Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

Gorry Bowes-Taylor has built up a loyal following of book lovers as well as book launch lunch lovers on behalf of Wordsworth.  The launch of Tony Leon’s latest book, ‘The Accidental Ambassador: from Parliament to Patagonia‘, which was released two weeks ago, was sold out at Myoga on Saturday, not only due to the witty smart speaker but also the excellent menu offered by Chef Mike Bassett for the event.

The book, Leon’s second (the first was ‘On the Contrary‘), tells the story of Leon’s retirement from DA (Democratic Alliance) opposition politics after twenty years, and taking up an appointment as ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, ‘jumping before I was pushed’ from his party, as good politicians should do, he said.  The book launch made it clear that politicians have the gift of the gab, and Leon is no exception.  He is an excellent salesman for his book, attracting one’s attention with a provocative question - e.g. how does the previous Leader of the DA promote an ANC government in South America - and then encourages one to buy the book without answering his question, so as to not do Wordsworth (and himself of course) out of revenue!

Leon names-drops a lot - he is a close friend of Joost van der Westhuizen, and Pieter-Dirk Uys’ Evita Bezuidenhout is quoted too: ‘As a fellow accidental ambassador, reading Tony Leon’s adventures in the land of the original Evita and the gauchos, reminded me there are reasons to be grateful we live in South Africa after all‘.  Even ex-President Nelson Mandela is quoted as saying about Tony Leon: ‘Your contribution to democracy is enormous. You have far more support for all you have done than you might ever read about‘, high praise indeed!

Myoga is located in the Vineyard Hotel grounds, and there was a severe traffic jam in getting to park on the property, given a huge exodus of a church group with had used the conference hall, made worse by a hotel security person who could not cope with this nor speed things up.   All 100 guest had pre-booked, and were seated according to a plan.  The seat at the table that I was allocated to had two adjoining table legs where one’s own legs were meant to be, making it impossible to sit there.  The manager Shameemah was most unhelpful, saying that she could do nothing at all, and that is how it is!  Eventually she made a plan by offering a seat at a table with the most friendly ‘Wordsworthians’, who were delighted I had taken the last seat at the table, as it prevented someone else whom they had experienced at the previous lunch from sharing the table with them.  One of the table companions is a regular blog reader, and she quoted reviews she had read on our blog.  Ingrid Crowther and her mother were lovely guests too, and we shared notes about restaurant experiences.

Most of the guests at this table attend each of Bowes-Taylor’s Wordsworth book launch lunches, not necessarily because they like the author, will buy the book, or are avid readers, but because they get to experience new restaurants, meet nice people, eat good food, taste unknown wines, and are entertained by the authors talking about their new books, all at the cost of R250.  The ‘Wordsworthians’ were more than delighted with the Tony Leon book launch lunch, as it ticked all the right boxes, despite some problems experienced in making the bookings! The disasterous Penny Vincenzi book launch lunch at Sevruga three years ago got the restaurant removed from the Bowes-Taylor list, while De Grendel restaurant appears to be one of the popular venues.

Chef Mike and his team put on a lunch of note, which was paired with the wines of the Hemel en Aarde Valley’s Domaine des Dieux. Shane Mullis introduced the wine estate, each guest having received a glass of Rose of Sharon MCC 2008 as a welcome drink, made of 75% Pinot Noir and 25 % Chardonnay, and which spent 42 months on the lees. The boutique wine estate name means ‘place of the gods‘, and is owned by Sharon Parnell. At 320 meters above sea level, the wine estate is one of the highest in the country. It is particularly known for its sparkling wines, the Claudia MCC 2007 being made from 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Noir.  Other wines in the range are the Chardonnay 2010, and Josephine Pinot Noir 2010.

The ‘Tantalizer’ was a superb starter of pan fried prawns with the Myoga signature sweet chili, crowned with coriander infused cream, which was paired with the Domaine des Dieux Sauvignon Blanc 2009, with asparagus notes and ripe fruit aromas.  The sauce was so delicious, that everyone at our table requested a spoon, to finish every last drop!  ‘The Main Event‘ was a sous-vide beef fillet, which was served with crispy potatoes, pan fried mushrooms, smoked bordelaise jus, and finished off with a sun-dried tomato mousse. The main course was paired with an excellent Domaine des Dieux Syrah/Mourvédre 2010.   A perfectly made dry cappuccino accompanied ‘The Crowning Glory’, a refreshing dessert of golden tart, which was filled with lemon custard on peach jus, complemented with a most unusual goat’s cheese ice cream.

Leon concluded that if one was not interested in reading his book for the South African or Argentinian politics, one could buy it for the handy tips of where to shop and what to see in Buenos Airies, which his wife Michal had written for the book. His time in South America showed him that Argentina is even more corrupt than South Africa.  He said it was sad to see how Argentina, once the seventh largest economy, now has a smaller economy than that of South Africa. He says the country is very focused on its past rather than on its future, and mocked it for representing a ‘vote for a better yesterday‘! The decline of the country appears to have been triggered off by the death of ex-First Lady Eva Duarte Perron in 1952. Leon also told the story of Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who would not set foot in the cathedral of Buenos Aires, as its Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio had criticised her government.  Yet she traveled to Rome to attend his investure as the new Pope Francis earlier this year! He referred to other famous Argentinians: soccer star Lionel Messi and new Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. Leon took his post in 2009, and the forthcoming soccer World Cup in South Africa helped him to leverage off big events, including rugby.  The book details what happens in an embassy, his budget of about R20 million employing 27 staff per year. Leon told a funny story about his lunch with ex-South African Nobel prize winner JM Coetzee, who had been painted as being a recluse. Coetzee was participating in a Literary Festival in Buenos Aires, and Leon mistakenly invited him to the city’s best steak restaurant, the writer being a strict vegetarian! Leon found him to be anything but reclusive. Leon said that one should live in another country to appreciate one’s own country!

As an ambassador, Leon spent a lot of time in restaurants, and at dinners and cocktail parties at other embassies, and at the homes of Argentian contacts he got to know in his three years.  He raves about the typical Asado barbeque, and the steaks served in the ‘parillas’, their meat cuts differing to ours. His guests will have been served samoosas, bobotie, and malva pudding, he shares. Funny is his chapter in not being able to find any Big Macs in Buenos Aires, the world famous burger being the benchmark for the real value of country’s currencies as measured by The Economist, as it would have shown up Argentina’s high inflation rate (of about 25%).  No mention is made by him of any South African wines or the role they may have played in enhancing trade and cultural relations between South Africa and Argentina!  He did visit Mendoza, the Argentinian wine region, on a number of occasions, but does not reveal which Malbec wines appealed to him.

Leon is articulate as a speaker and as a writer too, and the book is easy to read and hard to put down.  One senses that he must have bitten his tongue on numerous occasions about his host country and his home country in the three years of his ambassadorship, having ended his latest career a year early, not explaining clearly why he did not end the term of his post.  He now is a consultant, writer, and speaker.

Tony Leon: ‘The Accidental Ambassador: from Parliament to Patagonia‘, Picador Africa, 2013. www.tonyleon.com Twitter: @TonyLeonSA

Myoga, Vineyard Hotel, 60 Collinton Road, Newlands, Cape Town. Tel (021) 657-4543. www.myoga.co.za Twitter: @MyogaRestaurant

Domaine des Dieux, Hemel en Aarde valley, Hermanus. Tel (028) 313-2126. www.domainedesdieux.co.za

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Despite denials to the news by wine whiner Neil Pendock that his ‘favourite’ target, Wines of South Africa (WOSA) CEO Su Birch, was to resign, said resignation has now been confirmed by WOSA.  A fitting ‘going-away’ award for Ms Birch is the 2013 UK The Drinks Business Lifetime Achievement Green Award, it was announced earlier this week.

The Drinks Business Lifetime Achievement Green Award is the world’s largest programme to raise the awareness of the importance of environmental issues in the beverages trade, in recognising those that are leaders in sustainability and environmental performance.  The Lifetime Achievement Green Award recognised Ms Birch’s dedication to ‘environmental and/or ethical causes’.

Ms Birch is previously been namd The Drinks Business Woman of the Year, received the International Wine and Spirit Competition’s Women in Wine Award, while Wine Intelligence named her one of the ten most influential wine personalities in the world.

After thirteen years at the helm of WOSA, Ms Birch will vacate her position in September.  Her last activity will be the ‘The Beautiful South’ tasting in London, a platform for wines from South Africa, Argentina and Chile.

