Thinus Krüger might be one of South Africa’s wine rock-stars. But he still has my DVD of the Martin Scorsese classic The Last Waltz, which I loaned him about five years ago, not able to stomach the thought of any young music aficionado being oblivious of the existence of the mother of all rock films.
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Despite having the blood of La Grande Nation coursing through my robust veins, the French can really get on my pods of pectoral muscle, commonly known as tits. Take the current form of Les Bleus in the Rugby Six Nations. Not only are they playing with the listlessness of an unbaked baguette, but their tight five – traditionally the mainstay of French rugby – appear to be sponsored by Weigh-Less and the Peace Brigade. And as far as passion goes, they apparently left their spines in the Montmartre whorehouse where their mothers worked.
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If the prospect of being exposed to a disconcerting slice of knife-crime or the possibility of contracting a virulent STD are not enough to frighten tourists from visiting Cape Town, there is always the African cuisine. For while the Mother City has in the eyes of foreign and local critics alike garnered a reputation for an international, wine-land, with-it kind of cooking, those wishing to seek-out the fleshpots of a more indigenous and ethnic nature will be less rapturous than those New York Times and Guardian journalists popping a wet-one about the local tapas bars and Asian noodle joints.
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Growing up with one parent employed by the KWV, I can attest that visitors to this auspicious vinous institution do not easily leave the joint empty-handed. KWV hospitality has always been legendary, whether you were hanging out with the Board at a formal lunch or attending one of the riotous product launches organised by the KWV PR department.
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The forefathers were into some, like, serious wine skank. Check out the Joubert Clan, hanging out in the foxy little town of La Motte d’Aigues, direction Luberon, France South. In Medieval times, they’s making some of the most serious wine shit in that part of France.
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Vermaaklikheid is a pretty hamlet on the South Cape coast, a small village that makes your average one horse town look like a sprawling Chinese suburb on Discount Poodle-Burger Night. I’ve known the place well for 40 years and during this time the only truly eventful thing to happen there was when Oom Lool de Jager stole his brother-in-law’s Boerewors recipe. And then there was the warm summer’s day when former Calvin Klein model Josie Borain walked into the Vermaaklikheid Central Kafee in a bikini.
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Public Holiday Nation, this has been South Africa over the past few weeks. Good Friday. Bad Friday. Workers Day. Freedom Day. Election. I am just waiting for a public holiday honouring the date on which Simon van der Stel stopped beating his first slave on 7 September 1689 after said slave, Pielkopius Witman, discovered how to make the original Vin de Constance.
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The place smells of blood, but looks like heaven. Eager diners of all shapes and sizes, colours and creeds, religions and vices huddle over beading pint-glasses of beer or bottles of red and white wine. Buxom Cape waitresses skirt around the cavernous and brightly coloured eatery bearing plates piled with hearty fare. The noise is one part late-night whore-house, one part Ukrainian political debate. Yes, it is Tripe Friday at Dias Tavern.
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In the good old days the boasting of gentlemen would mostly be confined to matters physical or material. Serious guy-stuff. Like who does the best air-guitar to “Stairway to Heaven”, which of you can consecutively inhale two Gauloise unfiltered and who can give the most graphically enthralling description of what it really was like getting to first base with the vampish Veronica Dimpelbosch.
But now everybody seems to spend time bragging about how cool the area is in which they make wine. Cool as in low temperature chilliness and not trendy.
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It was a good week to be a glutton. A smiling, happy carbohydrate consuming glutton as opposed to the dour folk who so religiously follow the gospel according to Professor Tim Noakes, he of the constipation-induced grin and dial-a-quote sound-bite. The only thing Noakes likes more than a super high protein egg-yolk omelette with extra fatty bacon is feasting on the reams of newsprint that has followed him and his announcing the evils of all things carbohydrate and pleasurable whilst prophesizing the apparent health-giving properties of a diet comprising mostly of fatty, meaty, cheesy and nutty edibles.
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