Cape Town - A visit to De Grendel in the Durbanville wine valley is always a treat.
It’s not that far from the Cape Town city centre, just a 20-minute drive, and there’s a wonderful view of the ocean and Table Mountain from the tasting room and restaurant, as well as the farm itself.
Ian Bergh is the chef and Elzette du Preez one of the winemakers – both experts in their fields.
I was there recently at Elzette’s invitation to try her newly released bubbly, a 2012 vintage.
Besides the wine side of things, it’s always great to catch up with her, and I was lucky to do so because the next day she was off to the Far East to showcase De Grendel’s wines.
On her return, she said it had been a great trip and experience.
“In China the people are amazing and really getting clued up on their wine knowledge. By far the most popular wines are still reds and bubblies, with white wine about 10 percent of the sales.
“Men are the biggest consumers of wine, but women consumers are on the increase. Because the knowledge of wine is increasing, people tend to try new things rather than just going for the known wines from France,” she says, which is excellent news for us. De Grendel has already shipped two orders there.
“Japan was amazing and Tokyo is one of my top five cities – green and new and clean. People are friendly and courteous, and more developed as wine drinkers.”
But that’s all on the other side of the world. At the restaurant you can indulge in delicious fine dining, like a starter of smoked beef, coriander, onion, herbs, wonton, Gorgonzola, and smoked goat’s cheese. The menu changes according to what Ian deems to be the best possible ingredients at any given time. For our main course we had lamb rack.
Although we drank red with that, the star of the show was the bubbly. “Although the style in which our bubbly is made is the Method Cap Classique, and spends about 18 months on the lees in the bottle, I do like freshness in the bubbly,” Elzette says. “How we achieve that is by using chardonnay as two-thirds of the blend, and a third pinot noir to get the citrus and apple fruit flavours.”
l De Grendel is at 112 Plattekloof Road, Durbanville. To book a table call 021 558 7035 or e-mail [email protected]
Weekend Argus