One wonders if Pendock will target Ms Birch’s successor too, with his regular unprofessional abuse!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

It was appropriate for Western Cape Minister of Finance, Economic Development, and Tourism Alan Winde to speak to the Cape Town Press Club about Tourism yesterday, and to announce that his department is working on a plan to establish Cape Town as a hub for the Southern Hemisphere wine industry, in creating a platform for the wines of Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia, given that it was the opening day of CapeWine 2012, probably one of the most significant wine-related tourism events ever held in Cape Town.

Speaking at a Cape Town Press Club lunch at 6 Spin Street yesterday, Minister Winde highlighted that events are an important driver of tourism in the Western Cape, and he highlighted how important wine tourism is for our province, it being a unique tourism product for the Western Cape.  The CapeWine 2012 and Vindaba exhibitions are therefore vital in focusing attention on our highly regarded wine industry, and in attracting local visitors to the Cape.  The Minister related that 41 % of the Western Cape tourists are locals, of which close to 90% are from other parts of the Western Cape, and only 10% are from Gauteng. The Minister would like to see the domestic tourism proportion increase to 50%, to make the Western Cape less susceptible to the impact of the international economy, the effect of the international recession having been felt since 2008.

The Minister welcomed the delegates attending CapeWine 2012 to Cape Town, and invited the public to visit Vindaba on World Tourism Day on Thursday. He said: “Wine tourism in the Western Cape generates income in excess of R5 billion per annum and creates thousands of jobs. We will continue to support the sector to ensure that it grows even bigger and employs even more people. It is also important that liquor and wine traders in our Province operate responsibly. We want traders that are successful and consumers that are healthy”.

Minister Winde also announced a number of other tourism related initiatives he and his department are working on:

*   direct flights between Cape Town and Miami, feeding into the USA as well as South America.

*  a Tourism Business School, to raise the ‘level of competence’ of tourism staff

*  the reduction of the abuse of liquor by implementing stricter rules for the restaurant industry and liquor trade

*   spend more money on tourism marketing, and less on computers in tourism bureaus. He emphasised the importance of spending marketing monies in attracting more of the Gauteng market to the Cape.

*   ensure that SAA has enough capacity to bring more Gauteng tourists to Cape Town - over the past long weekend the flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town were fully booked, which kept potential tourists away from the Western Cape.  He will also address the feedback received from the important wine media, wine trade, sommeliers, and wine lovers attending CapeWine 2012, the German contingent having been on a SAA flight with unfriendly staff, poor food, and very poor wines, the latter running out in Economy class within two hours of the commencement of the flight. The water on board had run out the next morning.  The connecting flight to Cape Town from Johannesburg was missed due to the simultaneous arrival of a number of flights, causing congestion at Passport Control and the baggage retrieval, which meant a three hour (unscheduled) wait at OR Thambo airport.   Minister Winde emphasised that Brand South Africa commences when tourists get onto the plane to South Africa, and not when they set foot in our country or province.  A shock statistic is that there are 36 flights between Cape Town and Johannesburg daily, the 9th busiest route in the world!  It is also equivalent to the number of flights between the USA and Africa.

*   the legislation to allow the incorporation of the previous Cape Town Routes Unlimited into Wesgro is being written

*   Cape Agulhas is being upgraded, with the addition of new benches, the renovation of the lighthouse, and the addition of new signage on the N2.

*  the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe is a cause for concern, and the Minister has received representation from the three Mayors of the towns on the route, as well as a petition with 6000 signatures, calling for the reinstatement of this historic rail route.

*   in the Cape events are vital, and the Minister mentioned the success of the Loeries which had been held in Cape Town over the long weekend, the annual Design Indaba, the Design Capital 2014, the effect of the planned doubling of the Convention Centre which could attract a conference with 16000 delegates being bid for currently, the International Jazz Festival, The Pick ‘n Pay Cape Argus Cycle Tour, the Wacky Wine Weekend, and the ABSA Epic Cycle Tour.  Ravi Naidoo has achieved such a good international reputation for his work on Design Indaba, that he has been invited to set up Design Shanghai, the Minister shared.

Overall, the Minister wants to see the contribution of Tourism to the economy of the Western Cape increase from the current 10% to 15%.  The success of CapeWine 2012, and its large international contingent attending this prestigious event, must be a sign to the Minister and the local wine and tourism industry what value there is in investing in the marketing of our province’s liquid gold, and its Wine Routes linked to it!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio:  www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

A concern about the future marketing of the tourism industry in the Western Cape, given the closure of Cape Town Routes Unlimited and its incorporation within Wesgro, and the departure of its CEO Calvyn Gilfellan on 31 March, motivated me to call Wesgro and request an appointment with its CEO Nils Flaatten.  Despite the busy and short week prior to Easter, he made time for the interview on 5 April.

The hurdles put in my way to meet Mr Flaatten were considerable, and demonstrated the personality of the organisation and told me more about the company than the time I spent with Mr Flaatten.  It also demonstrated how far removed Wesgro, the Western Cape Trade promotion and Investment agency, is from the Tourism industry, if ‘customer service’ is anything to go by.  When I called to set up the interview, Mr Flaatten’s secretary insisted that I follow ‘protocol’ and e-mail her the meeting request, and tell her who I am.  I had done this telephonically, and it became a power struggle, with constant interruptions from her, before she accepted my meeting request telephonically.  She indicated that it would take a considerable time to get an appointment date, which she would e-mail me!  A Tweet to express my dismay about this lack of approachability by our province’s new tourism head, combined with an e-mail to Alan Winde, Western Cape Minister of Economic Development, Finance and Tourism, led to a call directly from Mr Flaatten, offering a meeting for a few days later at 11h30, or so I heard.  Mr Flaatten called at 7h45 on that day, asking where I was, having expected me at 7h30!  As a late night blogger and guest house owner I would never have accepted such a time slot, which seemed very ‘Johannesburg’ to me!  Mr Flaatten said he would be out of town for two weeks, and could only reschedule a meeting thereafter.  Yet his secretary called later in the morning, and offered me a midday meeting, which I accepted with gratitude.  For the first time, she offered parking, and took all the relevant details telephonically.  I arrived at the building half an hour early, wanting to make sure that I arrived on time, but I was not allowed into the building as Wesgro had not alerted the parking garage staff at the boom! They refused to let me in, and traffic problems were caused with other garage users wanting to enter.  I had to call Wesgro to ask them to let me in. However, all the staff were in a meeting, and Mr Flaatten’s secretary could not be contacted. I was told that I would be called back.  No such call came, and I had to call again after 20 minutes of being trapped at the boom, and having been threatened by the parking staff that the traffic department would be called if I did not move my car!  I was given a bay number by the Wesgro switchboard and relayed this to the boom operator, but it was refused because it had not been sent to them on the prescribed form!  Needless to say, this incompetent stakeholder-unfriendly introduction to Wesgro twice in one week made my heart sink, and realise how much smarter and visitor-friendly the Western Cape tourism industry is.

I was shocked when I saw the reception area in which I had to wait for Mr Flaatten, which doubled up as an office, with two ugly red chairs. Mr Flaatten’s office did not look much better, the same style ugly red chairs serving as visitor chairs with a rather nice blue desk, but the blue not matching Wesgro’s corporate blue, the functional office having no warmth or professionalism. Mr Flaatten seemed professional but distant, not giving one the feeling that one could ever have a collegial relationship with him in his new role as provincial tourism head. He has headed up Wesgro for the last two years. I was surprised when he asked me to tell me who I am, not what the interview was about, and he made it appear that he knew nothing about me at all!  I at least had Googled his name, and had found out that he went to school in Stellenbosch, served in the South African Navy, and had worked in investment banks in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.

I told him that other than its name, and having only a broad idea of what Wesgro does, I knew nothing more, and that I wanted to know what its role will be in taking over the duties of Cape Town Routes Unlimited.  Wesgro is governed by the Wesgro Act, and has three duties according to the Act:

*   to attract and retain foreign investment in the Western Cape

*   to grow exports

*   to increasingly attract business to the city and the province

Wesgro is funded by both the City of Cape Town (R10 million) and the Western Cape government (R18,4 million), the R25 million which Cape Town Routes Unlimited received from the Western Cape government being added to give a total of R53 million, larger than the budget of Cape Town Tourism.  The organisation services the province, ultimately reporting to Minister Winde.  It also works with the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee member Belinda Walker, doing strategy planning.  The organisation’s operations include:

*   hosting inward trade missions, at which they try to ‘matchmake’ the visiting delegation members with local businesses via ‘speed dating’

*   outward missions travel overseas, promoting trade with the Western Cape, benefiting from sponsorships for flights and other travel costs from the Department of Trade and Industry.

