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Marino Chiavelli’s Illovo palace, Summer Place, is entrenching itself as Ground Zero for fine wine in Jozi – Gauteng’s version of the KWV Lubyanka, La Concorde, in Paarl (without the squash courts), if you like. So it was a fitting venue for last night’s Vinimark/WineWorx trade show which saw a glamorous gaggle of Jozi restaurateurs descend en masse like Durbanites on a sardine run – they may not make the San Pellegrino Top Fifty like their Cape cousins, but boy are they better looking!
Coco - too handsome for the Cape
Gloriously sunny Sunday here in Cape Town, beer batter fish and chips (R80) at Pepenero in Mouille Point and a bottle of Overgaauw Sylvaner 2008 – at R120 the cheapest and (arguably) best wine on the wine list. Petrol yellow, slightly oxidized and a toast to the BP oil spill on the other side of the Atlantic in the Gulf of Mexico.
Pepenero
Two days of partying on the Paardeberg were bought to a rude conclusion by the national crimewave which is now lapping the previously peaceful wine appellation north of Cape Town. Party #1 was Adi Badenhorst’s oesaf celebration one Friday night last month followed by the birthday party of Badenhorst Family Vineyards assistant winemaker Jasper Wickens on Saturday – the best joll according to Partyberg insiders “as the crowd was younger.” The venue was a bucolic clump of trees on the Partyberg in which Dutch superstar Stef Bos, Antwerp’s answer to Die Antwoord, got married a couple of years ago.
Adi Badenhorst
Forget about who will host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The search for the next Franschhoek is hotting up as the former Sunday daytrip destination slowly but surely prices itself out of the domestic market, hijacked by mouldy bookworms, mafiosi and poseurs. A comparison of the pros and cons shows how the two villages stack up as successors.
Greyton rushhour
A handy tip to beat the recession from an unlikely source: Tatler, 300 year old glossy magazine for Trinnys and Susannahs. When ordering at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze or Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s Nobu at the Cape Town One&Only, do so in Afrikaans to qualify for “hilariously big portions to cope with the Afrikaner appetite.” A handy tip from Tatler’s Travel Guide 2010. Patrons speaking English at Nobu get servings like the one below. Clearly no laughing matter.
English dish at Nobu
Fokofpolisiekar should compose house music for Gordon Ramsay’s Maze restaurant at the One&Only for three reasons: Big Gordo is an adept of the F word; after leaving a wine maker’s dinner with Dominique Hebrard from St. Émilion and Karl Lambour from Constantia Glen this morning in Karl’s swish Mercedes sports (“a woman’s car” grumbled Dominique from the boot) PC Plod’s breathalyzer is located between the Two Oceans Aquarium and the Hotel, giving pissed patrons a clear run to the city; on the way to the Waterfront yesterday evening we saw a young lady mugged on her pink scooter corner of Buitengracht and Castle Streets by an urban vulture who grabbed something from her pocket and ran across to Midmar Liquors. Any city that cannot enforce law and order on a main artery at 7pm should adopt Fokofpolisiekar as a municipal band. Certainly, it’s no fit place to host a Soccer World Cup.
Dominique and Luke
Lunch of miso-glazed broiled black cod onboard the Crystal Serenity in the Port of Cape Town yesterday with party facilitator Arundal Thom and politician Mbazima Shilowa. Are these boats of bling the high water mark of a recently departed age of extravagance? There was something nautically nostalgic about the twinkling casino and Nobu’s deserted Silk Road sushi bar, but then both pleasure pots are evening-only facilities.
Serenity descended on the Mother City on Monday after a six day voyage from Brazil, missing the Rio carnival and departing for Dubai and then Mumbai last night, missing the Green Point carnival (for which Perdeberg Winery and I have made a trio of carnival wines) by a full month. Capetonians had been enjoying complementary wireless internet in their luxury lofts and city crannies for the past few days, as Cape Town bathed in a beneficial broadband beam from Serenity. A taste of the World Cup when Roman Abramovich drops anchor.
Arundal & Mbhazima
Off to dinner last night with some exotic friends from Jozi at Beluga between the leather bars and clubs off Somerset Road in Green Point, Cape Town. Afrikaans-accented Eugene had phoned for a table and was waitlisted but when Xiashen tried, we got one immediately, albeit in the Gods. A case of tourist precedence perhaps? Good training for 2010. Although it was one of those kopstamp (bang your head) nosebleed tables in the suspended cellar. Jeremy was late as his pronunciation of Xiashen did not match that of the meeters and greeters overwhelmed by posses of Dutch tourists and he was milling around in the cavernous body of the restaurant until Xiashen spied him through the floor slats and went down and rescued him.
Isn’t it typical. No sooner does BA choose Cape Town as its Top Destination for 2010 than the airline hits severe turbulence brought on by striking trolley dollies. Perhaps Willy Walsh should follow his own advice to punters and put his cabin crew up in the Mother City rather than Somerset West. Being home to two Masters of Wine (in the case of Remington Norman for the sunny season) hardly outweighs the charms of Table Mountain.
Famous Somerset West MW Remington Norman
Wine tourism, Stellenbosch style, covers all bases as Emmanuelle Giraud, Directrice Générale of Champagne house Henri Giraud (described by Robert Parker as “the finest Champagne House virtually no one has ever head of”) found out on the weekend. Stepping out of the shower into her bedroom at the Bonne Esperance Guest Lodge, Emmanuelle was surprised to find a man uninvited in her room. The stranger withdrew and it was only at breakfast that Emmanuelle discovered her wallet was missing.
Emmanuelle and Inke
