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Cheese Festival - Franschhoek
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In Franschhoek the local cheese manufacturers here have arranged
a Cheese festival at Bien Donne, a farm in the area.
The village was settled by the French Huguenots and
is situated in a valley that has mountains on three sides.
To get to it you can either travel via Stellenbosch over
Helshoogte Pass or down the N1 from Cape Town to Paarl
and then south into the Franschhoek valley.
The scenery is quite magnificent with towering mountains
which are bluish in colour as the sun sets in the West.
In the valley are orchards, vineyards and a couple of
dairy farms with hundreds of calves running around at present.
Arriving at Bien Donne for the cheese festival you were
given a large carrier bag which contained a wine glass
for tasting of wine and a couple of brochures
explaining the various cheeses that were on show.
The bags were big enough to carry a
couple of kilos of cheese and wine.
The exhibitors were set up in such a way
that you tasted cheese and then wine.
All the cheese exhibitors had cheese cut up for
tasting and the wine farms poured you a finger
of whichever wine you wanted to taste.
They had a small variety on each stand.(red and white)
They were quite happy to talk about the wine
but did not get into technicalities unless asked.
If you visit the wine estates you are given a
whole variety of wines to taste and somebody
normally tells you the history of each
wine you are about to taste.
Here it was extremely casual.
Wine tasting started at about 10.00am in the morning.
I'm sure that if you had tasted every wine on show
you could most probably had yourself quite a
party as nobody stopped you coming back for seconds.
On display were some interesting cheeses and
one of them was cheese made from sheep's milk.
I was totally unaware that one could milk a sheep
and yet one entrepreneur is doing so and supplying
cheese and other sheep milk products to
some of the larger stores in SA.
I tasted the cheese and it tasted a bit like the
sour cream that is served on baked potatoes at restaurants.
Sheep's milk is apparently very healthy as the fat
it contains digests easily and is good for humans.(low Cholesterol)
For those people who are lactose intolerant when
it comes to cow and goat's milk, sheep's
milk is apparently the answer.
It causes no problems according to the farmer.
Some of the cheeses on offer were extremely tasty
and I will mention one or two of the producers.
Ladismith Cheese Co (Pty) Ltd produce
about 200 tons of cheese per month..
They manufacture Cheddar, Gouda, and Edam cheeses.
A cheddar with green pepper flavour is also manufactured.
Recently two new cheeses have been brought to
the market which are the semi hard cheeses
named Ladismither and Old Ladismither.
The Old Ladismither is matured for
12 months before it is marketed.
Fairview Wine and Cheese estate is a producer
situated in the Suider Paarl district.
This estate is surrounded by beautiful
gardens and is well known for its Goat Tower.
The Goat Tower
A tower with a spiral staircase around
the outside has been built for the goats .
The goats enjoy climbing up and down the
stairway and the view it gives them
over visitors to the estate.
This estate produces various cheeses
from cow's and goat's milk.
Their range of cheeses includes Camembert,
Brie Gorgonzola, and Roquefort style blue
and a cheese called La Beryl.
I tasted some of their Roquefort
and it was extremely tasty.
They also produce a number of wines on the farm
but as I am not an expert and wouldn't be able
to tell you the difference between red and
white I'll just stay away from that subject.
After having walked through the cheese and wine emporium we
enjoyed a light lunch out in the garden of the farm.
There was a large lawned area surrounded by oak trees
which created a lovely atmosphere to sit and relax in.
Under the oaks some of the well know restaurants around
Cape Town had set up stalls and were providing light meals at a price.
In the middle of the lawn they had a band stand where
a trio of musicians played and provided some lovely
nostalgic music for the visitors.
(It was of course pensioners day)
All in all it was a lovely outing into
the country on a very beautiful day.
I'm sure everybody who visits this Festival
over t will have a most enjoyable day out.
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Contact Details
Email
Geoff Fairman
6 Bothma Street, Monte Vista 7460 South Africa
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