Any Western Cape business is seen to be a ‘member’ of Wesgro, although one does not take out or pay for a membership. The organisation also looks to stimulate the setting up and development of ‘SMME’s’ (small businesses), including entrepreneurs, emerging entrepreneurs, and start-up businesses.  They also look to grow sectors of Western Cape businesses, and a number of such sector development agencies have been developed, for IT, Craft and Design, etc.  Geographically, Wesgro is concentrating on the ‘West African Trade Corridor’, which includes Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  “The Headquarter for African business should be Cape Town”, Mr Flaatten said.  He shared that a trip to Accra the week before had seen distribution agreements signed with 20 companies represented in the trade delegation.  It was at this point that Mr Flaatten justified his organisation’s take-over of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, saying that Wesgro already has links to the chambers of commerce and influential players in these West African countries, so in the same way they can engage with the leading tourism players in these countries to attract more West African tourists to Cape Town and the Western Cape. He added that the Northern Hemisphere countries of the UK, the USA, Europe and Japan would only show a 1,5 % growth, labelling them as ‘concentration risk’.  Currently most of the Western Cape exports go to the UK, to the Netherlands, and to Germany, in that order. Mr Flaatten also said that 73% of South Africa’s foreign direct investment in Africa comes from Cape Town businesses, mainly being in the financial services, real estate, and hospitality sectors. He added that by 2030 there would be more middle income earners in Africa than in India.  He also emphasised the potential of the BRICS countries.  Further high growth high income countries are Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates. Inward missions coming to Cape Town are from the USA, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, and they offer marketing services, sales support, and call centre services.

Mr Flaatten gave his views of our tourism industry by saying that it has a number of outspoken characters in it, implying that this would be something he would have to get used to!  Wesgro has taken over the 25 Cape Town Routes Unlimited staff, who were in the same building, and will be assimilated into his team, retaining the benefits, and terms and conditions at which they were employed originally.  Wesgro will ‘capitalise on the Cape Town Routes Unlimited’ marketing knowledge, Mr Flaatten said, but I was concerned that he could not tell me the name of the most senior marketing executive (we think it is Debbie Damant, not known to most) that he has ‘inherited’, especially given that the marketing of Cape Town Routes Unlimited had been strongly driven by its then CEO Calvyn Gilfellan.  The Board of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, now led by ACSA’s Deon Cloete due to the move of its previous Chairman Peter Bacon to Mauritius, will oversee the activities that are in the Cape Town Routes Unlimited Annual Performance Plan, until the organisation with its Board is dissolved when the Western Cape Tourism Act of 2004 is repealed.  Similarly, the Wesgro Act must be amended, to allow it to additionally manage destination marketing for the Western Cape.

Mr Flaatten requested the industry to give him a month, so that he can get to know his new staff, and what the capacity requirements are, not wanting to be irresponsible in becoming unnecessarily large.  First he must stabilise the staff situation, and then they must focus on planning for the following financial year. They have already hosted a workshop with 100 regional and local tourism bureaus, seeing them as ’subject matter experts’, and not wishing to duplicate their work, he said. He will also engage with industry representative bodies such as FEDHASA Cape, SATSA, etc, but I left him with a reminder that the tourism industry consists of a large number of small businesses, many not belonging to the big tourism associations, and that their voices should be heard too. Listening to the tourism industry will be the biggest challenge for him currently, Mr Flaatten said. He realises that the ‘Cape Town & Western Cape’ brand is a problem ‘which will not be easy to fix’.

The Board of Directors of Wesgro raises interesting questions.  Board members Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette Du Toit-Helmbold, its Board Vice-Chairman and CEO of the Cape Town Partnership, Bulelwa Ngewana, and Board member Guy Lundy, CEO of Accelerate Cape Town and Wesgro Vice Chairman, may prevent duplication of marketing activity between Wesgro and Cape Town Tourism, but ideally should remain independent tourism bodies, so that the industry benefits from the best of both bodies.  Ravi Naidoo, organiser of the Design Indaba, is well-known and highly regarded.  Interesting too is that Alderman Belinda Walker is on the Board, but does not deal with Tourism matters in the City of Cape Town, which could lead to duplication of tourism management within the City.  One could be concerned about two Boards of Directors managing the duties of Wesgro, until Cape Town Routes Unlimited is closed down legally, and about the incestuous duplication of Board members of Wesgro and Cape Town Tourism.

For an organisation that had a number of months warning of taking over Cape Town Routes Unlimited, and that had taken over its operations four days prior to my visit, I was concerned about the general lack of marketing insight, terminology (other than the branding issue), and discussion that I heard from Mr Flaatten during our lengthy interview.  He did not mention Cape Town Tourism, and how Wesgro will avoid duplication of marketing activities with the city tourism marketing body.  The Wesgro website only shows an amended logo, in that the new duty is incorporated in its descriptor underneath it: ‘The Western Cape Destination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency’, and contains a block of information to state that it has taken over the duties of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, with a link to the now defunct tourism body’s website!  I was concerned about the very business-like Wesgro culture, which does not appear ‘customer friendly’ nor service-orientated in simple requests of setting up a meeting and honouring a parking arrangement, which does not auger well for our tourism industry. The offices are functional but unattractive, not matching the tourism industry image. I was concerned that Mr Flaaten did not seem to know anything about Minister Winde’s EDP, which I thought would reside in Wesgro, and would eventually become the home of most Western Cape industry development bodies, the products and services of which Wesgro appears to market.  Mr Flaatten was very responsive in providing the Cape Town Routes Unlimited Annual Performance Plan which they will be working to achieve.  The 27 page Plan lists the mission as marketing the Western Cape as a desirable leisure, business and events tourism destination, and its main goal is to ‘position Cape Town and the Western Cape as a premier leisure, events and business tourism destination in Africa’. However, none of the defined goals are measurable.  The budget breakdown is disconcerting, with about 50% going to staff salaries, and only 24% going to marketing expenditure. Much of the performance is measured in terms of the number of meetings held, the number of convention bids presented, and the only tourism related measurement targets are the number of international arrivals (1,6 million) and domestic arrivals (3,2 million) for the current financial year, Cape Town Routes Unlimited only expecting to generate 5% of each kind of tourist through its marketing efforts, which begs the question as to why it existed in the first instance!

We will give Wesgro the month that has been requested, and await the way forward for the marketing of the Western Cape with trepidation.

POSTSCRIPT 18/4: In a media release sent out by Wesgro a week ago (but not to contacts on the Cape Town Routes Unlimited media list!), Nils Flaatten said that he would continue to report to the Wesgro Board of Directors, and to the Cape Town Routes Unlimited Board on a quarterly basis about ‘expenditure and performance against predetermined objects’. “Flaatten assured tourism industry stakeholder (sic) that there would be no ‘disruption to the delivery of the tourism destination function in our province’”, the media release added. It also stated that Cape Town Routes Unlimited and Wesgro will continue to occupy their respective offices in their current building, and that the telephone and e-mail details of the Cape Town Routes Unlimited staff ‘will remain in operation until further notice’.

This Tourism Week asked some critical questions about Wesgro’s new role in handling the Tourism marketing responsibility for the Western Cape in its newsletter on 13 April.

Wesgro, Waldorf Arcade, 80 St George’s Mall, Cape Town.  Tel (021) 487-8600.  www.wesgro.co.za Twitter: @Wesgro

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage

At World Travel Market, held in London last week, survey information was released that has severe repercussions for the local tourism industry, in demonstrating how cash-strapped the UK market remains, and how few British are planning to travel.  The UK is the largest source market for tourism to our country, if one disregards cross-border visitors from Africa.

A World Travel Market survey found that a holiday no longer is a necessity for the British, 38 % not having taken a holiday this year, and 59 % have only taken one holiday this year, reports Southern African Tourism Update. It is the cost of taxes (the UK Air Passenger Duty) which is a substantial deterrent to overseas travel, and further rises in the Duty are anticipated, the report says.  Fiona Jeffery, Chairman of World Travel Market, said that British consumers used to travel regularly, locally and overseas, every year.  “The global financial downturn has meant UK consumers have had to justify every penny they spend.  This has had a real impact on the travel industry. However, many now have reduced their number of holidays or stopped going on holiday at all”, she said.

Even more disconcerting is the result of another World Travel market survey conducted amongst British residents that had already been on a holiday this year.  Almost half said they had no interest in travelling to South Africa, while 42 %  were reasonably interested, reports Southern African Tourism Update. Comparing interests in South Africa as a holiday destination relative to the other BRICS countries, our country’s tourism communication has not been seen by 70 % of the respondents polled in the UK.   South Africa ranked third of the BRICS countries to visit ‘if money was no object‘, Brazil and China having a higher tourist interest.  A threat to BRICS tourism could be the SLIMMA nations, the survey found, consisting of Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mexico and Argentina, with investment in infrastructure, natural beauty and high disposable income.

