2009-09-27 - wining about the rain...

Rain, rain, rain. So much for the river rafting tour we had planned for today. Grrrmf, so typical, and pretty much everything is closed on Sunday. Bah...

We still managed to find stuff to do, and in the end had a pretty good day. We started at a place called Birds Paradise; it's a sort of guesthouse/farm with lots of aviaries filled with all kinds of exotic birds – parrots of all shapes and sizes in particular. They also have several kinds of monkeys and even a few crocodiles. This place was nowhere near as spectacular as Birds of Eden (in The Crags) or even World of Birds (in Hout Bay), but it seemed like a nice sanctuary for these parrots (abandoned pets?) and they had some good-sized cages to fly around in.

Our next planned stop was McGregor, but while driving along, we suddenly saw a sign that said “wine sales” and “open” - wheee! Hit the brakes and make the turn. It was a little boutique winery called Tanagra. It's now owned by a lovely German couple, who bought the farm and moved into it just six months ago. Their plan is to convert it into a guesthouse/guest farm, in addition to producing wine. And grappa; they bought a still for that very purpose. Nobody else in the region produces grappa, so it will be interesting to see what comes out of this.

Anyway, we tried all of the wines they had available for sale; these are wines that were produced before this couple moved in, and all the wines came with the purchase of the farm :-) The first wine we tried was a chardonnay – Devine Order Cape Dry White. It was delicious, and quite unlike any other chardonnay we've tasted. It was very fruity and neither buttery nor woody. One of the owners, Annette, mentioned that she normally does not like chardonnay but loved this one. The Penguins aren't really big chardonnay fans either, but loved this one so much they bought two bottles. One for quaffing while here, the other to take back to Norway...

We then tried three different reds. We were allowed to taste the first one (Heavenly Chaos Cape Dry Red) only under the condition that we promised to try the rest of them, because Annette didn't think it was representative of the rest of the range. It was supposedly a bit “wild” and “rough.” Hmm. We didn't think it was that bad though, a bit rough on the edges but a good table wine that would go well with a whole range of foods, including foods that are somewhat difficult to match such as pizza and pasta with tomato sauces.

The next wine was called Felicity (Cab. Sauv./Merlot blend if memory serves correctly), 2003 vintage. It was a very nice, smooth, high-calibre wine. This was followed by the Carah 2003, a Cab. Sauv./Shiraz blend. This had even more flavor and “oomph” than the Felicity. Fantastic stuff! We also bought two bottles of this, one for here and one to take back home. All in all, we think we really hit the jackpot here; it was great value for the money.

After our tasting, we were given a tour of the farm, where we saw, among other things, what will become the guest rooms (at least the three that were almost finished) and a small irrigation dam where guests can go swimming or bird watching. Or just chill out with a glass of wine (fresh from the farm wine cellar of course) and a good book...

OK, now it was time to go to McGregor! We were getting hungry by then and needed to get some lunch. However, being Sunday, everything seemed to be closed. Except for one little place called Temenos. So we went in, got seated and given menus, and then ordered chicken curry. Ms. Penguin had been craving a curry for the past few days; Mr. Penguin was trying to decide between sirloin steak and the curry and finally chose the curry, because our waiter (the guy who runs the place?) said that you could get a steak anywhere (“but not as good as ours”) but the (Cape Malay-style) curry was a bit more special.

It was a really nice curry; not very hot-spicy, but very flavorful with a pleasant chili heat. It was served with rice, tomato and onion salsa, sliced bananas, and chutney. Yum yum yum. The only thing that could have been better, was a bit more chicken. But otherwise, we have nothing negative to say about our meal. The curry was followed by a big piece of tasty cheesecake for dessert. It was served with chocolate sauce and a green-yellow fruit syrup drizzled on the plate as decoration, and Mr. Penguin's first thought was “WTF? They put olive oil and balsamico on the plate?!?”

By the time we were done eating, it was starting to drizzle again (we had an outdoors table), so we took a quick look around the back garden, to see the birds there. We also had a quick chat with the owner; he mentioned that he wanted to come to Norway in the winter, because he likes the cold and snow. We suggested that he go to Svalbard and do a dog sledding tour :-) We then said goodbye, and got in the car and headed back to Robertson. We made a quick pitstop to the Pick 'n' Pay for some cheese and crackers for later on tonight (we're skipping dinner since we had such a late lunch), and now we're here. Updating the blog entry that won't be published for a while ;-)