Charles has made wine everywhere from DGB to Parras de la Fuente in Mexico, the oldest winery in the Americas. It was one tipsy night in Spain that a friend suggested Ladera for his own dream wine range. Ladera means hillside in Catalan – for Charles it had a special resonance; his grandfather’s first farm was called Die Heuwel (the hill). The wine tasting started with his Blanc de Noir, made with pinotage grapes (we also had a chance to taste the mos, or just-fermented juice, of this wine) followed by what he describes as his ‘most stressful wine’, the Wild Child Chardonnay. Charles intervenes as little as possible with his wine, adding just a dash of sulphur. Once the chardonnay goes into the barrel, he has no control over it or how it turns out – hence, the Wild Child. The final wine we tried was his shiraz. Charles became so enthused that we ended up doing a vertical tasting, starting with the 2009 (with grapes sourced from four bush-vine vineyards in Malmesbury and trellised-vine in Paarl) to 2010 (where the vineyards were whittled down to two) to 2011 (made purely from the block Charles considers the best of the four). We were definitely warm by then!

With our appetites whetted, and the rain still coming down, we went straight to lunch. Madri, Charles’ wife, had prepared a gorgeous farmstyle feast. Fresh figs and grapes, nestled with roasted plums and cinnamon-crusted pears, fresh breads with a variety of cheeses and cold meats, groenvye konfyt, a zesty broccoli and pecan-nut salad, Italian potato salad, homemade chicken liver pate, caramalised onion spread… all washed down with lemonade and Ladera wines.

If you’d like to organise your own day-trip out to Wolseley, Madri can make up a picnic basket for you to take out into the orchards. Call Charles on 072 536 0055 or Madri on 083 726 2803 to order your basket and book your fig picking. Co-ordinates are 33″28’20.66S & 19″11’27.45E. But you’ll have to wait until next season!

Finally, the skies cleared, the sun started sparkling off the trees and we got out into the orchards.

As soon as you step into the orchard you smell the sweet dustiness of the sun-warmed figs. The fig trees are endearingly characterful, gnarled with large, blowsy leaves.

The figs were abundant – “There are so many even the birds have hardly made a dent!” one Slow Fooder was heard exclaiming – and we quickly filled our punnets with juicy ripe figs and hard green ones for preserving. At R5 a punnet (about 700g) some people got very excited, taking up to six punnets – they must have had plans for them! At least two of us made this salad:  http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/salad-recipes/the-easiest-sexiest-salad-in-the-world.

Selecting the best figs (about the size of a child’s fist, slightly yellow with a bursting pink ‘star’ at the base) kept us happily busy for about half an hour. The kids loved it too!

Then it was back to the farmhouse for koffie, koeksusters and a bit of a kuier, before weaving our way back home through some of the Western Cape’s most breathtaking scenery. What a day!

We will also be able to visit the festival stands, chat with the brewers and taste more of the range of artisanal beers Cape Town has to offer.

Date: Sat 26^th November
Time: 12:30pm
Venue: Hamilton’s Rugby Club
Price: R80

(This includes your entrance ticket, the Slow Food Mother City presentation and tasting, and a voucher for a pint of beer)

More about the Cape Town Festival of Beer

Aside from our private Slow Food Mother City event, the Cape Town Festival of Beer offers beer tastings, beer sales, lucky draws, brewing demos and competition, kiddies entertainment area, food stalls, braai competition, top live entertainment and much more.

There will be a huge selection of craft breweries and the chance to taste beers you have not seen before, and also chat to the actual brewers. You can read more about the festival here.

Bookings

Please book your ticket through our automated system, here. There are only 24 places available, so please book promptly to avoid disappointment.

On Sunday, 13 March 2011 27 March 2011, we will be visiting beautiful Glendirk Farm, one of the few remaining private farms in Constantia, to collect fallen sweet chestnuts from their grove of chestnut trees. You can take home whatever you harvest, and children are especially welcome.

