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You are here: Home / Wine & beer / WOSA Braaiday 2013 (and 2012) at High Timber

WOSA Braaiday 2013 (and 2012) at High Timber

by Jeanne Horak on October 20, 2013 10 Comments in Wine & beer

WOSABraai2012Table © J Horak-Druiff 2013

 There are over 1,200  people calling themselves “social media evangelists” on LinkedIn.  I don’t pretend to be one of them – but I will happily admit to this:  I am a South African wine evangelist.  Or rather, I am an evangelist for all things South African!  I love my country, but I realise that some things about it are hard to sell.  We have a turbulent past that is still all too fresh in the memories of many; we have a young democracy that regularly struggles to find its way; and we have crime statistics that (quite rightly) make most western Europeans blanch.  But one of the easy sells about South Africa is its wine.  I have lived I the UK for 13 years now and travelled widely in Europe.  I have sampled some outstanding examples of French, Spanish, German, Austrian, Italian and Portuguese wine. But my eyes still light up when I spot a South African wine on a restaurant wine list.  

If this is how you also feel about South African wines, then get yourself down to High Timber, a restaurant co-owned by Jordan wines and South African sommelier, businesswoman and all round dynamo Neleen Strauss.  The wine list is reassuringly heavily populated with South African big hitters (Jordan is understandably well represented!), making it the perfect venue to host the annual Wines of South Africa Braai Day tasting.  We’ve all been to wine tastings where you stand across the table from the winemaker and he leans slightly menacingly forwards as you taste his wine, regarding you with a beady eye and almost daring you to say you don’t like it. But there is none of that at the WOSA tasting where guests, winemakers, wine merchants ad wine writers all mingle around the lunch table and bottles are passed up and down with recommendations from your table neighbour, rather than being formally presented by the winemakers.   Strolling onto the High Timber terrace for the 2012 lunch (yes, it’s taken me THAT long to write it up…)  I was greeted by a charming gentleman whose opening gambit ws “you’re Cooksister!  I follow you on Twitter!” – the 21st century way to a woman’s heart 😉  This turned out to be the very charming ??  from Seven Springs Wine, who also introduced me to Warwick’s Mike Ratcliffe, a powerhouse of enthusiasm and charm.  After introductions over a rather fabulous glass of 2008 Graham Beck Brut Rosé (a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, available from SA Wines Online for £13.99) we made our way to the table for dinner.  It was about at this point that I realised I had brought my camera… but left the battery at home in the charging unit. So all photos were taken on my phone –  apologies in advance for the 2012 photos!

 

WOSAbraai2012Title © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSAbraai2012Snoekpate © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSA2012braaiTerrine © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSAlunch2012HauteCabriere © J Horak-Druiff 2013

 

The meal was vintage High Timber – classic South African with a twist – and started off with mock snoek paté (snoek being  hugely popular game fish in South Africa but extremely hard to obtain in the UK – angelfish makes  good substitute).  The smoked fish pate was pretty full-flavoured so from the selection of wines doing the rounds along the table, I chose to match it with two Chardonnays, the first being a 2010 Warwick Chardonnay (£14.99) – a wonderfully rich  buttery wine, but balanced by a crisp citrus acidity, and a fabulous partner with food.  The second wine was a 2011 Lourensford Winemakers Selection Chardonnay(£11.99), packed with rich apricot flavours, honeyed notes and a lovely creamy mouthfeel with a medium finish. This was my favourite white of the day. As I was on whites, I also sampled the 2012 Altydgedacht Ralph ParkerSauvignon Blanc (£11.00) – this was a revelation, packed with the flavours of ripe white peaches rather than the more austere, grassy Sauvignon Blancs that I am used to.  The next course was a biltong and oxtail terrine served with blatjang, the Afrikaans word for chutney.  And doing the rounds on the table was a curiosity – a 2011 Haute Cabriere unwooded Pinot Noir (£10.99).  The colour was pale, even by Pinot Noir standards and seemed to suggest a rosé.  On the palate it was light and lacking in substance – an interesting experiment, but it might just be than Pinot Noir needs wood!

