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Radio Sonder
Grense hosted their Valentine Day show of “Oggend op RSG” on
14 February at Meerendal. Hundred and twenty listeners booked to enjoy
the two hour radio show being broadcasted live from our Barn &
Lawn venue. Well – known radio presenters Johan Rademan and Martelize
Brink did all the talking and they were complimented with four
performers. A sumptuous breakfast was served and Meerendal Pinotage
Rose flowed into the glasses to celebrate the true spirit of
Valentine’s day!
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Our big highlight and scoop
of the year has been the visit of the British pop group SMOKIE to
Meerendal and our sponsorship of our wines for their tour through South
Africa.
Since their previous tour in 2008 in South Africa SMOKIE changed their habit of drinking Australian Shiraz to enjoying South
African wines on their many concert tours around the world. Organisers
worldwide must now ensure that South African wines are available where
ever they perform and Meerendal is the group’s first choice.
Bennie Howard, Meerendal’s marketing manager, says “This was an ideal
opportunity to let an international pop group with the status of
Smokie, become our wine ambassadors worldwide. We will be supplying
them with Meerendal wines at their next concert in Ireland shortly”
Meerendal wines were served at all the luncheons, dinners and cocktail
events of SMOKIE. The group visited the Meerendal Estate in Durbanville
for a winery tour and tasting and a truly traditional South African
lunch. The menu included Karoo Rack of Lamb and Rib-Eye Beef on the
bone, both favourites of the members of the group. The wines that
complemented the meal included the Meerendal Heritage Block
Pinotage and Meerendal Bin 159 Shiraz, both varieties that have been
marketed by Meerendal for more than 40 years.
Terry Uttley, leader of SMOKIE was delighted with the arrangement “We
were so surprised three years ago on our last visit to taste lovely
South African wines, and our promoter spoilt us with some of the best
red wines to drink, equal in quality to the Australian wines that we
drank up to then. This time around we are having some of the finest
white and red wines from Meerendal Estate, a truly pleasure to enjoy
with our meals, after our performances and while we are flying to the
different cities for our performances. I think we are hooked on
Meerendal!”
With chart-topping hits like Living Next Door to Alice, Lay
Back in the Arms of Someone and If You Think You
Know How to Love Me, and constant tours of the UK and
Europe, Smokie is still one of the most popular bands in the world
today. More than 25,000 people attended the eight concerts held
throughout the country in April.
Smokie is a band which has sold out tours and gained platinum records
in four decades – the 70s, 80s, 90s and the present day. |
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The other highlight has been our annual
Harvest day in the Durbanville Wine Valley on 21st March. We
accommodated twice as many people as last year and all participants had
a fun day!
Picking the grapes early in the morning made everybody hungry and after
a great breakfast it was easy to do the destalking. But the real fun
has been jumping into the bins to stomp the grapes until nice and
mushy! Under the watchful eye of Liza, all participants had to “dance”
neatly until the right texture of the must had been reached. |
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In June we hosted lots of people who
joined us for our Sip, Soup and Bread week, where we served three
delicious soups with three different breads and three different wines,
just in time for the cold spell that arrived in the Cape. This formed part of the annual festivities in June in the Durbanville Wine Valley.
The soups were Butternut with sage, Mussel Chowder and Maroccan lamb and were served in the Deli, Manor House Restaurant and at the Cape
Table Buffet. |
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During
May Meerendal featured in five countries overseas.
CEO Wessel Coertze and Ronel Botha travelled to the Far East to engage in talks in China and Singapore to expand the sales of Meerendal wines. Wessel says they were pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm for South African wines.
“China is one of the most exciting new wine markets in the world. It
has huge potential and our visit gave us firsthand knowledge of what
the market is all about. Tea is obviously the most important drink,
with food as well, so wine is consumed mostly before or after a meal.
Red wine is preferred to white wine maybe also because red is symbolic
to happiness to the Chinese. We attended the Interwine Exhibition in
Guangzhou where more than 40,000 visitors tasted wine from all over the
world. It was a very well organized event and we made good contacts. We
are looking forward to a great working relationship with our potential
clients in China shortly. We visited the Wine Discoveries
store in Shanghai where Meerendal wines are featured already.
We also stopped over in Singapore, a very different market to China.
Here people are wine lovers. They understand wine, use it more with
food and is prepared to try wines from all over the world. We presented
our wines with our importer Rubicon Wines to number of restauranteurs.
