Spring is being sensed in the air by those out and about in the Cape winelands. Coincidentally, I was sent this eveniing images from a viticulturist (Rosa Kruger) and a winemaker-grapegrower (Eben Sadie).
Rosa’s email was simply titled “Spring in the Swartland”:
Eben’s message was a WhatsApp: ‘Tim, this is Swartland today, el nino knocking on our door and spring pushing hard!”
Very incidentally, I noted these messages-with-pics soon after I had made an interesting discovery that I have no doubt has been made many times before: that a good brandy combines interestingly and happily with a good sparkling wine. Earlier I had partaken of both individually; then it suddenly struck me, late in the evening, that the two together might just do the trick. As they did. The two liquids in question were Kaapzicht’s 15 Year Old brand, and Wellington Winery’s La Cave Brut 2011, both of which were eminently acceptable on their own, but worked together very amicably.
Nothing to do with a spring day in the Swartland, except that I received the pictures drinking my blend next to my warm stove on a mildly wintry evening in Cape Town.
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