Groote Fun @ Groote Post

We went up to Darling yesterday in a Chili Bus and came back in Noah’s Ark after the heavens opened and decanted the angels’ spittoon onto us.  As Jan Loubser told Xtian Eedes after a waiter poured a bottle of wine onto him and his main course at a Cape Legends Night of 1000 Glasses “imagine if it had happened to someone important!”  Interesting that Cape Legends and hosts Groote Post share the same VOC logo that I thought belonged to Michael Wright from Voyager Estate in Margaret River.

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Thanks heavens Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Sariel, Raguel, Remiel and the rest of the Heavenly Host were drinking white yesterday!

Four press cancelled at the last moment but I only missed adonnelly at newmediapub and cathy from cathymarston.co.za.  Cathy was probably busy training sommeliers – her WSET cottage industry is making serious inroads into the income of the Cape Wine Academy – and perhaps adonnelly still had food poisoning from her five hour Eat Out Awards bash on Sunday.  What an excellent wheeze to beach the whale on a table at the Look Out so remote, her eructations would not affect decent people and other guests.

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Yesterday was bags of fun and the Groote Post wines were cool, too. My faves were the unwooded Chardonnay 2013 which was so rich from lees contact, you didn’t miss Pinocchio at all. The Riesling 2013 was also great with acidity so tight you didn’t notice the 13g/l sugar which supplied a richness that will make this wine a perfect match for Asian cuisine.

GP now consists of three ranges: Old Man’s Blends, both red and white that are incredible value for money; GP and now top-of-the-tree Kapokberg named after the highest mountain on the farm which Nancy Richards says was so called because of clouds frequently landing on it. Nick Pentz has another idea – the profusion of wild white flowers that give it an Alpine look.  I believe Nick.

GP wines are incredible value for money with the Pinot Noir the priciest at only R155 a bottle. Let’s hope we’ll see a white blend soon added to the range as I’m always amazed that more Darleks (as the inhabitants of Darling like to be known, pace Dr Who) don’t add Semillon to their Sauvignon Blanc. Nick showed us the Darling Hills (above) and commented that these vineyards provide grapes for 100 different brands of Sauvignon Blanc. In the good old days of Wine magazine, the Tops at Spar list of 10 Sauvignons would often feature 7 made from Darling grapes, often grown in the same vineyard.

The only awkward moment came when one journo complained that I was starting to look like the cashed-in Platter publisher Andrew “Big Mac” McDowell, which was so unkind as I’d recently had my eyebrows and ear hair shorn. And I know the difference between eau de nil – the colour of the latest Platter guide, chosen by Diners Club in thanks for all my positive suggestions about their organ – and Seasick Pendock, which is what Big Mack thought it is.

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Big Mack clearly reads the wrong James – Tim, a spoofer of note and sudden brandy boffin for a ticket to London this week to do his Christmas shopping (Sherry and Pearladent toothpaste) – when he should try James Joyce and he’d know the colour of the sea “the sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.”