Recently, we sat down with our Goathsed Chef SJ Nel, the inventor of our beloved pies, to find out more about his love for food:

Tell us a bit about your background?
I have Northern Cape roots and was fortunate to gain experience in British, Swedish and a few South African kitchens.

What is your favourite dish to eat?
Cooking all day does not create cravings for anything fancy. A simple freshly baked roll with sausage, coleslaw, mustard and a beer is what I love. I guess that’s why I particularly love making a good pie too!

What is your favourite dish to make?
I am guilty of crowd pleasing and therefore our most popular dish at The Goatshed Restaurant is Braised Fairview Lamb.

What are the most interesting things happening in food right now?
Real top notch ingredients, being prepared simply, served informally, with amazing attitudes, leaving small footprints.

What is your food philosophy?
Getting your hands dirty to bring together flavourful ingredients, from sustainable sources, taking care of the environment while helping people.

What are your guilty pleasures?
Dry aged T-bone steak with a generous piece of fat, matured cheeses and red wine.

Most bizarre thing in your fridge right now?
My wife, Lisa, is keeping me healthy with a variety of nutritious smoothies so I will have to say some of those ingredients – like coconut water, cocoa nibs and organic granadilla pulp.

What is your favourite food memory?
“Potjiekos” with my father, mastermind snack platters with my mother, traditional “padkos” roadtripping with my three sisters and mushroom risotto for my one and only Lisa.

Two flavours that shouldn’t go together but do?
Goats’ milk and caramel.

Advice you wish you were given as a young chef?
Listen to all your mentors, good and bad, you will definitely learn something.

The post Goatshed’s Favourites | Interview with Chef SJ Nel appeared first on Fairview.

There is a stranger (extraño in Spanish) in the Cape’s vineyards, named Tempranillo. Originally from Spain, Tempranillo now grows in local soils and produces grapes of exceptional quality. We’ve carefully integrated fellow Spaniards Grenache and Carignan – who add spice, fruit and freshness – to help temper this slightly rustic grape variety’s temperamental streak.

Since its release, this wine has been causing waves throughout our Tasting Room, becoming a firm best-seller thanks to its consistent taste, beautiful label and value-for-money. In fact, Extraño was one of our most awarded wines for 2017, receiving a 4.5 star Platter rating, a 2017 National Wine Challenge Top 100 award, and a 90 point score at the Winemag Signature Red Blend Report Awards 2017!

For our final Goatshed Dinner for 2018, we decided to pair a winning wine with a winning cuisine combination. Chef SJ Nel and the Goatshed team carefully curated a menu that will please all palates, while harking back to Catalan-inspired flavours. The event also marks the end of winter, and welcomes in a change of season for warmer weather and later sunsets. Come celebrate – and don’t forget your castanets!

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

Tapas
Selection of breads, spicy dips & Salami
Paprika chicken Taco cups
Meatballs in Chorizo & tomato sauce
Mushroom Empanadas

Starter
Roasted Linefish & white bean soup

Main Course
Braised beef, potato cake & traditional Pisto

Dessert
Flan de Cafe

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets.

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As you should already know by now, Fairview and our winemakers, under the careful guidance of Charles Back, love to break with tradition. In fact, we’re all about doing things differently. This really came to the fore with our Fairview Brut Méthode Cap Classique (MCC), a re-imagined take on the classic bubbly. Traditionally, Champagne (in France) and MCC (in South Africa), is made using the grape varieties Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. For our version, one of our talented winemakers Stephanie Wiid decided to break with tradition, and use a celebration of Mediterranean varieties – Viognier, Grenache Noir and Grenache Blanc – for her bubbly. Given Charles’s reputation as one of the SA wine industry mavericks, perhaps it’s not that surprising that he insisted on the first Fairview MCC rather being Rhône-like in its varietal mix.

For our pen-ultimate Goatshed Dinner for 2018, we will be sharing the delights of our Fairview Brut MCC and pairing it with Old World style food – meaning food from regions like France. Our chefs and winemakers thought it would be an interesting comparison to take our New World bubbly and pair it with Old World traditional fare. The combination will no doubt be delightful! Coming up on Friday 7th September 2018, come enjoy a warm environment, hearty food and a pop, clink, fizz with your friends!