TIME: 10.30am

LOCATION: By the gate of Glendirk Farm, next to the entrance to Chart Farm, Wynberg (we will send directions closer to the time). For security reasons, we must all drive into the farm together, but you can leave whenever you wish.

COST: R20.00 per adult, children are free. This admin fee contributes towards the running costs of Slow Food Mother City. This is payable in cash on the day.

NOTES: Please wear strong shoes (such as hiking boots) as chestnut husks are prickly, and shoes are useful for splitting any unopened husks on the ground. Please bring baskets or plastic bags for holding your chestnuts.

To RSVP, please click here.

Dawn and Roger Jorgensen hand make a range of high quality spirits with love and passion, including brandy, vodka, limoncello and absinthe. By sourcing the finest quality raw materials, and using herbs that they grow in their own garden, they ensure a product that is far superior to what we buy in the shops. We will be given a tour of the distillery with an explanation of the process involved in creating the various spirits as well as a presentation of the herbs that are used.

We will finish our visit with a tasting of their spirits on the back porch of their home, overlooking the vineyards. Their products will also be available for purchase.

We can only accommodate 20 people at this event, with bookings on a first-come basis and limited to one guest per member. **UPDATE: 10/02/2011 there are only 2 spaces left**

Those who are keen are welcome to join us for lunch afterwards at the Stone Kitchen at Dunstone Estate nearby. Their casual café menu showcases produce from the Wellington valley. Please book your own table on 021-864-2451.

Other attractions in the area include the beautiful gardens at Klein Optenhorst, and wine tasting at Nabygelegen.

Event details
Date: 12th February 2011
Time: 11:30am
Venue: Jorgensen’s Distillery, Wellington (directions will be sent to attendees)
Cost: R20 administrative fee, payable on the day

Please click here to confirm your attendance.

The original event email is available for view here:

http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=0be4b0a1f897bd7c67805a3cd&id=ba1a927dc0

View the full gallery.

Cities are remarkably good at distancing consumers from the food they are eating. What is the impact of this? Our health suffers, the environment suffers and animals suffer. We need to reconnect with our food. We need to be aware of where it comes from and how it was produced so that we can change this system.

As consumers we have the power to change the way things are done. The slow food movement is 20 years old and convivia around the world dedicate themselves to reconnecting people with their food and those that produce it.

Dax Villanueva only became aware of the moral deficiencies and unsustainability of first world living recently. In this time he has slowly been making the transition from slacktivist to activist. He is passionate about educating others and he does this through is blog, Relax with Dax, and his involvement in the Slow Food Mother City convivium.

A delicious and affordable (from R35) brown bag lunch will be on sale at the venue.

Date: Thursday 22 July

Time: 12:45 for 13:00pm

Venue: Lobby Books, Cape Town Democracy Center, 6 Spin Street

Contact: Andreas Spath at aspath@idasa.org.za or 021 467 7606

Parking options:
Street parking in the area is safe and will cost you R3.50 per hour.
Parking garages open to the public in the area include:

Plein Park (Plein Street; to get to the entrance, turn off Plein Street into Barrack Street and then into Corporation Street).
Mandela Rhodes Place (entrance in Burg Street, off Wale Street)

Via IDASA

I always imagined mead as a rough kind of beer, something dark, brewed from hay and potatoes, that would go well with a haunch of wild boar. So the mead tasting at Touch of Madness on Friday 23 April was a revelation.

Mead is the most ancient alcoholic drink, easy for our ancestors to discover as made simply from honey, water and yeast. Types of mead can be found in pretty much every culture that’s in contact with bees. So in Ethiopia it’s tej, while in the Eastern Cape, the Xhosa call it iQhilika. Most of the meads we tasted were from a small brewery in Grahamstown called Makana Meadery, which is inspired by the local methods of mead-making (the yeast, for example, is indigenous, harvested from the roots of a drought resistant plant). The Makana bottles are sealed with a wax capsule, a nod to the bees.