The UK market has represented as much as 40 - 50 % of Cape Town tourism business, and it will be sorely missed this summer.  While more Germans are travelling this season, their increase is not making up the UK tourist loss.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

When writing our blogpost about the Toffie Food Festival, we wrote about a number of aspects about the organisation of the Toffie Food Festival and Conference that left much to be desired, the organisers making a number of promises which they did not deliver on.  I expressed my scepticism in the blogpost, but it was the talk by ex-blogger Julie Powell, theme of the movie ‘Julie & Julia’, that made me book, despite the high price tag.  Despite enjoying the morning sessions on Saturday, it was the organisers reneging on the confirmed booked secret dinner venue for Saturday evening that was the final straw, and therefore I decided to leave, with my money refunded, when the organisers failed to fix their acknowledged booking error.

The Toffie (no explanation was given by the organisers for this odd name, and there was no toffee, except at the SA Breweries food and beer pairing) Food Festival was not explained, and probably referred to the City Hall room with a number of stalls, creating a mini market, including stands for Woolworth’s coffee, the Queen of Tarts, Oded’s Kitchen, and a few more.  Another room had a number of beer brands for sale.  A further room sold pies from Jason’s, and here mini-croissants were available, being the over-promised ‘breakfast’!   A further room had a colourful Mexican Piñatas design (the organisers seemed to get their countries mixed up, as a link to Argentina was intended, with a speaker from this country).  The problem with all the extra features was that nothing was explained on arrival, or at the start of the Conference.   The registration desk staff, acknowledging our booking, said nothing about the bookings for the workshops running alongside the Festival, nor about the Secret Dinners, which took place in the homes of a number of hosts on Saturday evening.  One had to find out everything oneself.

The Toffie Food Conference was a one and a half day presentation of a random collection of speakers, some having nothing to do with food at all (these were last minute replacements for initially advertised international speakers, the programme having been amended as late as two weeks before its start, Wolfgang Koedel of Paulaner  Brauhaus and perfumer Tammy Fraser being added). The only common element some speakers had was that they had published books, but there was no theme commonality for the Conference overall.  The venue was a tacky dark room in the City Hall, on a noisy corner with taxi-hooting disturbance from outside, and not in the downstairs main City Hall auditorium, as one had expected.  We sat on uncomfortable cheap plastic chairs which had been wrapped in brown paper (this was the ‘creative’ decoration used throughout), which meant that there was a lot of rustling in the venue when one moved on one’s chair. The organisers clearly struggled to fill the venue, it not being full, and ’gave away’ tickets on Groupon(unfair to those who paid for the weekend in full), as well as offered seats as give-aways on M-Net.   Even on late Saturday afternoon, free Secret Dinner seats were offered via Twitter!

The organisers of the Toffie Food Festival and Conference were artist Peet Pienaar (a grumpy looking ex-rugby player with a Paul Kruger look, and who has a bizarre CV on Wikipedia, which I should have read before booking) and Hannerie Visser (ex-publisher of VISI and TASTE at New Media Publishing), both of never-heard-of-before The President design agency, with what must be the sparsest website ever seen, with design work done for Babylonstoren, BOS, TriBeCa, Navigator Films, and Bruce Lee magazines!  Neither have any food experience, nor have they organised a Conference before.  Copied from Argentina, they organise secret CHOP dinners in their offices, with Pienaar cooking bizarre meals (e.g. veal brain ravioli, the dinner and drinks costing R350) on a weekly basis.   This concept was built into the Toffie Food Festival, each delegate being allocated to a host, at whose home one would have dinner. Hosts were mainly from the decor design field.  While it was meant to be a random match of delegates with host venues, I liked the sound of GreyLamp, being a pop-up restaurant, and therefore I wrote to Visser, requesting this as my dinner venue.  She agreed by e-mail a few days before the event.  When I found the desk dealing with the dinners, I was given details of a completely different host, an editor of an art magazine, who had nothing to do with food at all!  There was no explanation for the error, and one of The President staff promised to sort it out, promising to find me to confirm the correction.  As I had experienced during the booking process, this promise was not met, and I had to return to the desk again. Lying on the table was a (brown paper wrapped) ‘present’ for me, with the news that I could not attend the GreyLamp dinner, as it was fully booked!  I went looking for Visser, but saw Pienaar first, and he rudely told me that it was tough that they had made an error in promising the venue.  This was echoed by Visser, when I finally found her.  It was the way in which she spoke to me, in that it was her right to take a promise away by making a mistake, that annoyed me.  When she offered to refund the money I had paid in full, I accepted it, as their error was a major let-down.  So while I missed out on Julie Powell’s talk after all of that, I was happy to leave this badly organised space, and was able to follow her speech on Twitter.  I couldn’t help but smile when I saw a number of disparaging Tweets about the poor Braai that closed off the Festival yesterday, the promised Argentinian Asado barbeque having fallen away, and the R150 Braai package (for those that brought partners) consisted of only a chop, a sausage and a roll, once again a false over-promise.

The speakers at the Toffie Conference tried their best to make up for the poor organisation and behind-the-scenes dramas happening outside the presentation venue:

*  Kobus van der Merwe, of the cutest Paternoster eatery Oep ve Eet, which I discovered a year ago, spoke about his love for foraging for West Coast foods in the preparation of his meals, including soutslaai, dune spinach, veldkool, seevygies, waterblommetjies, wild sage, and wild rosemary.    He grows some of his own vegetables and herbs, and has access to free-range farm eggs, Khoisan salt, bokkoms, cow’s milk, and flour close by.  Not only do Kobus’ dishes look beautiful from the colourful wild plants he adds, but he is also inspired by shapes from nature, having developed a breadstick in the shape of a branch, and uses streussel to create the look of soil.  Bobotie made with calamari, meat or vegetables are a staple at his restaurant, as are gemsbok sosaties, he said.  The books by Louis Leipoldt and Renata Coetzee are his food inspiration. Kobus calls his focus at Oep ve Eet ‘Earth-to-plate’, or ‘Terroir food’ His food ideas and creativity in its presentation are well worth a book, but can already be seen on his blog Sardine Toast.

*   Eloise Alemany is a small-print-run publisher of her own books, written in Spanish, and which she described as combination food journal, cultural diary, story book and cook book.  She has French parents, grew up in Japan, ran ID magazine in the USA for a while, before moving to Buenos Aires.  Her passion is photography and publishing, she said.  The choice as speaker was unusual, as many a local cook book writer and publisher could have probably been more useful to food writers wishing to have guidelines about how to get their work published.  Ms Alemany’s books were available for sale, but are not available in English.  The covers of the books ’Libro de Cocino’ and ‘Cuaderno Dulce’ are beautiful, but have no food in them.  She launched secret dinners in unique venues, such as an art gallery and a shoe shop, each with a theme, first for friends, and then expanded these when the unusual dinners received coverage in the Buenos Aires media.  Ms Alemany described herself as an ‘accumalator’ of beautiful things, which come in useful for the styling for shoots.  Buenos Aires experienced a ‘restaurant food revolution’ after the country’s financial crisis five years ago, and it led to interesting small neighbourhood restaurants opening. She encouraged delegates to stick to their vision, and to take risks in doing so.  Food styling must tempt the reader, it must inspire the reader in giving ideas of how to serve a dish, and it must be a memorable composition, she advised.  She varies her styling, some being busy, and others neutral.  She publishes a print run of 1000 books, distributing her books via small design shops in the main.  She concluded with the advice that one should do what one enjoys, and not that which one is good at.

*   Anna Trapido was a lively and informative speaker about the foods that have shaped Nelson Mandela’s life, being the author of ‘Hunger for Freedom’, and was the theme for the unusual lunch we were served on Saturday.  We received so much information that I have written a separate blogpost about it, to be published later this week.

*   I was very surprised when I saw a Taiwanese Barista featured on the programme, and even more so when I heard him speak his language, having an interpreter with him on the stage.  Once again, I wondered why an international speaker had to be brought in for this talk, when Cape Town has some excellent coffee specialists.  From Twitter, highlights of this talk by World Barista champion Tung-Yuan Lin were his development of Latte Art, going beyond the usual heart and leaf designs. He opened his first coffee shop GaBee six years ago, serving 100 different types of drinks.  After winning the barista competition, he pushed himself to develop new ideas, by using local Taiwanese ingredients such as sweet potato and melon; coffee, soda water and ginger; coffee and grapes to create a ‘red wine’; sweet corn soup coffee; creating ‘drinkable desserts’.  He advised delegates to push themselves to try unique combinations of ingredients to create as drinks.

*   Tammy Frazer’s talk on ‘Gourmand fragrances’ seemed completely out of place at a Food Conference.  Her talk generated few Tweets.