In case you haven’t heard, this year, we’ve decided to introduce a strong relationship between the food and wine pairings, by complementing the Goatshed dinners to our most food-focused wine range, titled the Regional Revival Range.

The Regional Revival Range consists of the following 6 wines:
1. Fairview Homtini
2. Fairview Nurok
3. Fairview Drie Papen Fontein
4. Fairview Caldera
5. Fairview Brut MCC
6. Fairview Extrano

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

Amuse Bouche
Blinis with smoked salmon & fish roe

First starter
Paprika chicken schnitzel with stuffed cabbage

Second starter
Mushroom and barley soup

Main course
Roast beef, potato dauphinois, roasted vegetables and rosemary jus
Goulash hot pot

Dessert
Apple pie, vanilla ice cream and custard

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets.

The post Brut MCC Old World Evening | Goatshed Dinner #7 appeared first on Fairview.

Off the coast of the Greek isle of Santorini lies a sea-drowned caldera, a vast crater left behind by one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in history. Once a cradle of heat and magma, today that energy is still channeled into the Mediterranean dishes cooked in cauldron-style pots by locals. To celebrate the warmth and richness of this culture, we’ve crafted our Caldera wine to masterfully match with any meal… and the Goatshed Caldera Evening is just the fit for this experience!

Our sixth Goatshed dinner is coming up on the 24th August 2018: The Caldera Greek Evening!

Caldera was so named after Charles Back’s travels to Santorini in Greece. During his stay, he enjoyed the view of the mostly submerged caldera, located in the southern Aegean Sea, 120 kilometers north of Crete. Upon his return from Greece, he was inspired to create a Grenache-Syrah-Mourvèdre blend that would complement Mediterranean style food, such as the Greek cuisine he has experienced. And so Caldera was born – the oldest member of our Regional Revival Range, and one of our best!

This year, we’ve decided to introduce a strong relationship between the food and wine pairings, by complementing the Goatshed dinners to our most food-focused wine range, titled the Regional Revival Range.

The Regional Revival Range consists of the following 6 wines:
1. Fairview Brut MCC
2. Fairview Drie Papen Fontein
3. Fairview Nurok
4. Fairview Homtini
5. Fairview Extrano
6. Fairview Caldera

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

Mezze
Greek style breads, olives and hummus
Homemade Dolmades
Spinach & feta tartlets
Haloumi & sundried tomato salsa

Starter
Prawn Saganaki & zucchini fritter

Main Course
Baked lamb meatballs with crushed potatoes, baby marrow, aubergine puree and rosemary jus

Dessert
Greek Style Fresh Cheese & Yoghurt tart, apricot compote

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets.

The post Caldera Greek Evening| Goatshed Dinner #6 appeared first on Fairview.

After re-imagining our annual Goatshed Dinners, the Regional Revival Range Chef’s Journey will most definitely be our flagship event of the season! Coming up on the 27th July 2018, the Regional Revival Range showcase will be a culmination of our chef’s finest culinary talent and our winemakers crafted bottlings. The goal is to deliver a true farm-to-fork philosophy, offering a real taste of our homegrown produce and beautifully paired wines.

In case you’ve missed it, the Regional Revival Range consists of the following 6 wines:
1. Fairview Brut MCC
2. Fairview Drie Papen Fontein
3. Fairview Nurok
4. Fairview Homtini
5. Fairview Extrano
6. Fairview Caldera

This food-friendly showcase of unusual styles and cultivars gives our talented winemakers an exciting avenue to challenge traditional viticulture and winemaking and produce regionally-inspired, blended wines with a Cape twist. At Fairview, there is a tale to share behind everything, none more so than our wine. Our Regional Revival Range brings storytelling to the fore, blending together adventurous grape varieties with cutting-edge winemaking. Inspired by wines of the Old World, the range takes these traditional regional styles and brings them alive to local palates by integrating an unexpected Cape twist. Rising in popularity since its inception, our Regional Revival Range is beloved for each bottle’s characteristic label design and food pairing compatibility.

