Good times at Goedverwacht

Well, Goedverwacht proved to be a fun-filled place to visit. With a rather spectacular entrance where you pass between red flowers on your right and white flowers on your left (as shown in the picture below), we made our way down this dirt road to find Goedverwacht. In a small tasting room that reeks of character (could be that musty, dusty smell of old vintage bottles they have on display, or it could be the bowl of freshly picked limes on the table), we decided to try out their variety of whites and reds.

Despite two mishaps, we had a great time there. The first mishap being the failure at multi-tasking when the attendent hit the attendee (that's me for legal purposes) on the nose with the spittoon. Needless to say, I spat out a nice neat line along the counter. Moral of the story: make sure when you take the spittoon to empty it that there isn't someone busy spitting in it at the time. I'm still waiting on my million dollar lawsuit - I'm claiming emotional damage as people kept on mistaking me for Michael Jackson afterwards (I was holding on to my nose and I had my usual funky fedora hat on my head).

Well, onto the whites (you'll get the second story when I talk about the reds - be patient). The sparkling Suiderkruis Vonkel (R35) is made from an equal helping of Sauv Blanc and Colombar. It had a smell of freshly-cut apples, green pepper, sweet melon and mango - quite refreshing and certainly an everyday summer sparkling. The Sauv Blanc (R35) was quite unique here, with an herbaceous smell, asparagus and some tropical notes to it (could be guava). It certainly stood out for the region. The Great Expectations Chardonnay (R35) was a well-balanced, and well-priced, delicious Chardonnay with buttered toast, lime, lemon, peach and a delightful splash of butterscotch on the palate - truly an everyday wine that will make everyday special. Moving up a weight class, the Maxim Chardonnay (R100) offers interesting complexity and a unique style, with dried toast smells, a variety of citrus including nartjie, pear and guava. This is a kind of wine that will cover your tongue in velvet blankets, whereupon your tongue will just want to curl up and sleep in that flavour forever. Good thing it has a long-lasting finish that will remind you of what you drank hours later.

From the whites to the pinks, the Shiraz Rose (R25) was a simple-style of rose, with glazed cherries, strawberries, candy floss and a sweet herbaceous smell (my memory is a bit foggy on this point - maybe it was aniseed or something more like caraway seeds). We started at the reds, and if it wasn't for the sharp eyes of Andre, our merlot would've had a distinctive miggie (is that how you spell it?), fruit fly flavour - especially since we had about 20 of them in our glasses (which was poured straight from the bottle). The exchange went a little something like this:

Andre: There is something funny with your wine.
Attendent: What? Like corked?
Andre: No, there's stuff floating in it.
Attendent: I'm sure it's fine, it's probably just sediment.
Andre: I don't think sediment normally has wings. Unless you've been adding Red Bull to your wines, I think that's not supposed to be there.

A few short seconds later, and a fresh bottle was opened up for us - obviously someone had taken the old bottle outside and left it unsealed for a little too long. Like many of the wines here, the Merlot (R30) was also quite unique and interesting, with red spices coming out, along with the more standard mulberry and mocha, and a smell of fresh leather - I imagine having this at our regular sunday family meal, alongside the rice, potatoes and chicken (of which I eat none, of course). The Shiraz (R50) was getting closer to the style of shiraz I enjoy, with roasted meat on the nose, dark berries, plum and white pepper all coming through in the taste. While it still had that Robertson fruitiness, it did have a bit more backbone to it without relying to heavily on the oak to give it some complexity. Next up was the Triangle blend of Cab Franc, Cab Sauv and Merlot (R50) which has good structure with delectable dark chocolate and mocha, elegant black
currant and dark berries, serious cedar, cigar box and pencil shavings, all giving it a richness well over it's value. The final wine was the flagship Maxim Cab Sauv (R100). Again, another well-balanced wine with excellent potential - it is everything a cab sauv should be - black currant, mulberry, chocolates, cedar and cigar box.

Needless to say, from my descriptions you should be able to tell that I thoroughly enjoyed the wines here, despite the mishaps. Which, in my opinion, just add extra character to the farm, especially since they were handled reasonably professionally. I hope you enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed the wines.

Val.