It’s been a week since I left Stellenbosch after my time working the vintage at Jordan and I’ve gone back to normal life in London. The stains around my fingernails have slowly been cleaned away and the bruises have faded. All the rooibos tea I consumed has finally dissipated from my bloodstream. Squeezing onto the Tube on rush hour is something I did not miss while I was away, but seeing friends and family certainly was. And sleeping. The night I got back I slept for 11 hours soundly, and was blissfully oblivious to the urban cacophony that usually occurs outside our flat coming from the cars, sirens, loud neighbours and urban foxes.
There were a few topics that I wish I could have blogged about while I was in South Africa if there were a little more time to do so. However, I decided some retrospective posting would still be fine, as there were so many wonderful things about the experience: harvest dinners, trips visiting wineries and cellars, and sightseeing around the Cape.
As my normal waking life is usually spent eating or thinking about what to eat next, I thought a quick post about harvest dinners would be appropriate. Also, since I’ve been eating the same amount now with much less physical activity as I did at harvest, I've been looking back longingly at all the amazing meals we had while I was there and wish I had the turbo-charged metabolism to eat that much again.
Most nights during harvest, we would all take a break from cellar work and sit down for a family-style meal at around 7:30 or 8 in the evening. Food was certainly considered fuel at that time, but our dinners were also a way to put some hedonism into our days and keep us sane. And what meals they were! The cooks, including Kathy, Siska (the bakery chef), and the Jordan restaurant chefs, fed us exceedingly well. Gary would also arrange blind tastings for us and we’d go around the table talking about the wines and how they were made. We had some incredible bottles. Here’s a look at some of my favourite meals:
Gary and Kathy's son Alex has a friend who is a tuna fisherman and sold the restaurant a whole fish one week. We were the lucky recipients of lots of tuna steaks that the restaurant chefs seared with a ginger sauce. The theme of the night's blind tasting was white wines from estates called 'Jordan' around the world - from Austria (from a family estate of a former intern who also had the surname of Jordan), from the Jordans in Sonoma, and from Gary and Kathy's range.
Roast chicken with a caper sauce. The Jordans had a signature salad with feta, olives and tomatoes that served as a lovely side to our mains on most nights. This was paired with a variety of rieslings, which had zesty acidity and crisp lemon and floral notes that stood up to the bold flavours of the chicken.
Paella night! Gary paired this with some seriously good oaked Chardonnays, which had the richness, deepness of flavour (ripe lemon and buttery/toast) to stand up to the heft of the rice dish but had enough bright acidity to cut through it nicely. The highlights were the Louis Latour Premier Cru Chateau de Blagny Meursault and the Jordans' top-end Cape Winemakers Guild 2010 Reserve Chardonnay.
And the whole line-up
Steak with bearnaise sauce and a 1987 Nederburg Cabernet Sauvignon. This dinner was on a Friday after a really hectic week and it was such a treat. The wine had lovely flavours of cedar, tobacco, dried plums and a slight oxidative nuttiness. This went so nicely with the seared beef and the creamy sauce.
Gary was so generous in sharing his wine collection with the team. During the first week he asked us what our birth years are and then towards the end of the harvest, he brought some lovely contemporaries of ours to dinner:
Mike: 1986 Iron Horse Chardonnay (where Gary and Kathy did their first ever vintage) - toasted almond, butter, lemon; a slight sherry note from the oxidative aromas
Mathias: 1987 Overgaauw Tria Corda - a Bordeaux blend that I've lost my notes for, but was indeed amazing
Me: 1982 KWV Cabernet Sauvignon - dried fig, walnut, tobacco and leather aromas
Sjaak: 1976 KWV Cinsault - dried cherry, rounded oak and nutty notes
And of course, we had good ol' spaghetti Bolognese with a beer. Sometimes after being around so much wine and grapes, you really just crave an ice cold brewsky. As Mike said, "It takes a lot of beer to make good wine."
Although we often had to go back in the cellar after dinner to finish up work and clean, our bellies would be full and our thirst would be satiated. We’d crank up music and then move, move, move. It might not have been easier after a big meal to climb up ladders close up tank lids or sweep grape skins off the floor after emptying the press, but it was a lot more pleasurable doing it.
