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You are here: Home / Archives for Pastimes / Beer & Wine

Foodie Friday: The wines of Stellenbosch

February 19, 2010 By Jillian

Forgive us, but we figured it was ok to highlight wine instead of food this week. The existence of wine in the Cape Colony is no coincidence. Sailors long at sea often demanded wine in order to herd off scurvy and other fun diseases. Almost immediately upon founding the colony expeditions were went to the ‘frontier’ to find suitable land for agriculture, wine chief amongst the concerns of colonists, even though grapes had already been planted closer to town. The industry here got an added boost at the start of the 19th century when Britain and France were at war. Today pinotage is the king South Africa varietal, a hybrid of pinot noir and cinsault grapes, making it a light and fruity red wine.

The nicest part of the tastings in Stellenbosch was their format. Although we are from professionals, we’ve been to quite a few wine tours now. Generally the format for these things is to show up, stand at the bar while the bartender pours your new taste and tells you about the varital, remain standing while drinking, and quickly downing or dumping the remainder so that the bartender can begin the next taste. Not so in Stellenbosch.

At the first vineyard, we were handed a menu, told to choose our first selection, handed glasses and invited to sit on the patio. When we were ready for our next we got up and made our selection. If we wanted to try each Chardonnay, a second glass was given to us so that we could compare them side by side. Given that the tastes were quite substantial, and we each were allotted 5, we were there for quite awhile which kept us from visiting too many other vineyards. The second winery just sat us down, brought us each three glasses, filled them up, and gave us each a piece of chocolate to go with each wine. Can’t beat that.

Perhaps the reason for the difference is the age of the the South African vineyards (the first were planted around 1650) when compared with everything we’ve ever had in the Americas but I’ve gotta say…. Mendoza, Argentina needs to take note.

Filed Under: Africa, Beer & Wine, Headline, South Africa Tagged With: foodiefriday, wine, winetasting

Welcome to Africa

December 22, 2009 By Jillian

Herds of animals flocked below us as we flew over Africa from Senegal to South Africa.  Actually, not really.  In fact we saw very little from 30,000 feet.  I know, I know.  Everyone thinks that Africa is just roaming with wild animals, but to be truthful we haven’t seen a single lion yet and we’ve been here almost a week.  (We have seen an ostrich and baboons though!)

So what have we done?  Well there’s actually more to do in Johannesburg than you think.  Our plan was to skip right off to Mozambique but we ended up keeping ourselves busy for a few extra days.  First up was the Apartheid museum.   Full of details, photos and fascinating stories, the Apartheid museum was a must on our list of things to do in Johannesburg.  We felt exhausted after going through the museum, but also very moved and interesting in learning more about the post-apartheid South Africa.  Fortunately our couch surfing hosts were more than patient with us asking question after question, so expect a more in-depth post on the subject soon.

Then it was off to the World of Beer, which according to the South African Tourism Board is their number 1 attraction.  The museum was great, almost like being at Disney.  Besides a history of beer around the world and an introduction to the beer making process, we also sampled some traditional African beer, the name of which I have no idea how to spell, and a traditional lager from a typical “bush” bar.  The attraction itself was great, but perhaps it was ranked South Africa’s #1 attraction by the tipsy tour goers- at the end of the tour we were each given two free pint vouchers! Hurray!

Africa so far has been wonderful.  We’re heading to Mozambique for a little while to get in some beach time  and avoid the crowds.  Might be a while between posts from now on, Internet isn’t as easy to come by here as it was in South America.  Have no fear, foodie friday will continue as best we can!

Filed Under: Africa, Beer & Wine, Headline, South Africa Tagged With: arrival, beer, drinks

Foodie Friday: The Quest for Beervana

December 4, 2009 By Jillian

It should be no surprise that along with lots of ruins, whitewater and trekking, our tour of the America’s also included beer. Lots and lots of beer. From Mexico to Argentina beer seems to be the local beverage of choice, and almost always its cheaper than soda or sometimes even bottled water. It was not unusual for us to find a liter of beer for less than $3. When it’s that cheap you just have to try it. So we did.

