Chasin Thrills at Jason's Hill

Hi everyone,

Next on our list was a farm run by a passionate woman wine-maker who started making wine in true garagiste fashion and has been improving the quality of her wines ever since (this farm has only been producing wines since 2002). It was a lovely sight to see the pumps in action and Ivy rushing around, giving you the sense of a real work in progress. This cellar has a small cozy upstairs bistro that makes awesome well-valued food (certainly the best food we had in the area by miles) - I'd highly recommend anyone to stop there for breakfast while their in the winelands. Nothing like fresh, crisp farmland food to get you going in the morning.

The list is surprisingly long for such a young farm, and so I'll skip a few of their wines along the way. The Chardonnay (R29) had butterscotch, granadilla, lemon and lanolin smells, slightly crisp for a chardonnay, but went down well. The Wooded Chenin (R29) was highly undervalued, with guava, paw-paw, sweet melon fruit in the smell, and a slight lanolin, buttered toastiness lingering on the palate. Well worth the price. The Ivy du Toit white blend of Sauv Blanc, Semillon and Chardonnay (R39) had a very unique smell as well that both me and Andre picked up, but couldn't place our collective fingers on, until we were guided by the tasting assistant to peppadews (to which we smacked ourselves on the forehead, having eaten a huge amount of peppadews the night before). It also had green pepper and a slight cashew nuttiness to it's finish. If you can get your hands on a bottle, do try it out. The recently-added wooded Viognier (R29) was quite typical of it's varietal with floral smells, guava and peach smells giving it a very fragrant nose.

In the Reds, the Pinotage (R29) was exceptionally fruity with blackberry jam and mulberry, and plum and a hint of mocha taking root on your tongue. The Shiraz (R38) was an equally fruity version with cranberry and raspberries flavours, nothing too special, but worthwhile as a simple food-going wine. The Cab Sauv (R39) was very typical and had the three c's - cedar, cassis
and coffee in the smell and taste - again, something to buy for tonights dinner with friends. The final wine was the Ivy Du Toit Pinotage (R49), which had a pungent nose of green bananas, mocha and leather and all the robustness of a pinotage - not something we should've been drinking on a hot summers day.

Unfortunately, their better known Noble Late Harvest was not available for tasting 8'( so this is where this story ends.

Well, my Stellies course starts today, so I've got enough reading to do for a while - raise a glass to my success and you'll hear from me again.

Val.