Fig-infused mead, glowing golden in the sun.

Cape Winemaster Hanneke van de Linde led the tasting of five Makana meads, under the brand name Honey Sun, and a homebrew. It’s quite common for the brew to be infused with herbs or spices – this style is called metheglin. Makana also infuses its meads – the first flight was fig (infused with the fruit and leaves of the Cape Fig), coffee (scented with wild beans from the Koffie Bay area) and chili. The first thing that surprised me was how light and golden the drink was. Served chilled, or it becomes viscous, it has a strong floral, slightly vegetative nose and complex, not overly sweet, flavour. The fig flavour had natural affinity, with slight cinnamon overtones, the coffee was more minerally and the chili offered a wooded nose with a satisfying kick at the end of the palate.

Mead tasting notes and glasses at the ready...

Then we tasted the Honey Sun dry, a subtle mead of pure honey, and Makana’s award-winning herbal mead, infused with rooibos, honeybush tea, cinnamon and apple. This was the most complex and sophisticated of the meads – definitely one to add to the cellar. Finally, we tried ‘Trevor’s Home Brew’, and this was the cloudy, dark, nutty mead we had imagined – Christmas cake on the nose and a creamy mouthfeel. Made in a bucket in the cupboard and unfiltered, this was rough and ready, and pretty delicious, stuff!

Touch of Madness put on a mead-friendly meal, with a sweet and spicy chicken stir-fry followed by rooibos -infused crème brulee. Although it’s best served as a welcome drink on ice, or with biscuits after a meal, Makana’s light golden mead would also pair well with Morrocan food or a Cape-style fruity curry. It’s a beautiful drink with a fascinating history that’s sure to spark conversation around the dinner table.

Did you know?

In Europe, it was traditional to give newlyweds enough mead to last them a month, hence the term honeymoon. The idea was that the mead would inspire cheerfulness and abandon, and at the end of the moon-cycle the couple would have proved their fertility with a pregnancy. Having indulged, I can see how that might work, actually…

Yes, mead has been fused with more interesting herbs in the past...

Slow Food Mother City will be hosting an introduction to the pleasures of preserving with Oded Schwartz on 10 April.

Oded is South Africa’s leading expert on preserving (seriously, he wrote the book: Preserving, published by Dorling Kindersley in 1996, and translated into thirteen languages). He’s friendly and knowledgeable, and he’ll give you enough confidence to finally attempt a jam, or at least a chutney!

Join us for two hours of preserving history, theory, skills and tips, shared in a convivial atmosphere in Oded’s own kitchen. We’ll be tasting Oded’s preserves and pickles, and washing them down with Jack Black beer.

At this event, Oded will explain pickling techniques and science, give some history of pickling, offer samples for tasting, and answer your questions. No pickling will be DEMONSTRATED; we hope to offer a hands-on course with Oded in the near future, guided by participant feedback from this workshop.

EVENT DETAILS:

Date and time:
Saturday 10 April 2010. 3pm-5pm

Venue:
Oded’s Kitchen, The Old Biscuit Mill, 375 Albert Road, Salt River (why not stop by the Neighbourgoods Market beforehand?)

Cost:
R70 for members, R90 for guests

Bookings:
Space is limited (20pax), so if you would like to come, please email us at: events@slowfoodmothercity.co.za and let us know how many people you are bringing (and whether you are members or guests). We will then send you banking information to make your deposit and confirm your place/s.

First come, first served. If you have not made the deposit within 2 days of booking, we will make your space/s available to the next person in line. Please book before Thursday 7 March 2010.

Slow Food Mother City has organised a picnic lunch at Backsberg Estate on Saturday 27 March 2010, with a presentation on their environmental initiatives and some wine tasting (of course!).

Backsberg has been concerned with its environmental impact for a long time already, way before it became trendy.

