Chef's Warehosue and Cookery School

I have the highest regard for the passion and energy of Hein Koegelenberg, who wears a number of hats, including heading up the operation of La Motte, founder of Meridian (a local distribution and sales company for 24 leading wine brands) and Historic Wines of the Cape (a warehousing, labelling and shipping company), and co-owner of Leopard’s Leap with his wife Hannelie Rupert-Koegelenberg. I was delighted that Hein made time last week to share the planned developments at Leopards’ Leap, which is set to open a Tasting Room as well as a Cookery School in October, next door to La Motte in Franschhoek.

On the 10 hectare farm with its 400 square meter building being built, the Leopard’s Leap brand will have its first home, having been produced at the La Motte cellars in the past. The brand sells six times as much as La Motte in volume, a total of 600 000 cases of six bottles. The brand was created eleven years ago, as a second label to the Rupert wine brands La Motte, Rupert & Rothschild, and L’Ormarins. Originally the brand was made from the left-over grapes from these three properties, but now Hein and his team buy in wine from Perdeberg, Wamakersvallei, Ashton Winery, Darling Winery, Leeuwenkuil and La Motte to create Leopard’s Leap wines. The wines have been bottled at the KWV to date.

A recent development is that Leopard’s Leap is bulk shipped to the United Kingdom, where it is bottled under the supervision of the winemaker, to save up to half of his shipping costs, given the Rand risk, Hein said. Almost a quarter of Leopard’s Leap production has been bottled in the UK. This is the way in which Leopard’s Leap has reacted to changing market conditions, and Hein’s philosophy is to adapt, saying one must make things work for your business when the external environment changes. Hein is not optimistic that the strength of the Rand will change in the next 3 – 5 years. Having withdrawn from the American market for some time, Hein says the time is right to go back into the USA with Leopard’s Leap and La Motte, an agent just having been appointed to sell the brands there.

The three leopards on the Leopard’s Leap label have energy, and depict the personality which Hein and his wife wish to create at their new Tasting Room. They have therefore appointed Mokena Makeka, a ‘hot’ young architect from Cape Town, whose Makeka Design Laboratory recently re-designed the Cape Town Station for the World Cup. The interior decor will be handled by Christo Barnard, who did the decor of Pierneef à La Motte. The design will reflect that the brand’s target market is younger, and enjoy drinking this wine at a lower price point. The building will have a lot of glass, to bring the outside in, and a large outside sitting area too. A tasting room, delicatessen offering picnics, and wine sales facility make up the core of the new building.

A cutting-edge demonstration kitchen with 24 state-of-the-art work stations will also be built for the Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School branch opening at Leopards’ Leap, with owner Liam Tomlin and his wife moving to Franschhoek. Tomlin has worked in leading restaurants in the UK, Europe and Sydney, including Banc in Sydney, about which he wrote a book with the same name, and another entitled “Season to Taste”. He opened the Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School in Cape Town a year ago. The Cookery School will offer a wide range of classes, presented by Tomlin as well as by top local and international chefs. The Chef’s Warehouse will sell a wide range of kitchen products, to offer participants the tools to make at home what they have learnt at the Cookery School.

The food to be served at Leopard’s Leap will be picnics. Tomlin and Barnard are currently working on the picnic concept, to develop a unique offering relative to what is currently being served at other wine farms, to create a unique identity for Leopards’ Leap. Hein described the Leopard’s Leap brand as ‘pastel, earthy, funky, trendy, with energy”, and this will guide the interior decor and personality of the new Leopard’s Leap building.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club will visit Leopards’ Leap on a Saturday on Saturday 12 November. Further details can be obtained by e-mailing whalecot@iafrica.com

Leopard’s Leap Wines: www.leopards-leap.com

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

A lively entertaining debate about how opinionated bloggers can be in their blogs about their restaurant experiences was created when well-known food alchemist Pete Goffe-Wood, owner of Wild Woods Restaurant, Eat Out Top 10 restaurant judge, restaurant consultant, and owner of the Kitchen Cowboys cookery school for men addressed the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting at the Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School on Thursday.

Goffe-Wood said that he started blogging about a year ago, as an extension to his writing for the Food page in GQ magazine. He does not rely on his Kitchen Cowboy blog to make money, but instead he uses it to express his passion about food, and his opinions about issues relating to the restaurant industry, e.g. pricing of wines, corkage, restaurant reviews. He does not blog every day, but rather when he needs to “vent” his opinion about something that is an issue for him.

It is clear that Goffe-Wood enjoys opinionated bloggers, who do not shy away from expressing their views, and who stand by what they write. Some of his favourite blogs are “Diary of a Food Whore”, “Eat Asia”, as well as “JamieWho”. He singled out attendee Kim Maxwell as a good reviewer, and mentioned the controversy about JP Rossouw’s review of La Mouette. If one critiques a restaurant, one must be able to substantiate the reason for the criticism, he said. A blog that did not carry criticism about restaurants, and that only said good things about good restaurants would not have depth, in his opinion, and would not be a benefit to the restaurant industry.

Goffe-Wood clearly does not like food blogs with recipes, which he disparagingly described as having beautifully styled photographs, but with “inane writing and inane recipes”. He himself would never write about recipes on his blog. He also criticised bloggers who had nothing new to say, and who cut and paste the work of other writers. He discussed the value of blog comments, and felt them to be a beneficial in that they get a discussion going, even if commenters can be harsh in criticising each other. Another question raised was how polite one must be in expressing a negative opinion.

Pieter Ferreira has been making MCC sparkling wines at Graham Beck for the past 20 years, and is called “Pieter Bubbles” by his friends, and writes a blog called “Bubbles on Wine”. His blog grew out of his Tweeting, which he does during his day to day activities on the Graham Beck Robertson and Franschhoek farms. The Tweets become a reminder for him about his experiences during the day, and these he can put into his blog on a later occasion. He likes to put other writers’ interesting stories on his blog, and also to share exceptional experiences at restaurants, or about a special bottle of wine. While his blog is a personal one, he is blogging mainly about Graham Beck brands, and therefore it benefits the wine estate as the blog posts will be found via Google searches.

Ferreira’s bubblies are so outstanding that Nelson Mandela chose Graham Beck Cap Classique for his inauguration. Many years later, President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle celebrated their inauguration with the same brand. Ferreira told the story that the cellar at the White House may only stock American wines. The Graham Beck wines are stored in the kitchen, to get around this sacred White House rule. Ferriera brought the Graham Beck Brut Blanc de Blanc, Brut Rose, Coffeestone Cabernet Sauvignon and Gamekeeper Reserve Chenin Blanc for the Bloggers’ Club members to taste.

Due to space constraints at the Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School, the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meetings will be held at a larger venue in future. Please contact Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com to obtain more information about the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com (Photograph by Lesley Cox)