10 minute read
THE VIEWING PARTY
and a large fridge for drinks), it was also cosy enough to be a place you wanted to visit time and again. Each member was required to bring a bottle, be it wine or something stronger (depending on the severity of the episode), and we’d rotate who looked forward to the most. Turns out cracking open a bottle of Steenberg MCC in the middle of a traumatic episode is incredibly therapeutic…
Is everyone surviving the winter? Or rather, did everyone survive winter? By the time you read this, the final episode of Game of the Thrones would have aired. We’re probably all still dealing with the after-effects and collective trauma of what it means to be a fan of the show. For those of you that haven’t gotten around to watching it yet: spoilers ahead!
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How do you survive watching the last ever season of Game of Thrones with your nerves intact? Make like number-one fan Sibongile Mafu and turn it into a group activity – and don’t hold back on the wine!
THE VIEWING PARTY
Before the final season started, a small group of my friends and I decided to watch it together every Monday night. Our viewing party, creatively called Game of Thrones Monday, was compulsory: no excuses, unless you were dying or travelling somewhere that required a passport.
One friend was the main host because she had the best house – a beautiful home in Cape Town’s Hout Bay. It was the perfect location: not only was it equipped with all of the things needed for an exceptional viewing party (a big balcony with a great view, a fireplace brought dinner.
The viewing party was a celebration of a TV show that the six of us had grown to adore, but it also became a place where we’d sip our Monday blues away while mourning characters that had died inevitably horrible deaths. It became the soft place to land after a long day. The place where we fed each other wine – and theories from the episode we’d just watched.
There’s nothing quite like watching war, treachery and betrayal over a quality bottle of Syrah. I, for one, fully understand why Cersei had a goblet of wine permanently attached to her hand. It’s the only way to deal with the insanity of the Seven Kingdoms!
Halfway through the season, my friend Marcee started drinking bubbly instead of wine. At first, I wasn’t that into it, because what on earth are we celebrating? A dragon just wiped out a whole city! I judged her, until it became the ritual I dish of samp and beans, best served when you’re in the mood for a bit of comfort. It became the blanket we all needed when a favourite character was killed off in the first 10 minutes of the episode and another dragon had died. And let me tell you, paired with a fullbodied Merlot, the grief became just that little bit easier to deal with.
On one Monday, a friend made umgqusho for the group. Umgqusho is a Xhosa
When it was my turn to bring food, I decided to make butter chicken. The old me would’ve taken many shortcuts, but the love and care my friends showed in preparing every dish, inspired me to do the same. The hard work was worth it. Paired with Jordan's Cab Sav, the food was a hit!
Our viewing parties became the highlight of my week and a great antidote to the rollercoaster of a show we were all watching. Game of Thrones Monday became a sharing experience. It became a special memory. It became home. And for that, I’ll forever be grateful for winter.
POURING his heart out
There’s far more to being a sommelier than plying patrons with fi ne wines. If you’re Joseph Dafana, sommelier at Cape Town’s La Colombe, it’s also a job that makes a positive change in the world.
PHOTOS: DANIELA ZONDAGH COPY: ANNETTE KLINGER
In the South African wine industry, the success story of Zimbabwean-born sommelier Joseph Dafana is well known. In 2009, he arrived in Riebeek Kasteel in the Western Cape with his wife Amelia, and at the local restaurant Bar Bar Black Sheep, proceeded to work himself up from gardener to barman to waiter. After seeing the joy experienced by patrons he’d served wine to, the bug bit, and he enrolled at the Cape Wine Academy, where he qualifi ed as a sommelier. Soon, he was headhunted by one of the top restaurants in the country, La Colombe in Cape Town.
He went on to learn the fi ner art of making wine, and then gin. And qualifi ed as a wine judge. It’s been a meteoric rise, to say the least.
What’s less known about Joseph, however, is what he has done with this success. Both here, and back home, he’s made it his mission to help those in need.
“I know what it’s like to survive under harsh conditions,” he says over a coffee on one of his rare off days. “I don’t have a lot of money, but the little I have, I try to share. If I’m donating, I donate whatever I have, either wine or gin, or I use whatever I have to convert to cash so that I can give it to someone else.”
Last year, Joseph raised R16 000 by auctioning off his own wine and then donated the proceeds to a range of charities, from the Eziko Cooking and Catering School in Langa, and the Goedgedacht Trust in Riebeek Kasteel to the M. Hugo High School for the Blind in Zimbabwe and his alma mater, Taringana Secondary School, where his donation enabled the school to buy its fi rst-ever photocopier.
After the recent destruction of Cyclone Idai, which ravaged Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, Joseph knew that he needed to help. He called up his friend, restaurateur Harald Bresselschmidt, who owns Aubergine in Cape Town, and together they held a fundraiser where they managed to raise a whopping R60 000.