Backsberg invested heavily in a carbon audit so that they could reach their goal of becoming carbon neutral. This goal was soon achieved, making them the first carbon neutral wine estate in South Africa and one of only three in the world.

Most of us enjoy a glass of wine on occasion (or often!), but most people don’t realise the impact of wine farming on the environment. The removal of fynbos to plant vineyards is one aspect of that. Backsberg is a member of the Biodiversity in Wine Initiative, setting aside part of the estate for conservation of fynbos.

Backsberg has also built an Earth Centre on the estate which serves as an education centre as well as offices for Food and Trees for Africa, who assist Backsberg with offsetting projects.

These are some of the initiatives that Backsberg has undertaken, but there are many more. For this reason Backsberg has won, and continues to win, many environmental awards both locally and abroad.

EVENT DETAILS

Date and time:
Saturday 27 March 2010. 11.00am

The schedule for our visit looks like this:

• 11h00: Arrival (refreshments served outside the Earth Centre)
• 11h00-12h00: Environmental Tour of the Estate with Simon Back
• 12h00-13h00: Wine Tasting in Historical Vat Cellar hosted by Cellar Door Manager, Danwin James
• 13h00: Finger Lunch outside the Earth Centre

The event is child friendly.

Cost:
The cost will be R80 for members, R85 for guests and R35 for children aged 3-12. Wine will be available for purchase to take home or enjoy with your picnic. Cool drinks will also be available for purchase.

Location:
Backsberg Wine Estate – www.backsberg.com

Bookings:
If you would like to come, please email us at: events@slowfoodmothercity.co.za and let us know how many people you are bringing (and whether you are members or guests). We will then send you banking information to make your deposit and confirm your place/s.

Directions:
From Cape Town: Take the N1 towards Paarl. Take Exit 47 – Klapmuts, Stellenbosch R44 offramp. At the Stop street turn right (underneath the N1 towards Stellenbosch). Go over the next 4-way stop and over the bridge. Take the next left on Franschhoek (R45). About 5km down that road on your right you’ll see Backsberg.

Event feedback

We’d love your feedback on our events! If you’ve attended a Slow Food Mother City event, please let us know what you thought by emailing events@slowfoodmothercity.co.za. All comments and suggestions are welcomed.

In early March Slow Food Mother City will be visiting the Biodynamic Farm on Spier Estate outside Stellenbosch.

Biodynamic agriculture develops soil, plants and animals into a closed, interacting and interdependent circle of production, characterised by a holistic, natural approach. Spier Biodynamic Farm includes a half-hectare vegetable market garden, and pastures for grazing pasture reared beef, broiler chickens and egg-laying chickens.

At 10.30am on Saturday, 6th March, Christo, the farm manager, will show us around, and answer your questions. It’s a wonderful opportunity to learn about ethical food production, and enjoy the last of the summer weather in a beautiful location.

Date and time:
Saturday 6 March 2010. 10.15am

Cost:
An administrative fee of R20 for Slow Food Mother City members, and R30 for guests. There is no charge for children under the age of 16. If you would like to take home a frozen Spier chicken for your supper, please add R77 onto your deposit (each chicken is a gorgeous, hefty 2.2kg, so you are paying R35/kg).

Location:
Spier Biodynamic Farm – www.spier.co.za

Directions:
Take the N2 leaving Cape Town. Take the Baden Powell Drive exit, and turn left immediately. After ten minutes, you will come to traffic lights by a giant strawberry statue. Turn right (signposted Annandale Road). Two minutes’ later, you will see a driveway on your left, signposted “Spier Wines”. Take this turn, and park on the side of the road just before the security booms. We will wait for everyone to arrive, and then drive in convoy to the farm.

If you would like to come, please email us at: events@slowfoodmothercity.co.za and let us know how many people you are bringing. There are only 25 places available. We will then send you banking information to make your deposit.