Lunch at Bar Bar Black Sheep in Riebeek Kasteel yesterday was like an entry in the journal of Denton Welch: “we both decide not to have soup. The tongue comes. It is good, soft, sweet-tasting. There is Russian salad, beetroot, lettuce, potato. Edith Sitwell has no lettuce. We begin to eat hungrily. I am like Byron over women’s mouths for a moment, not being able quite to reconcile beetroot, tongue, potato, with the mouth of the person who I have only associated before with poems in books. I had never thought of things going in, only coming out; dividing body from soul.”

Aníbal, Mynhardt and Marius

Although Edith Sitwell was not in fact at lunch, her reincarnation and other shades, were. In fact BBBS was bursting with “interesting looking” people including secondhand Eugene in tweeds and black leather riding boots trying for louche German Count in Cabaret and Anton Espost, communist winemaker who seems to own most of Riebeek Kasteel.

Anton’s farm is called 1120 and his 2008 Shiraz is great. No wonder Adi Badenhorst buys 1120 Shiraz grapes for his eponymous Badenhorst Family Vineyards wines and their new second label, Secateur, a brandname which edged out two proposals from the family: Japie and Sannie.

We’d spent the best part of an hour tasting our way around the small but perfectly formed farmer’s market in Short Street, buying a book of baby names for Cornelia although Adi insists that Kalander (weevil) is definitely the middle name for the new arrival expected in October. Don’t worry, Jan Boland Coetzee, it could be worse – like Oogpister, a pugnacious ground beetle or Blaartrektor (blister beetle).

Alongside the book were day old oysters at R10 each and a glass of Pieter Cruythoff bubbly from Riebeek Cellars, Mnr. Cruythoff being “the first white man” to cross the mountains as Anton’s oyster shucking partner commented.

We bumped into Oriel “A-team” Berry and Michelle who asked whether I’d seen her review of Sour Grapes that corrected the error of her editor Brian Joss, in the False Bay Echo, that I’d been fired as a taster for the Platter Guide. As consumers will hopefully find out later this year when our own blind tasting publication, The People’s Guide, appears, my objections to the Platter methodology are based on a bit more than some missing gruntles and humpty-dumptyism.

In the market proper, Julien from Kasteelberg Bistro had wonderful Maigret of duck Carpaccio for tasting next to tubs of white duck fat and a variation of Tsatsiki made with creamed goat’s cheese and yoghurt.

After listening to an organic farmer in a green anorak patiently explain the whys and wherefores of organic chickens to a townie, lovingly choose and weigh a plump capon only to be told that R80 was too expensive as “they cost half that at Checkers and they’re cooked, too” we retreated to BBBS for solace in a glass of Donovan Rall’s exotically perfumed 2008 Rall white: Chenin, Chardonnay, Verdelho and Viognier. C2V2, not an android from Star Wars but a foretaste of the future of high-end SA whites. The kind of wine I’d offer to celebrity guests at 2010 if the Sir Lunch-a-lots who advise FIFA on local wine purchases could be persuaded to add white blends to the appropriate tender document.

Marius Malan did the usual party trick with his 2007 Vior Chenin. “I can’t believe you can sell this quality for €2” commented Aníbal Coutinho, Portuguese wine guru who had spent the previous week sniffing and slurping his way through 600+ red wines for our People’s Guide at The Nose Wine Bar in the Cape Quarter, soon to be renamed Chenin by new owner Craig.

For red, Marius had brought along a mini-vertical tasting of Shiraz from Slaley (thanks Lindsay!): ’98, ’97 and ’99, ordered according to my preference. The ’98 was completely spectacular, as was the Slaley 2007 Chardonnay Noble Late Harvest, priced a total mismark at R45 a half-bottle and so good Adi placed an order on the spot at dinner on Kalmoesfontein the previous night.

Seated inside BBBS, the unsold muffins outside were so distracting, we had to close the window shutters. On the wall opposite, a mini Andy Warhol silkscreen of Chairman Mao with a slash of scarlet lipstick made me think of Denton who died age 33, too long before his time.

Related posts:

1. Forgiving Funky Apricots “Much more forgiving than the Simonsberg” is how Paardebosch winemaker...
2. A short life, but a merry one Bookended by the controversial claim by Su Birch, WOSA CEO,...
3. 100 Women – the Wines Well the 100 ladies have spoken and here are 100...
4. Robin, short-changed Robin von Holdt, CEO of the spectacularly misnamed Top 100...
5. Marianne lets down her bolla Confused terroir message from the makers of Karoo mineral water...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.