Bennie Howard represented the Pinotage Association and Meerendal on the
Wines of South Africa (WOSA) European tour in May where a series of one
day master classes consisting of 4 seminars in three of the most
important target markets were held. This forms part of a new direction
that WOSA has taken to build Brand South Africa overseas to put the
best wines and most interesting stories in front of key opinion leaders
in the wine business – journalists, sommeliers, independent retailers
and MW students.
One of the topics was “Discover Pinotage” and Bennie coordinated the
seminar where 14 top Pinotages were presented in Cologne, Stockholm and
Oslo. The presentation rediscovered Pinotage as we looked back over the
85 year history of Pinotage, demonstrating the marvelous way that
Pinotage can mature and showing the new quality driven direction that
Pinotage has taken over the past 15 years. To demonstrate this the
Pinotages that were tasted covered five decades of wines. Included in
the impressive lineup was a Meerendal 1982 Pinotage, together with two
other golden oldies – a 1966 Lanzerac Pinotage and a 1974 Zonnebloem
Pinotage.
The general feedback was that the 29-year old Meerendal matured
beautiful and many tasters compared it with an elegant matured
Burgundy! It is most probably the first time that international wine
people had the opportunity to see such an amazing group of wines at one
single tasting overseas and the tasters were bowled over by the
longevity of Pinotage and the new direction of the younger wines.
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At the end of the harvest every year
the wine makers, viticulturists and marketing teams at all the wineries
gather to celebrate the harvest with a friendly Potjiekos competition.
Although the Meerendal team took third place, its Herbed Dumplings with
the Oxtail and Ostrich potjie was praised by the judges as absolutely
delicious!!
Send us an email to info@meerendal.co.za if you want a copy of the recipe.
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We are very excited about the farm
workers’ community project that has been launched at Meerendal. It
involves the establishment of a big vegetable and herb garden to supply
the restaurants and the Farmers Market at Meerendal. A suitable pen has
been built also to accommodate about 50 hens to produce fresh farm eggs
also for the Market and Restaurants.
Says General Manager Willi Botha ”The community project was launched in an effort to assist our workers to create a sustainable alternative source of income in this uncertain economic climate. The project is managed by a committee appointed by the Meerendal workforce themselves and all the proceeds from the project is managed by the committee in aid of the workers. The project has certainly created cohesion in the ranks and everybody pulls their weight now to make the project profitable and successful. An exciting future awaits!”
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The market takes place once a month
and has grown by leaps and bounds! Most of the stalls are now in the
old white wine barrel cellar, but a lot of activity is still taking
place outside on the big lawns of Meerendal. It is the ideal place to
visit on a Saturday morning! See the dates on our home page.
The next one is Saturday 17 September, starting at 09:00. See our website
for the dates for the rest of the year. |
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The
tantalising variety of winter dishes on the new menu at the Manor
House Restaurant have delighted many visitors to Meerendal! Chef De Wet Wilsch has created some awesome
dishes that will be complemented by the wonderful selection of
Meerendal wines available.
On the starter menu additions include a Mussel Chowder and Black
Tiger Prawns with a Kingklip and Sweet corn mousse. Or consider a
Calamari and Chorizo salad or Baby beetroot, rocket and pine nut salad
for starters. |
For main
courses you can choose from Beef Fillet, Oven baked baby chicken, Pork
belly, Lamb shank cutlets, Cape Malay seafood ragout and Risotto al
funghi (with three different mushrooms). Dessert in the Cape must have a
Malva pudding and we add a Rooibos butterscotch sauce, or try our Ginger
Crème brûlée!
The Deli, next to the Tasting room, is open from Tuesdays to Sundays
for soup, quiche or farm-fresh pies, cheese platters and coffee or tea
with cakes.
And shop around for your favourite home made jam, preserve or cookies,
while tasting our wines. |
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At
the Old Mutual Trophy wine show our 2007 Meerendal Merlot Reserve was
awarded a silver medal, while the same wine was awarded 4 ½
stars on the Which Wine tasting of Wineland magazine. Other wines that
scored bronze medals at the Trophy show were: Meerendal 2006
Bin 159 Shiraz , Meerendal 2007 MCC Blanc de Blanc and the Meerendal
2009 Chenin Blanc Natural Sweet.
The results of the International Wine Challenge were received this week
as well. Two Meerendal wines were awarded Bronze medals: The 2007
Meerendal Merlot Reserve and the Meerendal 2006 Bin 159 Shiraz.
We have a special discount of 10% on these award winning wines at the
Cellar door for Spring until the end of October 2011. |
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Looking
forward to seeing you on the farm soon!
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| Tel: +27 21 975 1655 | www.meerendal.co.za
| info@meerendal.co.za |
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