 

WOSAlunch2012Potjie © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSA2012LunchBraai © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2012RedWines © J Horak-Druiff 2013

The meat course consisted of  T-bone chop of Cumbrian lamb and boerewors, both expertly done on the braai, accompanied by a heritage tomato salad (served, to my delight, in a traditional South African potjie or 3-legged cast iron pot) and cornbread.  This seemed the perfect excuse to try some of the red wines on the table, starting with the glorious 2010 Seven Springs Syrah (about £13.00), fantastically deeply coloured and packed with ripe red fruit and hints of spice – my favourite red of the day.  I also tried the 2009 Kanonkop Pinotage (about £24.00) which is truly how Pinotage is meant to taste – ripe, fruity and elegant, not harsh ad tannic.  Definitely worth the fairly hefty price tag.  Bonus points, too, for their info-packed back label with its handy chart of optimal drinking years – apparently up to 2023! Another wine I tried was the 2008 Sijnn Red – interesting because of its unusual blend (40% Shiraz, 39% Mourvedre, 22% Touriga Nacional and 9% Trincadeira).  Despite being one of the oldest wines we tried, it did not seem to have integrated well, with the characteristics of individual  cultivars each still struggling to be heard, rather than forming a harmonious whole.  I wonder what another couple of years in the bottle will do for this wine? I, for one, can’t wait to find out.

 

WOSABraai2012Dessert © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSA2012braaiBottles © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2012Rose © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2012Potatoglass © J Horak-Druiff 2013

 

Dessert consisted of proper South African milk tart with apricots – and just for that added frisson of nervous excitement, the chef confided in me that he had made it from my recipe! No pressure, then. Luckily, my recipe had translated well and the flaky crust encircling a wobbly, creamy, cinnamon-laced interior was a hit all around the table. I was reaching saturation point by this time, but did manage a small sip of the Stellar Organics Heaven on Earth dessert wine , which was awash with lychees and honey and a great finish to the meal. All that was left was to sample the remaining wines on the table (in their authentically South African ice bucket/pot!) and charm the chef into bringing out a piece of his potato glass for me to try – an addictive, ridiculously thin, transparent potato concoction that’s become something of a High Timber signature and something that everyone should try at least once in their life.

When the WOSA braaiday dinner rolled around again this year, I managed to remember to bring my camera along, complete with functioning battery and memory card! The venue was High Timber once again and we were treated to a South African style meal to accompany our wines for the day.  For nibbles when we arrived, there were platters of biltong and droëwors, two South African delicacies that are cured and dried in-house at High Timber – a real treat for South Africans. We started with two plump, juicy chargrilled tiger prawns with garlic and chilli, served on potato salad with a sweet condensed milk dressing (very traditional South African!). This was followed by a plate of traditional South African braaivleis (barbecue) including a lamb chop, a piece of boerewors, a piece of sirloin steak and, to my delight, a braaibroodjie – a toasted sandwich cooked on the barbecue.  And for dessert, we were once again treated to a milk tart, this time with South African Amarula Cream.

 

WOSABraai2013Biltong © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2013Prawns © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSAbraai2013Braai © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2013Dessert © J Horak-Druiff 2013

 

There were far more wines this time than the previous year and I was never going to get through all 24 – but here are the ones I did try

