffy crowd.

While the food was great and the wines were even better, and even though I was there by invitation, I did think that R500 a ticket was a little steep for those who wanted to attend. It would deter a lot of people from going, which may be the intention, but I found it a little sad that there weren’t many people around under thirty. After all, we’re the next generation of collectors, we’re just not willing to spend that to get in…

Thanks to Stellenbosch Wine Routes for the pictures from the event!

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Kate Els