Tag Archives: wine estates

What does “corked wine” taste like?

What does "corked wine" taste like?
Before you think I'm saying it was, this bottle of Shiraz wasn't corked. :) I've never tasted a "corked wine" so I wondered what it would taste like. Here's the description given on thekitchn.com: "Corked wines smell and taste of damp, soggy, wet or rotten cardboard.".

Sounds delightful, hey?

Highlands Road Estate and the Elgin Valley wine festival

Highlands Road Estate and the Elgin Valley wine festival
In my previous post I mentioned our trip to Elgin and the Elgin Cool Wine and Country Festival on Saturday.

After tripping through a few estates, sampling the fruit of their vines, we ended up at Highlands Road Estate for lunch. The staff kindly set up a table for Dominique and I right next to the dam's edge before decorating it with a variety of gourmet pizzalings (which are pizzas, only smaller ;) paired with five glasses of their very best wine - two white, one rosé, and two red. I'm no food or wine connoisseur, but the little bit of sophistication that my taste-buds had was extremely pleasantly surprised with how well the pizza worked with the wine.

We spent the next hour or two sitting in the shade, listening to a solo singer with his friend on acoustic guitar sharing a few covers (one of which was Chasing Cars, by the legendary Snow Patrol). The combination of food and wine, alongside the quite water's edge, with soft background music was really pretty awesome.

Visit Highlands Road Estate for a relaxing lunch. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

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Win tickets to the Elgin Cool Wine and Country Festival

Elgin Cool Wine and Country Festival
The Elgin Valley, along the N2, in the Caledon area, is one of the most beautiful places in the Cape region. The valley is about 70KM from Cape Town and consists of trees, vineyards, apple orchards and beautifully-manicured gardens on huge estates.

On Saturday 3 May 2014, flocks of families will descend on the Elgin valley, and wine estates will welcome visitors to the full-day Elgin Cool Wine and Country Festival. I won't rehash the details, rather read about what the organisers have in store for you on the festival's website.

If you'd like to win three tickets to the festival, find my email address on my contact page and send me an email with your name and contact details. If you have an interesting reason why you think you should win the tickets, then mention it. I can't say that'll result in you winning the tickets, but you never know. ;)

Oh, and, if you are going to the festival, show me some comment-love below - I painstakingly put the Google Map below, showing each wine estate's location. Some of the estates were REALLY difficult to find on a Google Maps and some of them don't even have working websites.