SOUTH AFRICAN WINES & CULTURE

The Breedekloof celebrated South Africa’s 350 Years of Wine with a glittering  silver-service dinner at Opstal Estate.

The Breedekloof lies about an hour North-East of Cape Town through the spectacular Du Toitskloof Mountains. Even though the region is within easy reach of Cape Town it remains undiscovered. The majestic mountains, wonderful hot spa, complete rural peace and warm hospitality makes this definately worth a visit. The wines have made leaps and bounds in quality in the last 10 years. The region has been delimited seperately from the greater Breede River Valley in 2006, because the vintners believe that they have a special terroir. September is Spring with many beautiful wild flowers everywhere and the vines start to push out their first tender green leaves. It was a very good winter with plenty of rain and snow on the mountains - so the vines had a good rest and should deliver a great harvest in January 2010.

Judge for yourself by the number of trophee's that was brought home from an important competition recently:

 As part of the year long celebrations for 350 years of Cape Wine, they turned a festive event into a competition for the region’s wineries by giving them the opportunity of entering 4 wines each, with Cape Wine Masters Duimpie Bayly, Winnie Bowman, Elsie Pells and Christine Rudman as the panel of judges.

This was not a wine competition in the sense that the wines were awarded gold or silver, but an opportunity to identify the best wine paired with a specific menu, prepared by Opstal’s (local restaurant) ,chef Allouise le Roux.

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