If it’s spring, it must be time for dinner and bubbles at breakfast time

Dinner? At 6.15am? I pulled the bed sheets over my head and turned to face the cat. Bobo licked my nose and purred ironically. I drifted off, dreaming mad thoughts of roast beef, turkey and all the trimmings at dawn, followed by a trencherman’s portion of bread and butter pudding with a pint of brandy custard on the side.

When I woke up an hour later, Bobo had gone but the madness remained. I checked my phone: yes, Lisa had in fact reminded me that I should report at the hotel at 6.15am on Saturday for a four-course dinner at breakfast time. 

My next thought, a week earlier, was: I have to get out of this. But Di reminded me that I had told Lisa Ker, hotelier and friend, that I would go. I must have been four whiskeys in when she asked me. (People do that — wait till you’re vulnerable and pounce.)

Somehow, for decades I had managed not to be invited to any of the annual Spring Breakfasts organised by Gerrit Maritz of The House of GM&AHrens, a boutique winery in Franschhoek that I now know produces some of the most splendid wines I have tasted at the Cape. Seriously. Their house style is clinically clear: extra brut. No compromises, no rush, no corners cut. Over 19 years they have built up a succession of vintages, with refinement upon refinement leading to the most exquisite results. Everything about this House spells class.

I would soon learn that the young law student who had first climbed into his bakkie and driven over to winemaker Albert Ahrens all those years ago — that’s Gerrit Maritz — and after which the two set their sights on a joint business of producing mesmerising Cap Classique, has remained loyal to his passion for wine as much as to his commitment to his annual Spring Breakfasts, when the new vintage is proudly presented.

Usually, these have been held back home in the Winelands, but this year, thanks to a chance meeting with Lisa two years ago, it was decided to bring the celebratory event to humble Cradock.

But at 6.15am last Saturday, I knew nothing of this. Yet.

All of which explains why your Food Editor ended up in an old church on the edge of town at 6.17am last Saturday, two fashionable minutes late. (I’m still a Cape Town boy, see?) But not without a great deal of grumping when his alarm went off at 5.30.

My Chicago mate Chris Pretorius was amazed that I’d agreed to go. His first WhatsApp response when I told him had been: “I don’t understand the morning thing. Maybe I didn’t read it properly.”

Then he read it again. “So breakfast with dinner food. I hate having breakfast with people. Not my best time of day. And no coffee. I’m in a bad mood already.”

Later, Chris remembered a lavish breakfast he’d been to outside Stellies in the Eighties. “By ten o’clock I was shitfaced and had run out of people on the estate to insult. I was struck off the list.”

Next day, another WhatsApp from Chicago landed. “I just poured myself a glass of whisky in this very cute little hotel across the road from Willem’s flat, thinking hilarious thoughts about your breakfast ordeal.”

He’d driven his boy, an American Willem, back to Bard college where he is a star student. 

Anyhow, there was, as Chris had predicted, much muttering and muffled profanity when that alarm went off and frightened both me and the cat. I made it only two minutes late and, as expected, chirpy people were clinking glasses and trading niceties while I hid in a corner and tried to decide which of the scores of chairs at the long table I should choose. Who knows who I’d end up with? Dinners with strangers are a nightmare at the best of times, and many of these red-festooned imbibers were old hands at these annual “breakfasts”, knew the drill and evidently had the money to pay for it. (The price was a shocker for me, but nobody else seemed concerned. Anyway, I was comped, otherwise I’d still be asleep with the cat.)

Red-festooned? The dress code was “Pinot-Noir-red”. Nearly everybody really got into the theme, especially Lisa Ker, in a red dress and stole with a scarlet fascinator. Me, not so much. I found my old burgundy corduroy shirt and decided that would have to do.

But the best Pinot-Noir-red person present was the very tall man who had just come over to introduce himself to me, rumbled in my corner. I had noticed his outfit earlier and thought, well, if you’re going to answer a dress code theme, that’s how to do it. So stylish, striking, and fun too. That’s the trick, not an old burgundy corduroy shirt.

Suddenly it dawned on me that the man was my host, Gerrit Maritz himself, and before long I was thinking, how could I have missed this Winelands character for 40 years? And yes, everything changed from that point on and I got right into the spirit of the occasion and celebration. Chicago Boy is still shaking his head in disbelief.

I even accepted the glass of bubbles he poured for me, if only because it would have been churlish not to. (I don’t take a sip of alcohol before 5pm, although there are occasional stressful days when the Foodie’s Wife and I “declare four o’clock five o’clock”.) There are days like that.

Cherie Antrobus and her team had made a fabulous job of the long table. Silver candelabras, lots of red, little red-ribboned gift boxes (given by chef Werner Louwrens I learnt later), succulents in snug containers, and the Victoria Manor hotel’s crockery and silverware. Classy. The night before, Cherie had treated us to a dinner at the hotel, when her kitchen made us an excellent pork terrine with green figs and apricot purée, curried Karoo lamb tails, a superb smoked salmon savoury cheesecake, and later on a sample of each dessert — the milk tart in a ginger snap basket.