“I took the money, went to Zim, and bought building materials and supplies,” he says. “In Chaka Village in Chirumhanzu, we gave each family ten packs of cement, a door, a door frame and a lock set. They also got a hamper, which had two kilos of sugar, two kilos of salt, sanitary pads, washing soap, matches and two litres of cooking oil.” In the end, Joseph helped seven families rebuild their homes, and donated hampers to another 30 families.
“It’s really important to give back,” says Joseph. “My dad always told me that the only time you look down on someone, is when you’re helping to raise them up.”
The time that Joseph puts aside for his philanthropic work is all the more admirable when you hear how jam-packed his schedule is as a sommelier. “I don’t have luxury of sleeping eight hours!” he laughs. “My day is sixteen to seventeen hours minimum. I always wake up at fi ve in the morning. I check what's trending online to keep me on my toes about what's happening in the wine world.
“I start work at 10:30am every day and work until ten or eleven at night. If I have diners
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WHAT JOSEPH IS DRINKING THIS WINTER
Bernard Series
Basket Press Syrah (R285)*
“A good Syrah with hints of white pepper, dark fruits, leather and spices with chewy but elegant tannins.”
L' Avenir Single
Block Pinotage (R450)*
“A rich and full-bodied wine with a dark plum nose, ripe dark fruit and great oak integration.”
La Motte
Sauvignon Blanc (R90)
“This was my very fi rst Sauvignon Blanc to try when I did my sommelier course. It’s fresh with medium acidity, which brings a lot of fruitiness.”
Jordan
Chardonnay (R210)*
“You’ll taste melon and fresh fruit salad in this elegant wine, which has a refreshing acidity.”
*Available at selected PnP stores only
that want to talk about wine, it can be later…”
Joseph says off days are for admin and doing deliveries for his wine and gin business, Mosi, which is a one-man operation. “I do the distributing, sales, marketing, social media... I even did all the labelling of the bottles myself!” Elegant in its simplicity, the label design depicts a black-and-white illustration of the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Mosi refers to Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Tonga name for the falls, which means ‘The Smoke That Thunders’.
Mosi started out small. In 2014, Joseph made one barrel each of Syrah and Chenin Blanc under the guidance of winemakers Roger Clayton, Chris Mullineux and Eben Sadie.
WHAT DOES A SOMMELIER DO? JOSEPH TELLS US WHAT IT TAKES TO DO HIS JOB – AND IT’S A LOT!
“Most people think being a sommelier is guessing which wine goes with food and suggesting it to diners. There’s so much more to it! Yes, you need to know everything there is to know about the wines on the wine list you compiled – how and where the grapes were grown, how the wine was made, who made it, how it was aged – but you also need to know about any other beverage a diner might want. Where the coffee beans in their fl at white comes from. How the beer or tequila or bourbon they ordered was made, and how their tastes will complement the dishes they’re served with. You also need to know everything about food to know which wines to pair with which fl avours.
“If I were single, I'd marry Chenin Blanc or Syrah,” he says, smiling. “I really love those two varieties. They're versatile and easy to work with. They don’t mind heat or cold. They’re fl exible. They're soft and elegant.” These days, Joseph makes Chenin Blanc at Eenzaamheid Estate in Paarl, and a Syrah and Merlot at Simelia Wine Estate in Wellington. He’s recently also branched out into making gin, putting his unique stamp on the spirit by infusing it with botanicals from Zimbabwe that are of special signifi cance to him.
If the chef at La Colombe puts a new dish on the menu, I will fi rst taste it, then pick about four or fi ve wines I think could work. I’ll ask the barman to pour them into glasses and then taste them blindly, so they all get a fair judgement. Only then will I make my decision. In my job, attention to detail is very important. Before each shift, I make sure that all my ice buckets are clean and wine glasses polished, and I check that our cellars are running at their right temperatures. Next, I’ll do a debriefi ng with the waiters: I'll discuss whether there are any changes on the wine list or something that we're running low on. I’ll let them taste the wines and give them notes. And then we’re ready for the shift!”
Lippia javanica, for example, is a plant he grew up rubbing between his hands and inhaling to relieve a blocked nose, and silverleaf bark, again, is something his mother used to give him when he had stomach ails.
“The Lippia javanica brings citrus and herbaceous notes to the gin, and the silverleaf bark, a nice bitterness,” he says. “I also used Rooibos, buchu, ginger and juniper berries.”
Joseph says that he could go on and on about his job: about the magic of wine-making,
AFTER CYCLONE IDAI, JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHER PHILMON WENT TO ZIMBABWE'S CHIRUMHANZU DISTRICT TO HELP FAMILIES REBUILD THEIR HOMES.
the countless friendships he’s forged over opened bottles; the changes it’s allowed him to make in others’ lives. He could, but, alas, he should be off. It’s his day off, yes, but there are deliveries to do, emails to answer, shopping to be done for another trip to Zimbabwe... Time waits for no man, least of all this sommelier.