*  Wolfgang Koedel of Paulaner Brauhaus talked about beer, describing it as ‘liquid bread’.  Draught beer is ‘cool and trendy’ again, he said. During the World Cup 72000 pints of Paulaner were drunk.

*   Renata Coetzee wrote ‘Koekemakranka: Khoi-Khoin Kultuurgoed en Kom-kuier-Kos’, a Gourmand World Cookbook Award winner.  Her interest in food culture goes back 60 years, incorporating etiquette and folklore too.  She was particularly interested in African food culture, which had not been written about previously. Early civilisations would have eaten a lot of shellfish, bulbs and wild animals, she said.  The Khoi prepared food in claypots, and through mixing foods, stews were born.  Fat from sheeps’ tails was the most common ingredient of Khoi dishes.  Ms Coetzee has reworked the traditional Khoi recipes to make them palatable for Westerners.

*  Julie Powell’s success as a blogger, and subsequent author, in documenting her cooking of Julia Child’s recipe book in one year, and leading to the making of the movie ‘Julie & Julia’, cost her her marriage, which became the theme of her second book, called ‘Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession’. With her marriage on the rocks, Ms Powell decided to do a butcher’s course, a good escape for her, and she enjoyed ‘hacking up meat’.  It is very ‘hip’ to be a butcher these days, she said. She is concerned about the origin of her meat, and it must be organic, sustainable, and hormone-free.   For her, food has good, joyous, generous and loving memories, as well as nasty and divise memories.  She turns to food in times of crisis. She said that she was judged for being a blogger, and stopped blogging when her first book was published.  She does not follow blogs now, she told Elle Decor.  She watches a lot of TV, but does not watch food programmes, finding them boring. In New York pop-up restaurants and food trucks are a new trend.  ‘Technology and blogging have woven us together and made the food conversation more cacophonous than ever before’, she said.  An increasing number of people want to know where their food comes from ethically and environmentally.  Ms Powell is working on her third book, not specifically about food.

It was interesting that Cape Town Tourism did not sponsor the Toffie Food Festival and Conference, as it did the ‘100 Women 100 Wines’ event a week ago, and they only wrote two Tweets about this event.  One would have thought that the tourism body would offer equal attention to all events taking place in Cape Town, and that it would have wanted to demonstrate its tourism leadership by having a visible presence at the event, given its stated focus on Food tourism.  One wonders what the policy is of Cape Town Tourism in its sponsorship of events, and how it decides which events will receive monetary support.

The Toffie Food Festival and Conference was poorly organised, and their over-promised benefits and poor communication are unprofessional.  They have a lot to learn before they attempt to host another such event next year.

POSTSCRIPT 5/9: Sonia Cabano has written in support of our observation about the lack of value for money of the event, as follows:  “Yes, so ToffieFood was expensive and underdelivered. We all know that, and we are all discussing it”.

POSTSCRIPT 6/9: We copied the above sentence by Sonia Cabano from a comment she wrote to this blogpost.  As the rest of the comment was untruthful, disparaging and defamatory, we deleted it, and posted one sentence from it in the blogpost.  She Tweeted a number of times that she felt that the cost of the Toffie Food Festival was too high, but appears to have subsequently deleted these Tweets.

POSTSCRIPT 7/9: Sonia Cobana has Tweeted her Comment that she sent to this blogpost, which we have not allowed.  She is blatantly dishonest in claiming that she was with me when I talked to the organisers Hannerie Visser and Peet Pienaar.   She walked past us while I spoke to Peet Pienaar, gave him her new recipe book ‘Relish’ launched earlier that day, and walked off.  She was not party to any of the discussions I had with the organisers.  I left the event with a staff member of The President (organisers of the Toffie Food Festival), and not a security person, so that he could collect the delegate badge from me, walking me to my car in an area that is not particularly safe.   It appears that she is Tweeting this disparagement in retaliation to our blogposts about Cape Town Tourism, having hounded me on Friday evening, calling seven times to beg me to not write about Ms Grove anymore, being her friend.  I explained that nothing is written about Ms Grove or Mrs Helmbold in their personal capacity, but in that of their work for Cape Town Tourism.

POSTSCRIPT 10/9:  One of the Surprise Dinner hosts told me today that they had been very disappointed with the organisation, only having 13 of the 30 booked Toffie Food Festival delegates arrive, and many of these were ‘freebies’, who had received the dinner place for free, in a last minute desperate attempt by the organisers on Twitter. Hosts were given a budget of R150 per head for a three course meal, and were paid in Woolworths vouchers by the organisers.  Spier sponsored the wine. One wonders why Woolworths backed an unknown ad agency in putting on a first-time food festival and conference that clearly is not their field of expertise, was not well-organised, and was controversial, sullying their own brand.

POSTSCRIPT 11/9:  In her (libelous) report on the Toffie Food Festival, which she did not attend in full, given that the launch of her new book ‘Relish’ co-incided with Saturday morning of the Festival, for the BY supplement to Beeld, Die Burger, and other News24 titles, Sonia Cabano confirmed the complaints about the expense of attendance.  She gets the Festival cost wrong at R1800 (it was R1710), and writes about the near give-away of tickets on Groupon to fill the Festival.  She also mentions that no speakers of colour were included in the Festival programme, and the disappointing food market, which offered nothing new, most of the stallholders selling their wares at weekly markets too.  She also writes about the complaints about the poor Sunday lunch braai, and that Julie Powell, the keynote speaker, was a disappointment, being ‘babelaas’ from the Secret Dinner the night before (’…dat haar aanbieding die dag daarna belemmer is deur haar selferkende hewige babelaas’) !  Her report confirms that I made the right decision to leave the Toffie Food Festival on Saturday afternoon, after the Secret Dinner booking mismanagement, which was admitted to by the organisers, and therefore they refunded my fee.

POSTSCRIPT 14/9:  Today we received an e-mail from the Toffie Food Festival organisers, advertising their Toffie Food Festival food tour to Buenos Aires from 23 - 30 October, in conjunction with TASTE magazine, at a cost of R 28426 for a single and R23327 for a double, inclusive of the flight, accommodation and meals.

POSTSCRIPT 20/9:  Dax Villanueva, of Relax with Dax Blog, is also rather critical of his experience of the Toffie Food Festival.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

It is interesting to see how the Western Cape government, and even Cape Town Tourism, have reacted to the feedback that the Cape Tourism industry is in crisis, stated in a Cape Argus front page story featuring information from our blog as well as referring to an open letter to the tourism industry by Collection by Liz McGrath GM Tony Romer-Lee.  Alan Winde, Minister of Tourism in the Western Cape, has announced that the BRICS (Brazil, India, China, Russia, and even locals from South Africa) are the tourism market of the future.

Without spelling out the exact details of what is planned, a Cape Argus report earlier this week highlighted what the Western Cape is planning:

*  ‘Escape to the Cape - Whatever the Weather’: this campaign is to be aimed at Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.  The name is clumsy, another way of saying Green Season, but there has been no sign of the campaign actually having been launched, as claimed in the article.

*   attending trade shows in Brazil and Argentina in September, organised by the South African embassies in those countries

*   a road show to China, Korea and Japan by Cape Town Routes Unlimited CEO Calvyn Gilfillan. Cape Town has just been awarded the Preferred Tourist Attraction 2011 by the World Broadcasting Union in China, beating the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Paris. Sun International has also been on a marketing expedition in China in the past month.

*   market to the west coast of Africa, rich in oil, with huge numbers of wealthy individuals.  Clive Bennett, CEO of the One&Only Cape Town, told me at a recent function that Nigeria has a population of 160 million, of which 20 % are hugely rich, yet most have not heard of Cape Town!

*   Exhibiting at the FILDA International Trade Exhibition in Luanda, Angola, last week, and the Western Cape was the only South African province to exhibit.  Minister Winde will be visiting Angola in September.  Cape Town Routes Unlimited’s Debbie Diamant, who headed the exhibition, said that Angola is an important growth market, but marketing material must be prepared in Portuguese. Obtaining visas to South Africa is one of the greatest barriers to tourism.

Adding to this, CEO of Cape Town Tourism Mariette du Toit-Helmbold said the (now amended) positioning  ‘Inspirational, value-for-money destination’ will be ‘branded’ (it appears she does not understand that ‘Cape Town’ is the brand, not the positioning!) for Cape Town.  She plans to ’leverage events’ (held in summer!) like the Cape Town International Jazz Festival and the J&B Met, but exactly what she plans to ‘leverage’ is not stated!  A joke is that she seriously states that the new “100 Women 100 Wines’ competition to be held in Cape Town next month, and run by Spill blog with TOPS, will ’stimulate domestic tourism arrivals’!  Cape Town Tourism is marketing the event heavily, as if it has nothing else to do!!