  • 2010 Chamonix Sauvignon Blanc Reserve (£12.95) – toasty nose, a rich rounded palate with toasty hints from barrel ageing?
  • 2011 Mullineaux White Blend (65% Chenin Blanc, 26% Clariette Blanche. 9% \viognier) (£18.99) – a fresh, fruity nose like apple juice and a palate of stone fruits with notes of honey and hay
  • 2011 Chris Alheit Cartology (a Chenin Blanc and Semillon blend) A shy nose that hides a rather colossal wine, packed with fruit salad flavours of apples and pears but well balanced by zingy acid, and with an exceptionally long finish.  Definitely the white wine of the day for me (although with a hefty price tag of between £20 and £40!)
  • AA Badenhorst Funky White NV (described as “a wine geek’s wine” (a bend of Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Viognier and up to 8 other varieties – £14.50). With a nose like a manzanilla and a palate like a vin  jaune, it’s probably not to everybody’s taste, but I can report that it matched fantastically well with the salty biltong we were snacking on.
  • 2011 Fryer’s Pinot Noir (£12.95)  – this had a surprisingly good colour for a Pinot Noir and a nose and palate like slightly tart cranberry juice, but with a strangely medicinal undertone that I did not really care for.
  • Moving onto the more full-bodied reds, I tried the 2009 MR de Compostella ( a blend of 25% Cabernet Franc, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Malbec, 12.5% Petit Verdot, 12.5% Merlot – £39.99).  This wonderfully supple tannins and packed a powerful punch of ripe red fruits on the palate with a long, lingering finish.
  • One of my two favourite reds of the day was the 2009 Guardian Peak Lapa Cabernet Sauvignon (£17.99) which had a minty, herbaceous nose with surprising hints of black pepper.  The palate also showed  spicy notes and some marked acidity but this was offset by ripe berry flavours.
  • My other favourite red was the 2010 De Toren Fusion V (57% Cabernet, 14% Merlot, 13% Malbec, 11% Cabernet Franc, 5% Petit Verdot – £35) – a beautifully balanced wine great depth of fruit and intriguing hints of cocoa and dark chocolate.
  • 2008 BLANKBottle Syrah (£35).  This had a nose that I usually describe as French –  slightly savoury, like ripe cheese, but despite the promise held by its good colour, there really was not much fruit on the palate.
  • 2007 The Foundry Shiraz (£22.95) – this tasted surprisingly youthful, despite its 6 years in the bottle, with the tannins still quite pronounced, but counterbalanced nicely by masses fo blackberry fruit and cinnamon spice notes. A huge, appealing wine.
  • 2010 Mullineux Schist Syrah (£58.95) – a show-stopper of a nose – almost feral, and with a huge bell curve f flavour.
  • 2011  Joostenberg NLH (11.75 for a half bottle) – wonderful – nose like a hot afternoon, ripe peaches; palate of tropicl fruits like papaya and caramel – but maybe needs a little more acid to balance out all that fruit.

WOSABraai2013Badenhorst © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2013Raats © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2013Schist © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2013DeToren © J Horak-Druiff 2013

 

Once again, the lunch served not only to reaffirm what an excellent job High Timber does of bringing South African food to the Brits, but also to showcase the amazing breadth of excellent wines that South Africa produces – from the classics like the De Toren Fusion, to the experimental like the Badenhorst Funky White.  And once again, the event would not be possible without the tireless energy of Neleen and her team at High Timber, as well as the fabulous ladies from WOSA, Claudia and Jo – you rock!  And if you can still focus after an evening of such Bacchinalian delights, the walks along the river bank from High Timber affords one of the best views of The Shard in London.

Here are what other people said about the day:

  • Cambridge Wine Blogger (my charming neighbour at the 2013 event)
  • Heather Dougherty
  • Mike Matthews
  • Pressed for Wine
  • Wine Passionista (2012 event)

 

WOSABraai2013ClaudiaJo © J Horak-Druiff 2013   WOSABraai2013Shard © J Horak-Druiff 2013

 

DISCLOSURE:  I attended both these meals as a guest of Wines of South Africa.  I received no further remuneration to write this post and all opinions are my own. 