On what is now called our quest for beervana (thanks to our friends for the name), we’ve sampled the local brew in every locale, from ice-cold Salva Vida in Honduras to an amber Beagle down in Ushuaia. There have been some good beers, some beers good for the moment, and even one green coca beer in Peru. Most beers produced in the America’s are lagers or pilsners and it seems the hotter the country the colder the beer. The coldest beer we’ve seen was in Honduras and fortunately at the time we were sweating to death. According to the thermometer on the refrigerator the beer was stored at -9 Celsius (about 15 Fahrenheit). It was perhaps the most refreshing and delicious pilsner in the world, or at least at that moment.

Our quest for beervana has turned into challenge to create a substantial beer label collection. We’ve taken the labels off all sorts of bottles, many of which have been mangled in the process. Just for the record the sticker labels are the hardest to take off. Our quest to build a collection has resulted in choosing our selections by the label not the actual beer, which in some cases has led to mistakes such as the coca beer.  It has also led us to some delicious Colombian micro-brews and copious amounts of Brazilian  chopp (draught beer), err… maybe not the chopp.  That might be our own fault.

Our quest for beervana continues while we’re on “intermission” at home. This week we headed to the Yuengling (my home brew) in Pennsylvania for a factory tour and tasting. Danny and I have been trying to get there for years, but for one reason or another it never worked out. Fortunately the quest for beervana took precedence this time and we finally made it. It was by far the best factory tour ever and not only because it ended in a beer tasting, actually truthfully it was because it ended in beer tastings, two in fact.

Anyway, as we head to Africa have no fear,  the quest for beervana will continue. Fortunately we’ve spent enough evenings at Brickskeller to know which African beers to avoid, but we’re always open to suggestions. Anything out there you think we should try or avoid? Where do you want to share a beer with us?

Salud!

Filed Under: Beer & Wine, Central America, Headline, South America Tagged With: beer, drinks, foodiefriday

Biking Argentina’s Wine Country

October 26, 2009 By Danny

We began our bike-tour of the Argentina while we were still in Salta. Unable to go mountain bikes we managed to find some ‘regular’ bikes to go for a spin around to the surrounding towns. The bikes were slow, we were out of shape from all this great food we’ve been eating, and we couldn’t find our way into the big forest that we had wanted to go to. Feeling ‘bike’ sore in more ways than one we began to worry about the other bike trips we’d be taking in the near future, we quickly reminded ourselves that those would be featuring wine!

After finally tearing ourselves away from our great hosts in Salta, we made it to the bus station in the nick of time to head on down to Cafayate where we quickly put our things in a hostel and got on with the wine tour. The first winery had 4 organic wines (Bodega Nanni, and they do export to the USA….yes, I said organic) to taste for about $5 pesos (3.8 pesos to the $) per person…good start. The second was closed for a private tour. The third wanted 15 pesos (for 10 pesos you can choose from about 1000 bottles in the store) for a single taste so we passed. The next one was closed. The one after that was open, but the person who handles the tastings was on vacation. The next one looked out of business. The following one let us have a taste of one red and one white, neither very good. We returned to the second one and the private tour was over but there was only a taste of the Malbec. The next winery was closed and then finally we found another one in town that was open with three wines to try. In total we spent about 5 hours on those bikes, and in those five hours we visited 9 wineries and tasted a total of 10 wines. Finally we returned to that first one to buy our own bottle for an additional 10 pesos…(that’s about $2.60 for a bottle of organic wine!)

After that we moved onto the real Argentine wine country…Mendoza. This is where most of Argentina’s wine comes from and we expected to be able to really enjoy ourselves. Setting off on our new rental bikes we soon learned that we would be wrong. We had expected to go to at least 10 wineries but soon learned we would be quite disappointed as well. Sure, all of these in Mendoza were open, there were plenty of tourists after all, but they all wanted 10-25 pesos for a taste of just 3 or fewer wines . (Several actually charged less for a bottle, but then charged a 15 peso corkage fee!)

Given that we’d heard from several sources that none of the wines on “the route” are known to be particularly good, we continued biking to the winery furthest from our starting and ending point. There we sucked it up, paid our 15 pesos to taste three wines, all of which were good. Adding only 5 pesos to the tasting total, the three of us (we managed to rope our CS host Jessica into coming with us…who qualified for something of a ‘local’ discount) enjoyed a nice bottle of rose with the lunch we’d brought along for the ride and spent the rest of the day lounging in the shade drinking wine. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, but certainly not the biking through vineyards we imagined. In a stroke of complete irony the bike rental company, who only charged us 15 pesos for each bike, then provided us each with a very full glass of wine, some cookies, and a bottle of water… Why couldn’t this woman be the one working the vineyards?