The same Cape Argus report contained same political point-scoring from ANC ex-Premier Lynne Brown, blaming the DA for the ‘tourism crisis’, saying that it was due to ‘funding cuts, the distress of thousands of workers who may lose their jobs, and adverse elitist perceptions deterring visitors from other provinces”!  Minister Winde reacted to the criticism, countering that it was not only tourism, but that all business sectors in the Cape that are struggling. 

An interesting e-mail from S A Tourism, written by its Trade Manager, provided interesting insights into the Chinese market: 68000 Chinese tourists visited South Africa in 2010, a 62% increase.  They stay for 10 days on average, and are most likely to visit Gauteng, and then the Western Cape. They enjoy wildlife and the scenery, and visiting the soccer stadia.  She also provided hints and tips to the hospitality industry, in dealing with Chinese tourists: they love green tea, sausages, fruit, yoghurt, eggs and bacon for breakfast; they eat ‘2-minute’ noodles in the morning; they prefer Chinese food but are interested in trying local food; they like our seafood, especially abalone and lobster; they enjoy a braai; they do not like sweet desserts; they like our fresh fruit; they enjoy going to the casino and to see a live show; they enjoy karaoke bars; they enjoy receiving small hand-made gifts; they like seeing the clouds in our clear skies, and the stars at night;  wireless internet is important, and an adaptor for their plugs, so that they can charge their camera, laptop and phone; they prefer 4- and 5- star hotels, and guest houses too. 

We have always been told that Cape Town is unique in suffering seasonality of business in winter.  I was surprised therefore to speak to a Johannesburg tour operator, who called to express his surprise about our recent newsletter spelling out the doom and gloom about the Cape Tourism industry.  He believed that the Cape receives almost all the tourism business in the country, and therefore should be flourishing relative to other parts of the country.  He told me in what dire straits the Gauteng tourism industry is in, and this was confirmed by the shock news that The Grace hotel in Rosebank, Johannesburg, will be closing at the end of August, as it is no longer financially viable to operate it.

While it is commendable that the Western Cape’s Tourism department is acknowledging the tourism crisis, we worry about Cape Town Tourism’s ability to react to the it, still being without a Marketing Manager, and not spelling out its immediate plans to address the crisis.  The tourism body will be doing a road show to share its Marketing Plan with its members on 10 and 11 August.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com   Twitter:@WhaleCottage

The long dominance of France over wine exports has been broken by Italy, which has overtaken France in terms of wine exports based on volume, with sales in the last year at €4 billion.  However, France still leads the world on export sales value, at €8 billion.  Argentina and Brazil are showing strong signs of export growth too.  These findings were presented at Vinexpo in Bordeaux last week, reports The Times.

The global wine and spirit market is worth $500 billion, just under 40 % being spent on wine and 60 % on spirits.  Italian wine exports saw a 14 % growth, and the country has a 4000 year history of winemaking, with 350 grape varieties offering wine drinkers a great diversity of wines. 

Brazilian wine sales have increased by 144% in the first three months of 2011, compared to the same period of last year, the United Kingdom being its largest importer.  The country plans to gets its wines listed in the best restaurants and wine stores.

Vinexpo CEO Robert Beynat said that the time had come to stop referring to New World wines, given that Argentina, Chile and South Africa have wine industries older than 30 years, and therefore cannot be called “New World” wine producers: “After 30 years, one is no longer new. They are part of the Old World“. He said that the New World is being born, mainly focused on China and India.  China has become the seventh largest wine producer in the world, according to the International Wine and Spirit Research group.  Growth in Indian wine consumption has been 170% in the past six years, and the area of its wine production doubled in the last three years.

The USA was described as the ‘most lucrative retail market for wine’, soon to overtake Britain in volume of wine sales. The USA is estimated by Beynat to lead global wine consumption in volume terms in two years from now.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter:@WhaleCottage

I experienced one of the cleverest wine marketing ideas when I had lunch at Glen Carlou Restaurant on Friday.  The Restaurant Manager Janine came to each table with a washed bunch of freshly picked Malbec grapes, so that one can experience the taste of a more unusual grape variety.   This brought the vineyard, in which we could see the Glen Carlou staff picking grapes below us, straight to the table, and stimulated an interest in tasting the wines after the lunch, even though I had decided against wine-tasting initially.

Glen Carlou has been owned by  Donald Hess for the last six years, and he is an entrepreneur with international interests, such as we have seen at Delaire Graff and Grande Provence - international owners of multiple properties around the world, and lovers of and investors in art.  Janine reminded every table about the Hess Collection art gallery, which is behind closed doors in an airconditioned room, containing some interesting works of art - not the place to bring one’s teenage daughter!   Hess has wine interests in Argentina, California, Australia and in South Africa.   The Hess Family Estates had its first beginnings in Switzerland in 1844,  when Johann Heinrich Hess founded a brewery in Berne.  The current owner Donald Hess grew the company, in that it diversified into mineral water, Valser Water becoming Switzerland’s leading water brand.  He loves wine and art, and married these two passions with his first wine estate purchase on Mount Veeder in the Napa Valley in 1978.  Then followed wine estates in Argentina (the highest vineyard in the world), in Australia, and then in South Africa, with the purchase of Glen Carlou (making wines since 1985).   Hess is one of the world’s major collectors of contemporary art representing the last fifty years, and his collection includes 1000 works by 65 international artists.  Hess only acquires pieces that challenge or touch him personally.  “When I have seen an art piece which keeps me awake over several nights, I know that this art piece has touched me deeply and this is one of my most important criteria to buy an art work”, he says in a profile on the Hess Art Collection.

The building is an all-in-one wine cellar (on the lower level) and one can see very little of the wine production side, save for a glass floor section allowing one to see some barrels below, tasting room, art gallery and restaurant.   One enters a lovely air conditioned room, which has the wine tasting counter closest to the door, and the rest of the space is taken up by a very spacious restaurant, with a small lounge section too.   It has a homely thatched roof ceiling.  The terrace has shading so that one can sit outside and enjoy the lovely view onto the vineyards below and the Paarl Mountains in the distance.  I could have sworn that I saw a little buck dashing from one vineyard to the other.  There is attractive white garden furniture outside, with a glass top and aluminium table.  The cork placemats and the old-fashioned wooden salt and pepper grinders seemed out of place with the international character of the wine estate (Peugeot is very in, I have noticed on my restaurant travels), and there is no table cloth, yet there is a material serviette, into which is rolled two forks and two knives, on the assumption that one will have a starter and a main course.  Two big glass containers contain olive oil (from House of Olives down the road) and balsamic vinegar (from Serena, according to the waiter).

I was seated by Janine, who was very friendly, but I felt her Capri pants to be out of character with the stature of this Hess winery.  The chef Hennie van der Merwe has been at Glen Carlou for about two years, and previously owned The Red Hen restaurant on Wildebraam outside Swellendam.   He has also worked at Umami in Stellenbosch, on the QE2, and on the Queen Mary.  I was surprised (and impressed) that I was welcomed by Georgie Prout, the Public Relations Manager, who recognised me from the Winestyle launch at Warwick a few months ago, she said.  She was very helpful in providing information about the other Hess wine farms. 

The menu is presented in a black leather menu holder, and in fact there are two menus.  While I had a look through the menus, introduced two weeks ago, the waiter brought two bread rolls (looked like mosbolletjies to me, but topped with sesame seeds), which again did not match the stature of the wine estate, in my opinion.  Each item on the menu has a Glen Carlou wine recommendation.   As I was just passing through, I ordered two starters, the first being a Caprese salad with Bocconcini (an imported buffalo mozzarella,  I was told), ’baby plum tomatoes’, tiny drops of basil pesto, and rocket - the chef seems to like rocket, as both starters had lots of it on the plate, and it had a really bitter taste (R40).   It was served with two tiny triangles of toast (what is it with tiny toast triangles?  I had them at Mange Toute as well), which were not enough to eat with the cheese.  I would have preferred the basil fresh and not in pesto form.  Much more exciting was the seared duck breast served with duck liver mousse, and I loved the orange honey sauce that was served with it (R60).  I thought the rocket and grapefruit distracted from and clashed with the lovely duck and sauce, both being too bitter, even though they added colour to the starter.  I would like to see this dish become a main course, so good was the duck and sauce.  The duck liver mousse was on another tiny toast triangle.  Starters cost between R 40 - R65, and other options include smoked trout and asparagus, mussels, and an interesting sounding trio of Kudu carpaccio, steak tartar with poached quail egg and rooibos smoked springbok loin. 