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

Bread
Bread & condiments

Full circle Pork
Pâté en Croûte

Beef
Shoulder ragout & Tortellini

Lamb
Lamb neck cottage pie, lamb jus and parsnips

Dairy
Yoghurt Panna Cotta

Cheese selection

***

R375 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets.

The post Regional Revival Range Chef’s Journey | Goatshed Dinner #5 appeared first on Fairview.

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

First starter
Onion bhajis, spiced aubergine dip
Butternut samoosa, sweet chilli yogurt
Bobotie springroll, turmeric aioli
Mango atchar chicken Roti
Curried and pickled fish pots

Second starter
Cauliflower and potato Tarkari, lentil cake & fried paneer

Main course
Mutton curry with tomatoes, garlic and garam masala with Basmati rice, sambals & poppadum

Dessert
Saffron sabayon with roasted fruit, cardamom cake and toasted almonds

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets.

The post Drie Papen Fontein Curry Evening | Goatshed Dinner #4 appeared first on Fairview.

Okay, yes. So this year we have flipped the theme of our annual Goatshed Dinners on their head, with the introduction of a paired Regional Revival Range wine to each themed event. However, the one evening we would never remove from our calendar is the ever-popular Fairview Shiraz and Free-Range Lamb Shank Evening on the 15th June 2018, which also happens to be the third Goatshed Dinner in our calendar this winter. Sold out every year, we trust there will be no exception this year! It also happens to align with Shiraz SA Week, so all the more reason to celebrate this bold red variety!

There is definitely a comfort factor that revolves around bringing together a bold red and a hearty meat in the middle of winter. Add to this our underfloor heating, roaring oven fire, and cosy Goatshed interior, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a true feast of flavours and trending hygge indulgence. We invite you to come and enjoy Chef SJ Nel’s reinvention of classic dishes using pork and duck ‘shank’, and incorporating smoked Shiraz vines with his tasty spiced pumpkin soup. Shiraz is also Fairview’s flagship grape variety, used across a wide range of blends and single bottlings. This one is definitely not to be missed, so book now to avoid disappointment!

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

Amuse-Bouche
Pickled pork “shank” & mustard slaw

First Starter
Duck “shank” & bean cassoulet

Second Starter
Spiced pumpkin soup, lightly smoked with Shiraz vines

Main Course
Shiraz braised Lamb Shank Pie, mashed potato & baby marrow

Dessert
Goatshed’s milk tart & Shiraz poached pear

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets:

The post Fairview Shiraz and Free-Range Lamb Shank Evening | Goatshed Dinner #3 appeared first on Fairview.

As mentioned in our previous post here, our Goatshed Dinners are back this year with a revived twist!
This year, we’ve decided to introduce a strong relationship between the food and wine pairings, by complementing the Goatshed Dinners to our most food-focused wine range, titled the Regional Revival Range.

The Regional Revival Range consists of the following 6 wines:
1. Fairview Brut MCC
2. Fairview Drie Papen Fontein
3. Fairview Nurok
4. Fairview Homtini
5. Fairview Extrano
6. Fairview Caldera

Each wine is brimming with a decorative label and enticing story to tell, as well as orientated with a specific wine region in mind. Take for example our first dinner coming up on the 25th May 2018: The Homtini Italian Dinner.

Homtini translates as a ‘difficult passage’ in the long-forgotten Khoi language. The Homtini pass, near Knysna, winds its way through indigenous forests. This was once the home of our winemaker, Anthony de Jager’s Italian ancestors, the Rabbolinis, who were silk farmers from Northern Italy. They immigrated to South Africa under the misconception that mulberry trees grew in abundance. On arrival they discovered that no mulberry trees existed, but through tenacity and hard work, they tamed the land and ultimately prospered in other trades, including wine-making.