Although our image of cycling from vineyard to vineyard toasting wine after wine was a bit of a bust, the day had yet to bear its biggest bit of fruit. At some point Jessica mentioned that she had been trying to arrange a trip to Ushuaia. Over a few supermarket bottles of wine and those delicious empanadas (from the video!), we hatched our plans to meet at el fin del mundo. Nos vemos pronto!

Filed Under: Argentina, Beer & Wine, Cycle, South America Tagged With: biking, cafayete, mendoza, salta, wine

Desert Fun

August 25, 2009 By Danny

After our flight over the Nazca lines we headed to Ica, just a couple of hours up the coast from Nazca. After a quick lunch we hopped in a cab and went straight to our first Peruvian wine tour. We had hoped to do a proper tour hitting at least 3 wineries but given that we were traveling by taxi, and quite content by the end of our first, we left that total at just one.

Peruvian wineries have something to them that no other winery we’d ever been to can boast…a pisco distillery. Pisco is, more or less, the “liquor” of Peru (and I believe a couple of other South American countries we’ve yet to get to as well) and is the base for Peru’s famous drink, the pisco sour. Having already sampled several pisco sours the chance to go to a vineyard/winery/distillery was quite inviting.

Since we arrived by taxi, we arrived alone. This wasn’t a problem. A guide was there waiting and he took us on our own private tour. First we saw grapevines (no grapes right now, missed that by a few months) and then we walked further up the path (which was basically a grape-seed gravel) to the big grape smashing swimming pool (I should mention at this point that I might not have all the technical terms down perfectly) where the grapes are squeezed out by barefoot party goers during the grape harvest. Then the they are pressed (by a machine appropriately called the ‘press’). Since there were no grapes for us to stomp or press, Jill felt the need to place me under the press…I’m still not sure what she intended.

This is where the wine and Pisco process divide. After the press we moved to where the pisco and the wine (both just grape juice at this point) are fermented. Here in Peru rather than talking about the benefits of oak versus steel barrels we checked out the traditional ceramic casks used in the Pisco process and compared them to the cement casks primarily used today. The wine of course is still fermented in wooden casks, but considering Pisco is the main attraction the guide left the wine process behind and just told us about Pisco.

Next up is the distillery where 1600L of fermented grape juice is poured into a giant ceramic barrel. Under the barrel was a big pit where a giant wood fire could be stoked, ultimately boiling the grape juice inside. As the 1600L are boiled the juice is turned to steam, leaving behind most of its mass to be reused as fertilizer. As the juice boils, the vapors escape the barrel through a pipe at the top which pipes the gas under a pool to condense before being poured out as pisco.

Pisco it turns out comes out of the distillation process as a man. The first 10L or so of Pisco that flow from the pipes are the head, which is too high in alcohol content to be consumed, but is perfect for sterilizing equipment. The next 400L is the body and id only portion of the original 1600L that will be consumed. The final 60L or so are the tail, which like the head is not consumed.

An consume we did. We tried the Torontel, made from aromatic grapes, the Quebranta, made from non-aromatic grapes, and the Acholado, the mix of the first two from which pisco sour is made. We also tried a version mixed with milk which is basically a version of Bailey’s made with pisco as well as several of their wines. By the time we were done we were quite pleased with tasting and then he pulled out some chocolates. Needless to say there was no need of continuing to another vineyard.

Next up was a trip to the Huacachina oasis just outside of Ica’s city limits. This is the main gringo hangout of the area on account of the oasis itself (which was a brown lake, dirty and completely uninviting) and the rather impressive sand dunes. Within one hour of our arrival we’d changed into shorts and rented a pair of sandboards (cost $3 each rather than the $12 dune buggy/sandboarding tour) and were hiking up and boarding down dunes until the sun set over the desert. Luckily the soft sand was more forgiving the volcanic rock we boarded down the last time.  Can´t say we made much improvement though!

Filed Under: Beer & Wine, Peru, South America Tagged With: desert, sandboarding, winery

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