Main courses are reasonable in price, costing R85 - R105, and include roasted pork fillet and mushroom fricassee, sirloin steak, roasted quail, kingklip, duck, and trout.   Georgie told me that Chef Hennie is known for his wonderful sauces.   The second menu has further options, mainly salads and burgers, costing R60 - R85.  The cappuccino (R16) took long to bring to the table, but was in a large cup, and very foamy.   It was while I was waiting for the coffee that Janine came with the bunch of grapes, so it served as a dessert.   Dessert choices are Malva pudding, Crème Brulee, and chocolate mousse, all costing a most reasonable R30,  ice cream at R12 a scoop, and a Boland cheese platter at R85 - they are not on the menu one receives on arrival, but on a menu list which includes side orders, drinks other than wines, and the Kiddies Menu.  

I had a large jug of farm water and lemon to drink, and was surprised at the saltiness of the water.  The waiter said something about putting lemon into the water because of that, but I did not understand this.  The wines are listed in a similar black leather holder.   I was very impressed that there was no mark-up on the Glen Carlou wines on the winelist at all!  This makes them very reasonable to order : Sauvignon Blanc (R18/R65), Tortoise Hill White (R12/R42),  Chardonnay (R25/R90), Quartz Stone Chardonnay (R25/R90), Pinot Noir (R36/R130), Tortoise Hill Red (R16/R49), Syrah (R34/R120), Zinfandel (R36/R130), Cabernet Sauvignon (R25/R90), Grand Classique (R34/R120), Gravel Quarry Cabernet Sauvignon (R80/R375) and The Welder (R22/R89).  In addition, one can buy Hess wines from Argentina (Colomè), Peter Lehmann (Australia) and the Hess Collection from California, ranging in price from R140 - R 395, at Glen Carlou.  I was encouraged via Twitter to try Glen Carlou’s Zinfandel, and having been to a Blaauwklippen Zinfandel tasting a week ago, I tried a small glassfull, and liked it very much.  Janine wanted me to know that the Zinfandel is seen as a ‘hobby wine’, and only 6000 bottles are produced.   She said that the Hess Zinfandel from Napa has a very different character to that of Glen Carlou, even though both have 15 % alcohol.   I then tried a small glassful of the 2006 Shiraz, and it is one of my favourites.  The winemaker is a low profile Arco Laarman, whose name I did not know - Janine said he worked alongside the previous cellarmaster David Finlayson, and has been at Glen Carlou for ten years.

The invoice came in a soft black leather holder, and I was irritated when the waiter came to my table with the credit card machine - I had not put down my card, was still having my grapes and water, did not show signs of leaving, and had no intention to pay by card.

As I drive past Glen Carlou whenever I go to Franschhoek, I will certainly pop in for lunch again.  I used to love their prawn salad, but that dish is not on the new menu.  There are a number of interesting dishes to try at Glen Carlou on future visits.  

Glen Carlou Restaurant,  Simondium Road (R 45), Klapmuts.  Tel (021) 875-5528.     www.glencarlou.co.za  (The new menu is not yet on the website.  Innovative is that recipes are listed on the website, but they are for dishes no longer on the menu).  Tuesday - Sunday.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage

After spending four hours at the La Motte wine estate, during the Franschhoek Uncorked Festival on Sunday, I had to pinch myself to check that the wonderful time I had experienced there had been real.  The pinnacle of the La Motte experience is the new Pierneef à La Motte restaurant, which opened on Saturday.  It is sure to make the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant list in 2011/12, and gives Franschhoek a new jewel in its Gourmet Capital crown.   It pays homage to the master artist JH Pierneef, and to the historical roots of South African cuisine, presented with a contemporary twist.

I had booked a few days earlier, and found that one of the weaknesses of the new restaurant was the automated switchboard, which put me through to the selected option for the restaurant, but no one answered.  Eventually I got through to the main La Motte switchboard, and a most helpful lady took my booking, first requesting that it be done in writing.  This resulted in my booking having been made for a table indoors.  I asked Hetta van Deventer, the culinary consultant, if I could sit outside.  She did relent eventually, and I couldn’t have wished for a better table, on a wooden deck opening onto a lawn area shaded by mature oak trees, budding with the freshest green leaves.   The restaurant is green in many respects, and I was impressed with how theming was carried through into many different aspects of the restaurant.  The furniture outside almost looks custom-made, with a green woven-effect, giving it a nature-look.  The placemat was in the shape of a vine leaf.  The silver container had a green glass candle holder (as well as beautiful hand-blown glass bottles for the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and little silver salt and pepper grinders).

The Pierneef name and theme comes from the priceless collection of 44 oils and other works by JH Pierneef (1886 - 1957), which La Motte bought from Pierneef’s 82-year old daughter Marita, who now lives in the United Kingdom.  The work is displayed in a special new building, housing the Rupert Museum, a general art gallery, and the Pierneef art gallery.   Given that Pierneef is synonymous with the pinnacle of South African art, La Motte honoured the artist by naming the restaurant after him, to demonstrate that they wish to follow his high standards.

The Pierneef name and art has also been carried over into a new range of La Motte wines, called the Pierneef Collection. Some of the collection of 1957 Pierneef lino cuts, which Hanli Rupert had received from her father Dr Anton Rupert years ago, have been used for the back labels for these wines.

The restaurant manager Simon Chennells, a charming young man, brought the menu and the winelist to the table.   They are obviously brand new, and look pristine, with bound covers, as if they are books.   Inside the menu is a photograph of Pierneef and his daughter from 1929, and the same photograph has been printed on the back of the high-back chairs standing at the kitchen counter.   The restaurant is large, divided into the kitchen section, which opens onto the outside seating deck, allowing one to see Chef Chris Erasmus (previously with Le Quartier Francais and Ginja) and his team hard at work in the super shiny stainless steel kitchen.   Pierneef’s work has been printed onto the lampshades hanging over the kitchen counter.  The interior restaurant section is separated from the kitchen, and is dominated by three chandeliers from which dangle crockery from the Dutch East India Company, which had brought Jan van Riebeeck to Cape Town.  The chandeliers are in blue and white, orange and white, and black, white and gold.  La Motte had bought the valuable crockery collection from a museum, and had the chandeliers custom-made for the restaurant.   Christo Barnard is the creative interior consultant who did the decor.

I had the incredible luck that Hein Koegelenberg, the CEO of La Motte, came to chat with me, despite it  being a busy restaurant day.  Other than having invited Hein to our next Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting on 22 September, and seeing him in July at Jordan Restaurant with George Jardine,  I had not spoken to him for more than 5 minutes before.  I do not think he knew who I was, and he therefore impressed me even more by sharing his passion for the ‘new’ La Motte so extensively, and even introduced me to his wife Hanli.  No documentation is available yet for the ‘new’ La Motte, which is a pity, and the gems of information I received from Hein were therefore doubly precious.   Hein impressed upon me that it was early days for the restaurant, and requested that I give him feedback about the menu and winelist.   He will read it in this review for the first time.  Hein was such a gracious restaurant owner, that he came to check on me regularly, repeating his request for feedback.   One is impressed with Hein’s warmth and passion, and even more so that he did not mention the cost of the project at all.  This is not about the income that will be generated for La Motte - this is a project that brings pride in South African cuisine art, the return of the Pierneef collection to South Africa being the foundation of the restaurant, with the related buildings housing the Farm Shop, art galleries and museum, as well as the Tasting Centre, and creating what Hein calls a ‘tourism destination’.

The restaurant being new, word had spread about it, and eating there led to a reunion of the most wonderful people during my lunch there.  First, I saw Cyrillia of Bizerca Bistro, who hugged me as if I was a long lost friend.  Then I saw Bernard and Petro Immelman, an old PR client, who own Clouds wine and wedding estate next to Delaire Graff in the Helshoogte Pass.  Then, the biggest surprise of all, was when John Fourie approached my table, and asked if I was “Christine”, a name I was called many moons ago before I shortened it.  I recognised John’s voice, and he reminded me that he had been a Marketing student of mine at Damelin twenty years ago!   He was there with a group of Harley friends, and invited me to join their table.  The whole table tasted bits of my food (they were having sandwiches and wine), especially loving my dessert.

I never had a chance to try the Portuguese rolls and ciabatta, served with farm-style butter, which got left behind on the original table I sat at.  The menu opens onto a welcome page: “Welcome to Pierneef à La Motte Restaurant.  We have pleasure in hosting you and sharing with you our restaurant’s association with one of South Africa’s greatest masters.”  Homage is paid to both Pierneef, and to his daughter Marita, who has become a friend of the Koegelenbergs. ”Pierneef’s creativity in portraying the beauty of the South African landscape and architecture has served as a model for this restaurant’s creativity in offering cuisine inspired by centuries of variations on cooking - a unique presentation known as Cape Wine-lands Cuisine”.  After extensive research into the origin of South Africa’s cuisine, or “boerekos”, from Dutch, Flemish, German and Huguenot settlers about 350 years ago, and British settlers 150 years later, about 200 recipes were developed for use in the restaurant over time. The cuisine style really is meant to be “Boland Boerekos”, and the input from Professor Hetta Claassens, author of “History of South African Food”, was sought to select the recipes. Hein says international chefs will be invited to translate these recipes into a contemporary context.  TV cooking will be introduced at the kitchen counter.

