Tag Archives: Ellerman House

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 11/12 January

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Cape Town tops the list of the New York Times 52 places to go in 2014!  In its accolade to Cape Town, the influential newspaper writes that the late Nelson Mandela drew inspiration from Table Mountain, which he could see from Robben Island, and it became ‘a beacon of hope’. The article also highlights Cape Town hosting the World Design Capital 2014.

*   Passport control at OR Thambo airport is inefficient and marred by staff shortages, leading to complaints from arriving passengers.   ACSA says it is not its responsibility, while the Department of Immigration is not responding to feedback providing.

*   The Table Mountain Cableway welcomed its 23 millionth visitor on Friday.   It carried about 4000 visitors a day during the Festive Season, a revenue of about R800000 per day on good weather days.

*   South Africa is not the only wine producer on the African continent, even if Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 9 January

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   ‘Cape Town’s most stylish hotels’ feature in the Telegraph Travel article, which focuses on more than just the Mother City’s hotels.  Given Cape Town’s status of World Design Capital 2014, Woodstock, Bree Street, and Long Street are recommended for arts, sculptures, jewellery, and crafts.  Hemelhuijs and The Pot Luck Club are recommended restaurants.  The Mount Nelson, One&Only Cape Town, Cape View, The Clarendon, and Ellerman House are recommended as accommodation establishments.

*   Six of Africa’s twelve top music festivals are hosted in South Africa, and include Oppikoppi (in Limpopo province, the largest local music festival); Up the Creek (in Swellendam); Cape Town International Jazz Festival; Splashy Fen (at Underberg); AfrikaBurn (in North Cape province); and Rocking the Daisies (in Darling).

*   National soccer team Bafana Bafana arrived in Cape Townlast weekend, in preparation for the African Nations Championship, which kicks off at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.

*   James Romanow, writing in the New Mexico Leader Post, says that drinking a House of Mandela wine is a fitting tribute to the late Nelson Mandela.

*   A manual of information published by (£30 million a year budget) Visit Britain, which was targeted at accommodation establishments and tourism players in the UK to guide them in dealing with tourists from around the world, has been criticised for ‘racial stereotyping‘!   For example, the manual describes: Continue reading →

New Cape Vintner Classification association of heavy weight wine estates launched!

Cape Vintner ClassificationA new association of independent wine estates belonging to industry heavy weights was launched at Ellerman House in its new Wine Gallery yesterday. Cape Vintner Classification (CVC) aims to build our country’s reputation as a producer of world class wines, and to ‘promote the Cape’s distinctive site specific wines‘, according to a report in fin24.

The association’s mouthful of a name, which does not seem customer driven, has a logo which includes the date 1659, the first year of wine production in the Cape, and creates an identity and logo look similar to the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Companje, or Dutch East India Company).

The association was formed by Johann Rupert, owner of Anthonij Rupert Wines, L’Ormarins, and Rupert & Rothschild, all in Franschhoek, which wants to introduce an accreditation system which gives wine buyers confidence in the integrity of the wine and its origin. It is said to be an association of individuals rather than of wine estates.

Rupert is critical of bulk wine exports and the damaging effect it has on our country’s wine reputation, and about some members of WIETA, the agricultural ethical trade initiative of South Africa.  The standards set for CVC will be higher than those of WIETA and Fairtrade.

Membership costs R16000 a year, and a minimum membership requirement is Continue reading →

Ellerman House uncorks unique world class Wine Gallery!

Ellerman House Corkscrew Whale Cottage PortfolioEllerman House is one of Cape Town’s leading boutique hotels, and has one of the largest private art collections.  Now it has inaugurated a world class Wine Gallery in the basement of its newly opened Villa Two, with a record number of 7500 bottles of wine. Architect Michael Dennett of DV8 Architects created the unique space, which aims to reflect the more than 350 year history of winemaking in South Africa, and to create an environment of learning more about and tasting our wines.   It presents the Ellerman House wine collection as a work of art in itself.

Earlier this week I visited Ellerman House, and friendly guide Heike Gerntholz showed a group of us around the new Villa Two and its Wine Gallery. The 3 bedroom villa costs R50000 per night to rent, with its own butler and chef.  The Wine Gallery can be accessed by the guests in the villa, as well as by the guests in Villa One, and in the main building, via a separate entrance.  Villa Two guests are isolated from any noise made by the users of the Wine Gallery, we were told.

My focus was the Wine Gallery, and a hand-crafted stainless steel spiral staircase takes one down to it.   It is a vast temperature-controlled space, and a number of elements attract one’s attention.   The design of the very large  lights above the tasting table was inspired by wine glasses.  Behind the tasting table is a Ellerman House Terroir Wall Whale Cottage PortfolioTerroir Wall designed by Angus Taylor,  in shades of brown, orange, yellow, and beige, representing the soils of 100 local wine farms, including La Motte and Chamonix, each framed and named.   There is a massive bar counter made from a solid block of granite, with a hematite wall behind it, and a Continue reading →