Tag Archives: Chris von Ulmestein

CapeWine 2015 talks and tastes wines too!

Cape Wine Logo (LR)CapeWine 2015 is not just about tasting wine, and meeting the passionate wine makers, but it is also educational, with a series of seminars which have been offered in the Amorim Speakers Corner, which have included wine tastings too.

Each of the seminars are only half an hour long, meaning that speaking is concentrated to 15 minutes and the tasting equally long. Each  winemaker represented wines of a number of wine colleagues, and was not just promoting his own wines. Seating was Continue reading →

Bocca Restaurant on Bree Street a delightful mouthful, first to offer pizza!

Bocca Interior Whale CottageThe opening of Bocca (meaning ‘mouth’ in Italian) Restaurant on Bree Street was eagerly awaited, having been held up by a last piece of paper to be approved by the City of Cape Town.  Three weeks after opening the Italian-style restaurant, seating about 90, is packed to the rafters, doing more than 200 covers per day most days.  Following a lunch last week, waiting for a car repair a block away, I enjoyed a special lunch with tastes of a number of the dishes on the Bocca menu on Tuesday.  The restaurant had been introduced to me in August already.

I was invited by Five Star PR owner Janie van der Spuy, with freelancer writers Jenny Handley and Bianca Coleman, Mail and Guardian‘s Amit Raz and Brent Meersman, and Katharine Jacobs of Eat Out.   We were joined by co-owners Neil Grant and Barry Engelbrecht, who opened Burrata at the Old Biscuit Mill in 2012.   Having bought two pizza ovens from Naples when they opened Burrata,  it was a long-term plan to open a second pizza restaurant in CapeBocca Neil Grant Whale Cottage Town. Pizzas bake at  a temperature of up to 485°C.  The two owners looked at a number of properties in the city centre, but the unusual venue on the corner of Bree and Wale Streets grew on them, allowing them space to add a mezzanine level, as well as an outside deck, which is already a hit, and attracts attention from passers-by. More space is available if they need more in future. Bocca is the only pizza restaurant on Bree Street. Natural oak wooden slats have been used throughout, from the exterior cladding, to steps into the restaurant, on the deck, and inside the restaurant, on its walls, and serving as banisters on the metal staircase, giving an Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 22 October

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has projected total international passenger numbers at 7,3 billion by 2034, an annual growth rate of 4% per annum, and a doubling of current passenger numbers.  China is expected to overtake the USA in having the largest number of passengers by 2030.  India, Indonesia, and Brazil are projected to have the third, fourth, and fifth largest passenger numbers, respectively.

*  The Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) FNB Tourism Business Index for the 3rd quarter of this year is 105, an improvement on the second quarter, but markedly lower than the index range of 112 – 116 measured in the 3rd quarter a year ago, the 4th quarter of 2013, and the first quarter of this year. An Index of 110 is projected for the 4th quarter.

*   SAA has lost four non-executive Board members and one Board member in the past week, which expresses the Continue reading →

Chenin Blanc Association announces 2014 Standard Bank Chenin Blanc Top 10 Challenge winners!

Chenin Blanc Top 10 Logo Whale CottageThe inaugural Standard Bank Chenin Blanc Top 10 Challenge winners were announced yesterday at a cosy function on a wet Winelands day at the ever smart Delaire Graff.  The function and competition, combined with the recent three-year sponsorship by Standard Bank of the Chenin Blanc Challenge, are giving Chenin Blanc the recognition it deserves, said Ken Forrester, Chairman of the Chenin Blanc Association.  ‘Chenin Blanc is a wine whose time has come’, he said,Chenin Blanc Top 10 Ken Forrester Whale Cottage adding that ‘Chenin Blanc is THE white wine of South Africa‘!

A total of 126 wines was entered for the Challenge, and assessed blind by a panel of judges which included chairman Christian Eedes, Jamie Goode, Alan Mullins, Carrie Adams, and Higgo Jacobs. Interviews were conducted with the judges,  Allan Mullins of Woolworths saying that Chenin Blanc has been underrated for so long. He lauded Standard Bank for the support of the competition, and as Chenin Blanc drinks so well, it should be drunk by all.  It is a gem of a wine variety, and ranges in price between R25 – R 300 in retail outlets.   British wine writer Jamie Goode said that our country has a variety of Chenin Blanc styles, ‘ranging from the ‘VW Beetle to a ‘Rolls Royce’! Eedes said that he was honoured to chair the judging panel, and while he may be ‘shot down‘ for the results, having the auditors made the results indisputable. Out of the wine Continue reading →