Pepper Pot Pyrotechnics

Well the wind was the uninvited guest at Africa’s first Pepper Pot Party at Birds on Bree last night, with rubbish bins tossed willy nilly into the traffic by Aeolus’s invisible hand. What is happening to the weather when birds of the feathered variety are mown down in their flocks by hail stones up north while the Mother City looks like a wind tunnel? Could global climate change be coming home to roost, with a vengeance? Inside his historic Cape Dutch Palladian mansion on Bree, out of the wind, chef Leigh Trout (below) gets ready to serve 12 courses of pepper pleasure to guests.

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For those wine marketers who think that Generations Y and Z are lost to Bacchus, the opposite was true last night with the only drinks on the menu David Finlayson’s Edgebaston Pepper Pot 2012 and mineral water.

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But what a versatile wine, matched dexterously by Leigh with everything from crumbed prawns with a spicy chilli pepper sauce to lavish pork belly, chilli con carne and Asian beef in soy and pepper that had Hong Kong model Christina Colson (below) smacking her lips.  I swear I heard the tiger tattoo on her thigh purr.

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CC has kindly accepted to become the face of our Cape to Canton Chinese New Year Party at the Vineyard Hotel and Spa next year where Ed Hung of South China Dim Sum Bar will be director of cuisine. The burning question of the minute is should the suckling pig be sourced from Joostenberg or Oak Valley? Perhaps a terroir taste test is in order with the guests at our maiden Pepper Pot Party eminently qualified to make that call.

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So its baseball caps off to events co-ordinator Sascha Schmidt (below, with mad man Matt) who pulled the pepper out of the pot and showed SA wine how to market non-Bordeaux red blends to Next Generation wine lovers.

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We’ll leave it up to Diners Club to entertain Baby Boomers and Generation Xers at La Residence in Franschhoek tonight at the Diners Club Winemaker of the Year Awards. But for the boys and babes on breezy Bree last night, the wine of the year is the Pepper Pot.

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If Diners were more progressive and democratic, perhaps next year they’ll present the six finalist wines at a series of Diners Decides Dinners countrywide (perhaps at restaurants with platinum wine lists) and let punters vote on winner.  It would be the Oral Oscars with everyone a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sort of Platter for the people.

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The big winners would be producers, who get to shift stock and restaurants who get bums on seats. Quite a change from the status quo designed to entertain Dirty Harrys, soccer moms and other sacred cows of wine hackery plus the odd director of Standard Bank on a jolly to the Cape to stock up on Boekenhoutskloof for Xmas. Heck, something funky for Standard Bank shareholders and Diners Club card carriers. Now wouldn’t that be nice!