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South Africa's leading independent drinks commentator…
 

Sunday: Swartberge? quelle misnomer!

Posted: June 28th, 2009 | By Neil Pendock


It’s Sunday evening and the GVG has rolled into Oudtshoorn. We’re staying at the Queen’s Hotel in Baron Van Reede Street – what a delicious mélange of upper class names and so of course we plan to dine in the hotel’s Colony Restaurant this evening, hopefully on some of those plump black-faced sheep we drove past on the way down from Kimberley.

We crossed the Swartberge through Meiringspoort but a blanket of snow had made them look more like the Alps than the entrance to the Klein Karoo. Which itself was in green drag looking more like Ireland than a semi-desert.

The not very black swartberge this afternoon

The not very black swartberge this afternoon

Whoever said that the SA Winelands are visually (at least) the most spectacular in the world, was not wrong.

Rocky Mountian High

Rocky Mountain High: GVG as John Denver

Later… Spectacular dinner at The Colony. We’d been tipped off by local food fundi Francois Ferreira who recommended the lamb. Synchronicity stepped in and assigned Stanley van Wyk, one of Francois’ students, as our waiter and the rack was uit die boonste rakke, as they say down here. While Stanley was serving, I couldn’t get David Kramer’s ridiculous Stanley en die Koei out of my head. But of course we’ll keep that for tomorrow when we take the Huisrivierpas out of Calitzdorp.

Stanley van Wyk

Stanley van Wyk

  
 
 

Comments

 

NOID

June 29, 2009 at 9:17 am

Hi Neil

Real Travelling Wilbury you are, Europe one week, the Karoo the next… Had a chance to head out to your side of the world yesterday, lunched in Riebeek Kasteel at The Barn. Half the price of Franschoek twice as much pleasure.

RE your article on the Wine website:
The highlight of the day however wasn’t the food but the wine…Babylon’s Peak Chenin Blanc 2008 @ R60 a bottle from the restaurant. What a gem. 38 year old bush vines, unirragated. Proof the Paardeberg rocks. Terroir in a bottle as Michael Bettane would say!

Some say Paardeberg some say Perdeberg…

Regards NOID

 

Jacques Conradie

June 29, 2009 at 6:36 pm

Hi Neil
After your previous vissit with the value Guru (when I was still with Boplaas) I’m really sorry I didnt know about you passing through probably the most scenic route in all of South Africa (The Cango Valley)-u could have stopped at our newly established – soon to be opened winery and tasting fascility Karusa Vineyards-halfway between Oudtshoorn and the Swartberg pass.

Anyway you are now issued with an obliged vissit to the opening on the weekend of the 15th of August-as are all the site visitors!

Savouring our 5th Element Syrah/Viognier with the backdrop of a snowcapped Swarberg takes some beating by any other if I may say myself-and u might even have had the first wiff of our soon to be launched Karoo Classique methode traditional!!
(vissit: http://www.karusa.co.za and http://www.klassique.co.za)

Karoo Groete
Jacques Conradie
084 2084 135

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  • About

    Called "South Africa's most influential wine writer" by DrinksBiz (NZ), a "wijngoeroe" and "beminnelijk maar snoeihard" by De Telegraaf, a "Master of SA Writing" by Ernst Gouws and voted “most trusted palate” by readers of WINE magazine, Neil Pendock is South Africa’s leading Indie drinks commentator.

    An "enthusiastic amateur", he owns a small farm on the Paardeberg which used to supply a few grapes to Swartland Winery, a producer he never wrote about. After two decades in the spittoon, he retains a healthy disregard for the anoraks, bowties and Emperors of drink and their new clothes.