In the run up to the Bot River Spring Weekend, La Tête hosted a food and wine pairing evening as a preview to the wines on offer during the festival.  Various Bot River winemakers provided one of their best wines for sampling and Chef Giles created specially paired canapés.  These delectable little morsels were the perfect foil for each wine and it was wonderful to see how excited the winemakers were to find out how their wines had been matched – did they have the pork terrine or the ox heart? The spring peas with mint or the salted hake? What was wonderful about the evening is that for a reasonable price (R200 per head) you could sample each wine, while chatting to the winemaker about what they’re busy with and excited about, and then experience the superb food combinations.  We do hope they decide to repeat the experience next year.

Of course we started with bubbles (YAY!!)  The Genevieve Méthode Cap Classique was paired with Giles’ glorious chicken liver parfait (everybody loves a parfait!).

Then onto the Arcangeli’s Portuguese-style Feiteiras Verdelho which was paired with Roast Shallot’s with mint and goat’s cheese.  The mint was a winner!

Isn’t this just the best name ever?  DISDIT!!!  Anysbos‘ white blend of Chenin blanc, Roussanne and Grenache blanc was my favourite white of the evening and gorgeously paired with Salt Hake, chicory and anchovy.

Villion‘s Chenin Blanc had one of the most unexpected pairings I thought – peas with mint and a karoo crumble.  The freshness of the peas was incredible with the chenin.

At Paardenkloof we tasted their Cabernet Sauvignon paired with slivers of ox heart.  This was yumminess on a stick.  Rich but wonderful.

We’re huge fans of Gabriëlskloof in general.  Their reds are incredible and they make a kick ass olive oil too.  Here we tasted the Cabernet Franc, paired with a pork terrine.  Delish

Then onto another favourite of ours – Beaumont.  We hardly drive through Bot River without stopping to buy their port and dessert wine but this time we tried their Mouvèdre, matched with a pork rillette.

Oooh the Luddite Shiraz…… no need to say any more.  Paired gorgeously with ox tongue, beetroot and mustard.  The wine and the beetroot were a sublime combination.

And finally (see how many farms there were!) we tried the Wildekrans Pinotage. I told Braam that I’m simply not a fan of Pinotage…. but oh my word, this one was delicious – smooth and rich and rounded.  I loved it!  You could see why it has so many pretty stickers on the bottle.  Delicious with pulled veal shoulder and baby gem.  We were also very excited to learn that they’ll be introducing a pink and ruby port – we hope to be able to taste that very soon.