I was lucky enough to be placed next to Lisa and her husband David Ker, who run the hotel and Tuishuise with Lisa’s sister Cherie, and opposite some fun people, including one Jurgen Muess. We have been Facebook friends for years, so it’s nice to actually meet one of them for a change. He’s a cool, wry guy.

Gerrit was a wonderfully attentive host, introducing each wine — they’re the most superb “bubbles” (they use the informal term “house of bubbles” on their website) and their labels are no less glorious. Such beautiful colours, elegant design, true masterpieces of what a fine wine label can be. It presents a challenge — what the bottle contains needs to be even more impressive than the beauty of the label. And they are, every time.

On this occasion, The House of GM&AHrens released their 2022 vintage cuvée (4 years on the lees) and 2015 Decennium (10 years on the lees). But we also tasted the 2021, 2022 and 2020 vintages, directly off the lees.

It was the 50/50 Chardonnay/Pinot Noir blend of the 2022 Vintage Cuvée that truly arrested my palate. The 2022, Gerrit explained, has a very low dosage of 1.7g per litre, rendering the wine steely dry in the best way. I’ve long been a fan of this brut style.

“After 19 years we have built up various vintages, each with its own character (like human beings), which we use to blend each new vintage,” Gerrit explained. “We style each new vintage with existing base wines on the lees to avoid adding unnecessary sugar. We source our grapes from 13 different wine pockets across the Western Cape (one can also call that building blocks, to build structure in the wines).”

I got particularly lucky that morning, and I felt guilty about this, not even having had to pay for the experience. Gerrit announced that he was going to open a very special bottle, count down before doing so, and we each had to have our phone camera poised to shoot the moment. The wine would spray, he told us, and the “best spray” would win a bottle. I did not know then that this wine retails for R1,500.

“Oh, for a case of six, I take it?”

“No,” said David two seats away. “That’s for one bottle.” After some deliberation, Gerrit filtered the results down to two photos, then announced my name.

The food was mostly really good. Chef Werner is from PE/Gqeberha where he offers his catering services. He is also quite the chocolatier, including painting in what I presume to be cocoa butter. Which is why I’m starting to describe the menu from the end. (Yes, dessert for breakfast.)

This course was titled Pecan Pear Antoinette. The miniature bombes were proper little works of art, styled, as his menu description says, in a “Champagne coupe shaped like Marie Antoinette’s breast”. Inside the dome were poached pear with star anise and chai tea mousse, purée, locally grown Cradock pecan nuts, and a Pinot Noir-flavoured gel.

The first course had been “Heirloom Tomato”. In fact, a savoury goat’s milk cheesecake with pomegranate glaze, seeds and blood orange segments with microherbs and a warm tomato vinaigrette. Lovely, and as the chef told it, it was intended as a gentle entry into such a meal at breakfast time. Nice touch.

This was served with GM&Ahrens 2022 Vintage, 100% decanted, and I was savouring this — and already well over my 5.30am attack of the grumps — when the next course arrived. Chef Werner had called this a Fish Mosaic, and the menu described it as a “line fish and coriander fish mousse” cooked sous vide and served “on a sea of red pepper, coconut cream and fish fumet (made from fish bones), and finished with a red coral tuile.

I did like the coral tuile, but was not at all enamoured of the terrine.

But by now I’d been poured some of the GM&Ahrens 2021 Vintage 50% presented a-la-volée (literally “on the fly” as Gerrit whizzed from table to table pouring it himself) and 50% decanted, which was lovely. Each successive wine was proving better than the last, and none was less than superb.

The main event that had sparked fear in at least one Chicago heart was titled Sweet Cherry Sogogi: “Korean inspired deboned pressed beef short rib with gochujang and sour cherries with a sticky sauce enhanced with pinot noir.” This was succulent, so delicious, and served with GM&Ahrens 2023 Vintage a-la-volée, and here comes Gerrit again.

But with the “Antoinette” bombe came the superlative GM&Ahrens Decennium Brut 15 Cap Classique, also 50/50 Chardonnay/Pinot Noir, and while I was relishing every sip of it I was equally enjoying Gerrit’s explanation of his very personal approach to his craft, picking his grapes by hand from carefully sourced pockets all over the Winelands and taking them back to Franschhoek to become his prized bottles of such fine bubbles. The mousse on the Brut 15 was astonishing in its elegance. I tend to get lost in those tiny bubbles, the finer they are, the more intriguing. I don’t think I’ve seen a finer mousse in a champagne flute.

My dreams on Saturday night were much sweeter. Of golden bubbles and burgundy dresses, and a desperate need for bacon and eggs when I wake up. DM