 

High Timber 
8 High Timber Street 
London 
EC4V 3PA
Tel: 020 7248 1777
Email: [email protected]

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  1. Firefly - Jonker says

    October 21, 2013 at 9:50 am

    I have to be honest and say that those don’t really look proper SA braai dishes. Perhaps we are just spoiled over here. I think you will absolutely love the “Ultimate Braai Master” television show hosted by Justin Bonello.

    PS, I also love it when I meet somebody who follows me on Twitter or follows my blogs.

    Reply
    • Jeanne says

      October 22, 2013 at 5:58 pm

      To be fair, it is in a fancy restaurant, not round an actual braai! Also, I think it rained on both occasions, but that’s England for you 😉 The biltong is pretty awesome, as was the braaibroodjie. I remember the first time a complete stranger came up to me and said “are you Cooksister?” It was like all my Christmases had come at once 🙂

      Reply
  2. Sarah, Maison Cupcake says

    October 21, 2013 at 9:55 am

    I’d be a bit intimidated by all that wine (you know i’m just a pink or sparkly gal) but the food looks awesome – in both years 🙂

    Relieved to hear it’s not just me who ends up blogging things on their “anniversary”!!!

    Reply
    • Jeanne says

      October 22, 2013 at 5:57 pm

      Pink and sparkly is good too (although underrepresented at these two meals ;)) And nooo, don’t you worry, you are not alone. Sometimes the anniversary is all that finally gets me in gear to write the post :o) Better late than never…

      Reply
  3. Andrew says

    October 21, 2013 at 4:21 pm

    What a fantastic spread and some super wines too. Not tried that particular Badenhorst but the producer is one of my faves, as is Seven Springs and the MR de Compostella is a star.

    Reply
    • Jeanne says

      October 22, 2013 at 5:56 pm

      I need to try some more of the Badenhorst wines. I adored the Mullineaux Schist…

      Reply
  4. [email protected] says

    October 21, 2013 at 10:28 pm

    Wow Jeanne what a selection. I love the way you describe them too. Great even for me who can only smell but not drink them. ;D

    Reply
    • Jeanne says

      October 22, 2013 at 5:55 pm

      Sometimes, the best part of a wine is its nose – so at least you get a chunk of the pleasure (without the hangover) 😉 Thanks for a lovely compliment!

      Reply
  5. Kit says

    October 23, 2013 at 7:14 pm

    I love that tomato salad served in a potjie pot! And a fantastic spread of wines assembled. I’m impressed at your note-taking skills that allow you to write such a vivid and descriptive post a year after the event!

    Reply
    • Jeanne says

      October 24, 2013 at 12:13 am

      I know – it’s a fab serving idea isn’t it?? And oh yes, good note-taking is all that stands between me and total chaos!

      Reply
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One of the things I have enjoyed and will not miss as the world creeps back to normality is the absence of crowds in what is usually a crowded city. On the occasions that I have been in central London since the start of the pandemic, streets have been blissfully empty and it has felt as if I were discovering my city anew. This glorious perspective (hah!) of St Paul's Cathedral normally requires a long wait while a queue of tourists and "influencers" ahead of you pose for photos - but on this glorious day last Spring it was almost deserted. I will miss that...

Is there anything you will miss as Covid-19 restrictions start to be lifted?
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Jeanne Horak is a freelance food and travel writer; recipe developer and photographer. South African by birth and Londoner by choice, Jeanne has been writing about food and travel on Cooksister since 2004. She is a popular speaker on food photography and writing has also contributed articles, recipes and photos to a number of online and print publications. Jeanne has also worked with a number of destination marketers to promote their city or region. Please get in touch to work with her Read More…

Latest Recipes

Salmon with blood oranges dill and capers
Brussels sprouts with feta and pomegranate
Roast lamb with pomegranate glaze
Blood orange & pistachio galettes
Cauliflower topped steak with melted cheese
Plate of potted smoked salmon with slaw and a glass of champagne
bowls of pistachio pomegranate bircher muesli
Brussels sprouts with chorizo & hazelnuts

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