Franschhoek Uncorked pops out at Solms-Delta
Spring has been a little late coming to the Boland this year. The weather on the weekend of 4 September, date of the Franschhoek Uncorked Festival, started off looking threatening enough to pop the corks right back in the thousands of bottles of wine that awaited the festival-goers. So the staff at the Fyndraai restaurant stood about a bit nervously as the first musical act, the Klein Handjies mini-choir from the crèche, assembled on stage. By the time the ultra-cute choristers, all decked out in the blue and white klopse costumes, started to sing at 12.:30 a trickle of guests had started to come in. By 13:00 it was a stream, and at 13:30 Annelize, the manager of Fyndraai rallied her troops, “Get your takkies on, we’ve got a flood here!” Extra tables were set up on the lawn and a steady flow of Kaapse kos was soon issuing from chef Shaun Schoeman’s kitchen.
Fynbos and fynkos at the veld food garden and heritage menu launch
Thursday’s launch of the Dik Delta veld food garden and the Fyndraai Heritage Menu was a sequence of delightful events, starting with amusing stories about the early days of the project and ending with the fruits of the garden paired with some of Solms-Delta’s best wines.
August Cellar Door Special
Our August half case promotion (from the tasting room, email or phone orders) is three bottles of Solms-Delta Hiervandaan 2006 and three Solms-Astor Cape Jazz Shiraz for R300! The perfect winter party partners, whether you are staying in or going out! Buy it at the farm (open 7 days a week) or phone 021-874 3937 or, to have it delivered to your door email your order through now to Therese on orders@solms-delta.co.za.
Did You Know we have a Champion Tree?
Did you know that there are champion trees? I don’t mean one tree species being prized above another; like I love giant bluegum trees more than I love oak trees. (But that is because I was born in the Free State, not the Western Cape. Sorry!) No, champion trees fall into categories like the tallest (Saligna Gum 81.5m, Haenertsburg) biggest (Baobab, 34m high, 21m tall, 34m crown) tallest indigenous (Monkey Thorn, 39m, Groot Marico.)
And Solms-Delta has its own champion tree. The oldest Oak tree in South Africa.
Two lambs on show
In the middle of the recent cold snap, when the mountains of Franschhoek were covered with snow, twin lambs were born at Solms-Delta farm.
The Real Bastille Day
There are several reasons why Bastille Day in Franschhoek is better than Bastille Day in Paris. There are no squadrons of men with silly tin helmets on horses. Our mountains are higher than Montmartre. Our Huguenot Monument has more arches than the Arc de Triomphe. And no Sarkozy! The best reason is, of course, that this year the Bastille Day parade was led by Solms-Delta’s very own newest biggest marching band, the Delta Valley Entertainers, accompanied by many of the staff and management and most of the workers. In fact, the Solms-Delta delegation WAS the parade.
Twin lambs Coffee & Cappuccino born on Solms-Delta this week!
On February 11 we reported that a small herd of fat-tailed sheep had arrived at Solms-Delta. On Sunday afternoon the herd was augmented by two. By twins, to be exact.
Gemoedsrus launch and a vertical expression…
This was to be a vertical tasting. I wondered whether I had to stand throughout, and whether I could, knowing my inclination not to spit. In addition to which there were eight reds and a fortified wine to explore.
Now if you are at all like me, you know that dooswyn burns a bit at first and that wine over R20 a bottle is smoother. But I am a willing student, and at this event I was all ears. Luckily I was sitting next to some very well informed people who didn’t look at me too sympathetically when I revealed my ignorance, and turned out to be jolly good company to boot.
GEMOEDSRUS … ‘something new from Africa’
Pliny the Elder’s famous words - Ex Africa semper aliquid novi (’there is always something new from Africa’) – have never been more true, especially in view of the fact that they originally derived from a similar observation by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.
Solms-Delta first re-discovered the ancient Greek practice of desiccating grapes on the vine with a portion of the Shiraz component in their 2004 Hiervandaan blend. Next we introduced a white blend – Amalie — with another desiccated component (Grenache blanc), which we progressively increased over several vintages. We likewise increased the desiccated Shiraz component in the Hiervandaan. Then took the bigger step of introducing 100% desiccated wines: a Muscat-led blend called Koloni and a single varietal Shiraz called Africana. Now, in what must surely be the culmination of this process, we introduce a triple whammy of innovation: a fortified, desiccated Shiraz called Gemoedsrus.
