02. Who are we?
July 2009
Want something a little off the beaten track for your next wine club function or class?
Lovers of unusual blends and Cape history buffs alike will delight in customised group wine tastings at Solms-Delta, the Franschhoek wine estate known as much for its maverick winemaking philosophy as it is for vibrant social reform.
The estate has been lauded for its reintroduction of the ancient Mediterranean practise of desiccation, or strangulation of grapes on the vine, which concentrates flavour and acidity while retaining balance. This technique is perfectly suited to the Franschhoek valley’s hot, dry and windy conditions, and to the estate’s core planting of Rhone varietals. But equally interesting is the blending philosophy at Solms-Delta.
As local chefs are experimenting with new and local ingredients, so SA winemakers are freeing themselves from prescribed European blends. In France, where blending is a way of life, rigid rules about grape varieties and proportions govern most of the great Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhone wines. There is no good reason to believe that the rules will produce the same results here, where climate, soils and other conditions differ so much from France. Our freethinkers are combining grape varieties that in Europe would be unthinkable.
Hilko Hegewisch, winemaker at Solms-Delta is an adventurer, assessing new grape combinations “all the time”. His latest search has resulted in an innovative white Cape Blend of Chenin blanc, once SA’s most widely planted varietals, Clairette blanche, and Semillon, known as Green Grape in Van Riebeeck’s day and first planted in Franschhoek some 300 years ago.
The resulting wines are unique and exciting, and have earned many four star and higher ratings in the Platter South African Wine Guides.
Another fascinating layer for groups to explore is the estate’s Museum van de Caab. In the original wine cellar lies a treasure of social history dating back to 1740, just a few yards from a recently excavated Later Stone Age settlement site, and the exposed foundations of a 1670s hunting lodge, one of the oldest buildings in the Cape. From its name, which honours the farm’s slave heritage, to the fascinating display, the emphasis of the Museum van de Caab is on the individual people who lived and worked on the farm, from pre-colonial times to the present.
Franschhoek born-and-bred chef Shaun Schoeman, who presides over the estate’s brand new Fyndraai restaurant, can add a further distinctly local angle to your group’s tasting with a customised menu. Fyndraai’s cuisine lives up to the Solms-Delta claim of being proudly Hiervandaan (“from this place”), with dishes that explore Cape culinary traditions: European, Asian and African. Fresh, flavourful food draws on Afrikaner boerekos, which has strong “Cape Malay” (slave) influences, mixed with ingredients used by the indigenous Khoi nomads who lived in the Franschhoek valley thousands of years ago.
Solms-Delta estate can accommodate groups of various sizes, and can customise the visit to the group’s requirements and interest, whether wine or history orientated, or a blend of the two. Both the winemaker and the museum director are available as speakers. Wine is available for purchase at cellar door prices. For further information, contact Cathy Macfarlane at (021) 874-3937 or info@solms-delta.co.za , or www.solms-delta.co.za.