Swartland wine cellar celebrates its 60th birthday this year! To celebrate, we recently hosted a media function on top of the Paardeberg. As a bit of history, Paardeberg is also known as “horse mountain” and was the major battle site of the South African War in the late 1800’s. We were honored to have a very well known Tuscan wine consultant attend the media function and be our guest at the winery for a week. Much to his surprise, we had an uninvited, persistent guest on our property that did not want to leave us. It was one of the farmers Eland bucks (the largest buck species in South Africa), that wanted to join us for dinner. In his persistence to join us in the building, the buck broke a window to come inside!
- Andries
As I had mentioned before in a previous entry, I very much like to braai so I thought I would share my favorite recipe. I try to braai as much fish as possible, preferably Snoek (a delicious game fish unique to the Cape), Yellow Tail, and Tuna. I make a sauce of white wine, olive oil, lemon and then spice the fish with salt, black pepper, and garlic whilst it is on the coals. Once it’s cooked I pour the sauce on top and enjoy!
Here is a picture of me and my wife from our most recent braai (enjoying some Chenin Blanc with dinner!) while on a trip to Botswana.
- Andries
A few weeks ago my family and I went camping on holiday in the south of Botswana. We camped in our off-road caravan in the wild with no fences to keep the wild animals out. One morning we even had two uninvited guests that smelled our breakfast - two cheetahs. When we woke up the last morning, two lions were "camping" just behind our caravan! Here’s a picture of one of the cheetah’s we encountered on our trip:
- Andries
As a winemaker, people are always asking me what wines I’m enjoying these days. Most recently I’ve been enjoying Shiraz/Malbec blends. Malbec is a new varietal in our region and many local wineries have been doing quite a bit of experiments with it at the moment.
A wine that I seem to enjoy all year round is Chenin Blanc. I find it quite refreshing, so I always keep a bottle of it chilled at home. For those of you who have not tried it yet, our Sebeka Chenin Blanc stands out for its intense citrus aromas and crisp acidity.
- Andries