Gemoedsrus is truly ‘something new from Africa’. Its closest relative is the fortified (port) wine of Portugual; but there are many differences. First, whereas port is typically made from Tinto’s or Touriga’s, Gemoedsrus is made from Shiraz (a grape that does brilliantly in South Africa). Second, whereas port is typically made from conventionally harvested grapes, Gemoedsrus is made from grapes that were desiccated on the vine (see below). And third, whereas port wine is typically fortified with brandy, Gemoedsrus is fortified with husk spirits (grappa) made from residues of the desiccated Shiraz bunches from which the wine itself was fermented. The resulting product is something completely different … and dangerously delicious.
The name Gemoedsrus (‘Peace of mind’) extends another Solms-Delta tradition: their ongoing commitment to the Cape’s unique musical heritage. The name refers to the title track of the last album of Cape Band - Gramadoelas, produced by Les Javan and Alex van Heerden, who was resident musician at Solms-Delta from 2007 until his death. Alex was responsible for researching and recording the old traditional folk songs of the rural Cape, as well as writing new ones with Solms-Delta’s farmworkers and the Delta Vastrap Genootskap. He was tragically killed in 2009, in a car accident, at the young age of 35, just weeks before the Gemoedsrus album was released. Les Javan, who wrote and composed the song Gemoedsrus, now continues the work as artist in residence at Solms-Delta.
Master winemaker, Hilko Hegewisch, who crafted this new South African wine in Alex’s honour, insists: “Gemoedsrus is not a port; I refuse to call it that”. “I believe that we make wines with a much stronger sense of place, and this is a very individual and unusual South African wine.”
The Shiraz grapes were desiccated (dried out) on the vine by clamping the stems of the bunches several weeks before harvesting, which was done in two tranches. While the second tranche was being fermented (in 300 liter barrels with their domes removed) into a wine very similar to Solms-Delta’s Africana, Hilko distilled the skins of the desiccated Shiraz bunches that had been harvested a few weeks earlier into a husk spirit (grappa), which he then used to fortify the wine once its sugars had reached the appropriate level. The final step was a brief period of maturation in new French oak barrels.
“We see the Gemoedsrus as the next logical step in our search for truly local wines” says Hilko, who points out that he used only Solms-Delta’s own, very best Shiraz grapes for this flagship experiment.
“We aim to capture the intense and concentrated fruit flavours that desiccation delivers, and use them to produce wines with both elegance and power. Gemoedsrus really encapsulates the whole Solms-Delta story, and is therefore a very suitable tribute to that young man who loved this place so much.”
The Gemoedsrus fortified wine is an elegant but potent affair, with complex flavours of raisins, white pepper, black cherries, leather and dark chocolate, all enlivened by a distinctively delicious twist of orange peel. Well-integrated alcohol gives off whiffs of warm brioche and a smooth, long, silky finish that rounds off the wine with previously unknown pleasures.
Chef Shaun Schoeman from Fyndraai restaurant on Solms-Delta estate recommends pairing it with farmhouse cheeses or rich, dark chocolate desserts. Mark Solms, on the other hand considers it to be a vino di meditazione – a wine for thinking with. Gemoedsrus sells from the farm and at specialist wine retailers for R188.
Desiccation – a Mediterranean tradition rediscovered in Franschhoek
The ancient art of desiccation was revived at Solms-Delta in 2004. First used by the Ancient Greeks, desiccation was fashionable until the fall of the Roman empire. Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, and still today, its only remnant is the famous Reciotos and Amarones of the Valpolicella (‘valley of many cellars’). This is due to the fact that when new European wine cultures emerged in the cooler and damper climes of France and Germany, weather conditions did not support the method (which is probably what gave rise to the ‘noble rot’ that characterizes the equivalent wines of these regions).
Solms-Delta has been using desiccated grapes for its flagship wines, Hiervandaan, Amalie, Africana and Koloni. The desiccated proportion was increased gradually in the Hiervandaan and Amalie, until Africana and Koloni were introduced, which are made entirely from desiccated grapes – in a unique style from South Africa. Gemoedsrus is the culmination of this process.
The desiccation method reduces the water content by as much as 40%, concentrating the juice while simultaneously retaining good acidity and assuring full ripeness, leading to intensely-flavoured and deeper-coloured wines. These factors contribute significantly to the wines’ longevity.
Wine and Food Pairing: A New Angle
I was wandering around the village preparing for the “Franschhoek Pairings” Festival, checking out which food was being matched with which wine at the various restaurants. As my knowledge stretches no further than a Sauvignon blanc with snoek and a Merlot with meatballs (which is one step up from my cousin in the Free State who thinks pairings mean a beer with the braai!) I decided to seek wisdom from my favourite chef, Shaun Schoeman of the Fyndraai Restaurant at Solms-Delta.
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