BROOKDALE Estate has introduced a new wine pairing to be enjoyed at its tasting room outside Paarl. Focusing on Brookdale’s range of lifestyle wines, the Mason Road Sip & Dip tasting includes the four wines in the current Mason Road range, each paired and enjoyed with a different, freshly made pâté and toasted baguette.
The estate has received wide acclaim for its Chenin Blancs, and it is therefore fitting to kick off with a tasting of the Chenin Blanc 2021 and traditional hummus. The wine is fragrant and inviting, opening with honeysuckle and pear drop, then evolving to an electric current of topicality, like an island storm – pineapple, mango, zingy squeezes of lime, the flintiness of rain. On entry a bloom of honeycomb precedes fleshy pear and that abundance of tropical fruit, around which an enlivening acidity sculpts and cools.
The Serendipity Rosé 2022, one of South Africa’s favourite Provence-style rosés, is paired with an olive tapenade. A blend of Syrah, Grenache Noir and Cinsault, the wine has a pale salmon pink colour, with fragrant notes of hibiscus, fynbos-spice and wild strawberries unspooling on the nose. The palate is red-fruited and generous, plumped with raspberries, mulberries and sappy cherries, then lifted on the mid-palate with refreshing watermelon verve. Keenly balanced with a lemony acidity, all that beautiful, bright fruit is cradled in a fine-boned structure imbued from old oak ageing.
The popular 2022 Syrah presents dried violets and kirsch scent ripe plums, black olives and red cherries on the nose, complemented by a delicious mushroom and sunflower seed pâté. Delicately savoury from a hint of smoked meat on the undertow, the Syrah shows fresh berry fruit on the palate, buoyed by a plummy acidity. Gently structured, the tannins layer in featherweight and fine along the bright red fruit profile. The finish tails in with a light dusting of black pepper spice, well balanced and refreshing.
Trailblazer Kiara Scott Farmer, the winemaker at Brookdale Estate, is known to push the boundaries of convention and her newly launched Mason Road GSM 2022 is no exception. A blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Petit Syrah, this medium bodied red blend has a layered density of fruit, liquorice root, fennel seed and ground spice, preceding blackberries and bramble leaf on the rich, inviting nose. Red and black berries unroll to a juicy pomegranate finish, dusted with a hint of cacao. It is the final wine in the Sip & Dip line-up, paired with chef Gary Coetzee’s baba ganoush.
DETAILS
- Sip & Dip: R320 for two people
- Tasting room trading hours: 11am to 5pm (closed on Mondays)
- Bookings are recommended for the tasting, as well as for lunch at the Bistro at Brookdale Estate. Call +27 (0) 87 183 3919
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Brookdale wines are for sale at the tasting room and at leading wine merchants and may also be ordered online from the estate for delivery countrywide.