The menu is short and sweet, with a choice of 5 starters, 6 mains and 6 desserts. It is signed by Hein and Hanneli, reflecting their personal involvement. Starters are reasonably priced, Koningsbrood soup costing R35, served with braised veal knuckle ’karmenaadjie’, roasted bone marrow and pot brood; up to R57 for the Trio of boerbok terrine served with roasted swede puree, apple and sultana chutney, and saffron yoghurt balls.  Other options are a Cape Bokkom Caesar salad, Russian fish pie, and Pumpkin, ginger and walnut cheesecake, two of these being vegetarian-friendly.  The mains peak at R 120 for a Fragrant fish curry, and other options include a roasted endive and goat’s cheese tart, Pumpkin seed and almond crusted Franschhoek salmon trout, Pomegranate glazed smoked pork belly, and Impala neck and stewed prune skilpadjie.  I had the Laquered smoked soutribbetjie, served with an interesting combination of pickled tongue, dried pear kluitjies, verjuice poached pear, wilted boerboon shoots and parsnips, and crispy lamb’s liver biltong.  I was fascinated by the biltong, and could not see it on my plate when served.  When asking the manager, he took the plate to the chef, and returned it with more of it - it was finely chopped and sprinkled over the dish, and gave it a distinctive taste, even when chopped to pieces smaller than peppercorns.  The soutribbetjie had a strong smoky braai taste, and overall it was a most unusual combination of tastes.   The menu does not describe the very South African terms, and this could be a weakness.  I also am surprised about the menu’s spelling of “Wine-lands”.  I would think that the information provided by Hein could be added to the menu, to help one appreciate the effort that he and his team have made in bringing cuisine history back to La Motte.

The dessert I chose was called “Breakfast”, a surprise dessert costing R65.  I cheated by asking a waiter to let me into the secret, so that I could choose whether I should have a starter or a dessert.  It was a most wonderful wacky selection of breakfast foods served in a dessert style - miniature banana muffin, ‘Cornflake’ brittle, yoghurt pannacotta, citrus sorbet balls, berry yoghurt sorbet and ice cream, freshly made “Fruit Loops”, all beautifully presented on muesli crumble.  Desserts seem expensive, but an incredible amount of work has gone into the creation of these.  Other dessert options are Brandy chocolate pudding, Engelen kos, Apple and cinnamon tart, as well as two cheese selections, one of them being goat’s cheese only.   My only criticism is that the ‘Breakfast’ dessert seemed very modern and did not fit the historic foundation of the menu.

Children are catered for as well, with chicken fritters and chips, and fish nuggets and chips, at R30.  One is not obliged to eat off the menu, a blackboard offering chicken and lamb sandwiches, at R35 and R45, respectively, using the lovely breads baked and sold in the new Farm Shop.

Hein told me that they grow grapes for their wines in Bot River, Elim, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Macasser, Darling, and in Franschhoek.  In making their wines, they decide which flavours they want each of their wines to have, and therefore use grapes from the terroirs of their different farms in the making of the wine.  For example, the La Motte Shiraz is made to give white pepper, blackberry and red berry flavours.  For the opening of this wonderful facility, the La Motte Hanli R was launched - a 2005 Shiraz that Hein says is in the league of the best Shirazes in the world.  Only 3000 bottles were produced, of which about a third were given away as gifts to the VIP guests who had attended dinners earlier that week, a priceless gift, given that the wine retails at $100!

The winelist runs to 13 pages, and includes the full range of The La Motte Collection and The Pierneef Collection wines, as well as the La Motte MCC Brut (at R235) and the Hanli R, at R845.  Two pages of “La Motte Vinoteque Wines” follow, and do not explain which wines these are, and only vintages and detailed flavour descriptions, for Shiraz, Millennium, and Cabernet Sauvignon, are provided.  Champagnes range from R600 for Pommery, to R965 for Billecart-Salmon Rosé.   Ten Franschhoek MCC bubblies are listed, almost all under R200.   The rest of the winelist features Meridian Wine brands (Hein founded this international distribution company, with leading wine brands such as Meerlust).  Other Rupert family brands (Rupert & Rothschild, and Anthonij Rupert) are also featured, as is the Leopard’s Leap wine range, a mass market brand that was developed by Hein, selling 600000 cases a year.   A small selection of wines from New Zealand, Argentina, Germany and France is also available. Hein is aware of some typing errors in the winelist.  In the Tasting Centre one can choose an unusual Food & Wine Pairing, with a choice of five out of eight La Motte wines, with a specific dish paired per wine, at R195.  The dishes for the pairing also carry the Winelands Cuisine theme.

The wonderful afternoon had to come to an end.  Not only had I received the greatest gift of all - the time Hein Koegelenberg devoted in chatting to me, with Chef Chris joining him later - but I was also given a bottle of the new La Motte Hanli R, something I will keep for a very special occasion.  The La Motte team is to be congratulated for their vision in bringing history back to La Motte and for making it come alive. I’ll be back!

Pierneef à La Motte, La Motte, R45, outside Franschhoek.  Tel (021) 876-8000. www.lamotte.co.za.  (The website needs a page just for the restaurant, as well as an Image Gallery of its beautiful food and facilities - it does not do justice to this amazing project).   Twitter @pierneeflamotte.  The restaurant is open for Breakfast on Friday - Sunday; for lunch on Monday - Sunday; and for dinner on Thursday - Saturday.  The Tasting Center is closed on Sundays.

POSTSCRIPT 23/9:  We enjoyed another wonderful meal at Pierneef à La Motte, this time a dinner and inside the restaurant.   I had not paid enough attention on the restaurant interior on my last visit, and was in awe of the Dutch East India Company crockery chandeliers, with a modern interpretation.  Each of them has downlighters built into it, and the way in which the crockery is hung in the chandeliers makes them chime when the airconditioning is on, a most soothing ‘music’ in conjunction with the soft classical background music.    There is a large fireplace, and a lounge seating area, at which one can have coffee.   I saw the Chef’s Table, a separate room close to the kitchen, seating 8, for which Chef Chris will cook his choice menu, at R1000 per head.   In addition to the “Boerekos” menu (which now has definitions of the traditional “Boerekos” items), there were three specials - sweetbreads, an excellent steak served with mushrooms and shiraz chips, and wonderful chicken with sorrel sauce.

POSTSCRIPT 6/3: I met Dutch friends for lunch, and was blown away by a chilled butternut soup, which I had as a starter, both in its presentation, and also by its refreshing antidote to the hot Franschhoek day.   I was however disappointed that I could not taste the advertised crayfish.  Hein Koegelenberg was at the restaurant too, and came to greet my guests.  They were very impressed with his friendliness.   For the main course we all had the pork, a dish which did not blow me away.

POSTSCRIPT 8/3: I took a colleague to La Motte, to show her around, and we had a sandwich as we arrived just on 15h00.  I remember the lamb sandwich prices being R 25 when the restaurant opened about 6 months ago, so was rather shocked when the sirloin and mozzarella sandwich cost R 75, and the salmon and avocado paste one cost R70, served with a small green and parmesan shaving salad.   It did not match what the restaurant stands for in its presentation or its content.  I also was rudely dealt with by the security person Inge when we signed in at the boom - rudeness is not something I associate with La Motte at all.   I was disappointed about the reaction to the feedback I gave Chef Chris about the lack of the crayfish taste in the butternut soup, and he gave me an unsatisfactory reply, saying that European palates are more sensitive to an over-strong fish taste, and therefore he had to tone down the crayfish content!

POSTSCRIPT 26/1/12:  Our dinner tonight was disappointing - tiny table for two, waitress who did not know her desserts, and she sounded a little like a tape recorder.  Grateful to Manager Anne for organising a table, even though they were full.  I am disappointed that the Cape Winelands Cuisine recipe basis of the menu appears to have almost all gone, with only the Bokkom salad and trio of Cape desserts reflecting the origin of the Cape Winelands cuisine.  Enjoyed the steak (a taste of my son’s) and wild mushroom ragout. Very disappointed with ‘Sweetie Pie’ dessert, with hard sugar crystallised crust around soft meringue, on summer fruit and guava cream, the sugar crust being very hard to eat.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com