The wine is a Tuscan-style blend of Italian variety Sangiovese, integrated with a touch of Cabernet Sauvingon and Merlot. The wine is crafted to go perfectly with Italian-style dishes, such as tomato-based sauces, breads and cheese. Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to savour on the evening:

Antipasti

Selection of cured meats [ Mortadella, Salami, Coppa, Pastrami ]
Freshly baked breads [ Ciabatta, Focaccia ]
Mozzarella, tomato & herb pesto salad
Goats’ cheese & caramelized onion Bruschetta
Fegato d’anatra (duck liver) paté
Pork, fennel & sage

Primi
Mushroom Casarecce

Secondi
“Bistecca alla Goatshed”
Roasted Sirloin, polenta & Mediterranean garnish

Dolce
Tiramisu

Try your hand as pizzaiolo in between courses at our wood fired pizza oven station

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets.

The post Homtini Italian Evening | Goatshed Dinner #1 appeared first on Fairview.

At Fairview, there is always a story to share behind everything, none more so than our wine and food. For this reason, this year our Goatshed Restaurant will host its popular annual Goatshed Dinners throughout the winter period, but this time around, we’ve added a more focused twist. To enhance our delicious farm-to-plate dishes, we’ve curated a wine and food pairing using wines exclusively from our food-friendly Regional Revival Range.

Fairview’s Regional Revival Range brings storytelling to the fore, blending together adventurous grape varieties with cutting-edge winemaking. Inspired by wines of the Old World, the range takes these traditional regional styles and brings them alive to local palates by integrating an unexpected Cape twist. Take for example our Fairview Brut MCC, a bubbly made in the traditional Méthode Cap Classique style, but using completely non-traditional varieties Viognier, Grenache Blanc and Grenache Noir. All of these award-winning wines are designed to pair with fine fare, and so our winemaking and Goatshed team will be joining forces this year to create a menu that is orientated around one particular wine from the range at a time.

Starting with the Homtini Italian Dinner on the 25th May, the offering will highlight the Tuscan roots of the Homtini Red Blend wine to be paired effortlessly with delicious Italian-style cuisine. The same can be said for all 6 dinners, paired with a matching theme that links to each of our wines’ regional origins. The dinners will culminate in the Regional Revival Range Chef’s Journey evening, during which time Chef SJ will take the highlight meal and wine pairings from our other 6 Regional Revival Range focused nights and create a culinary experience to be truly savoured.

Now don’t fret! Naturally, we would never take away our ever-popular and much loved Fairview Shiraz and Free-Range Shank evening. This will still be held on the 15th June, perfectly in line with SA Shiraz Celebration week! With this said, we encourage you to come and join us on one of the other Revival dinner nights to experience something a little different.

Tickets include a hearty three-course meal prepared by the Goatshed’s much-loved chef, SJ Nel, as well as beautifully paired Fairview Regional Revival Range wines to complement each dish. Fairview’s own farm fresh, free range meat and cheese will feature on the menu.

Tickets cost R325 per person, including wine. The cost for the Chef’s Journey on the 27th of July is R375 per person, as the evening will include a more broad offering and a more substantial wine offering.

Should you wish to book overnight accommodation, Fairview recommends the following neighbouring farms:

Belair: www.belair.co.za/belairWP

Email: info@belair.co.za

Diamant Estate: www.diamantestate.com

Email: info@diamantestate.com

Tickets will open for booking from April 2018, but have a look at the dates below in the meantime and offerings, to whet your appetite:

MAY:
25th May – Goatshed Dinner 1
‘Homtini Italian Dinner’

JUNE:
08 June – Goatshed Dinner 2
‘Nurok Morccan Dinner’

15 June – Goatshed Dinner 3
Fairview Shiraz & Free Range Lamb Shank

JULY:
13 July – Goatshed Dinner 4
Drie Papen Fontein Curry Evening

27 July – Goatshed dinner 5
Regional Revival Range Chef’s Journey

AUGUST:
24 August – Goatshed Dinner 6
Caldera Greek Dinner

SEPTEMBER:

7 Sept – Goatshed Dinner 7
‘Brut MCC Old World Evening

28 Sept – Goatshed Dinner 8
‘Extrano Spanish Dinner’

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