Croydon

Clever concept where people live close to their passion. Corius (the winemaker/estate manager) is a super guy and has clearly a lot on his fork yet the wines are great. Super Value …and yes maybe the exterior is not traditional “:cape Dutch” but it surely pretty as you see the sun set behind Table Mountain.

Y Croydon Y? Beautifully laid out and corporately exact. I found the concept of land-buyers combined with winemaking an interesting, weird (probably because it is the first time I witnessed this) and to some extend funny. I would love to know how they balance this scale of estate and business…

Anyway, aMAZEd by the sheer size of this place, we were taken down to the cellar by the organizer Bjorn van Oort (one of the organizers of the Helderberg Fest) to meet the winemaker Corius who introduced us to their wines. It was still early in the morning and they still had a lot to do to prepare for the day ahead, so we did not get his full attention but what got was enough to tickle interest. After the tasting we sat down to watch Jacarandas burst out of their seems and my expectations of Jak de Priester as well… after we enjoyed a breakfast for Snow White’s friends… Would like to go back and explore more of the farm and their wines.

Destination nr.2 of the 2009 Helderberg Wine Festival. We rocked up 10am and enjoyed a tasting with the wine maker at Croydon, Corius Visser. I enjoyed the 2004 Title Deed and hated the Soet Voete wine. Cool concept around the wine though. If you want to stay on a wine estate, you can invest in a property here. Home-owners at Croydon are also co-owners of the estate, which means you even get a few cases of the estate wine each year, delivered to your doorstep. The Soet Voete wine are made from all the left over grapes and residents at the estate are invited to a stomping once a year. Not my type of wine though, it reminded me of that Johannesburger Sweet red wine.

This is also where we met Jak de Priester. We attended his brunch show in the morning. I did not really know who he was until he sang the theme song of Binnelanders.

Another memorable moment was the 2 petite sausages that we received on our brunch plate. I have never seen such a small sausage in my life. The size of one sausage was a close match to a cherry tomato. Very cute, but too much of a tease.

Memorable moment nr. 3 was when the couple who shared the table with us, polished of the sparkling that we bought upstairs. They obviously thought it was for the table, but later realised that we were the only table with a bottle. They were speechless and the moment was priceless.

Not much scenary to see at this farm because the tasting centre is surrounded by houses.
The tasting venue looks like a tasting room outside but like an office inside. Only one wine here capeblend which says beyers truter from the label to the finish on the palate. Thanks to the pinotage.