A long last post for the week. It involves big concepts that are very important to Nikey, our wine maker and we wanted to involve you in the wine making process a little. We are going to talk fermentation and processes that make our wines so easy to drink. Have a read and hopefully this [...]
Fynbos Friday 17: Moraea Fugax
A perennial herb growing up to 40 cm high with a corm and a branched stem. The single leaf is keeled, trailing and much longer than the stem. The flowers are white, blue or yellow, strongly scented, about 4 cm in diameter and borne in a compact branched flower-head. Usually only one flower is open [...]
Bordeauxroom & The Stormers visit Haut Espoir
bordeauxroom (This is how the French say it. Just add “room” at the end) took the Stormers team on a little wine blending expedition out into Franschhoek last week. I tell you some interesting blends came out of that… In fact, most of the boys were pretty impressive with their concoctions but there were definitely a couple of, “this tastes so [...]
Fynbos Friday 16: Dodonea Angustifolia
This is one extremely powerful antifungal plant. When we started putting this post together this morning, we found the following: Results: The plant extract killed 99.5% of all the test isolates in less than 30 seconds while chlorhexidine gluconate killed 40% and 20% and triclosan 55% and 35% of C. albicans strains isolated from HIV [...]
Thank you!
At times, in the middle of a storm, there is a moment where everything will make sense in this crazy world. Little rewards for the hard work we put in on a daily basis. Last night our web guy was alerted to the image attached on this post, which simply put, has us as the [...]
We are harvesting
This week we are full steam ahead at the farm after the fires of just 10 days ago. The team are harvesting Semillion and Viognier, the first from a contract block and the initial look, especially on the Viognier, is amazing. Even growth throughout the 2010 season had led to a truly special block and [...]
Fynbos Friday 15: The Rocket Pincushion
Leucospermum Reflexum is her real botanical name, but the rocket pincushion is apt enough. What a little beauty. Each flower is tube-like and made up of velvety floral parts called the perianth segments on which the anthers are placed. These surround the long style which escapes from the tube to form the ‘pin’ and the [...]
The Fire in Franschhoek
You will all know by now, that we have had a bit of a rough start to the week. Understatement of the year. I wanted to show you how quickly things can change here on the farm. With a series of clicks you are able to track how things moved. We start off here, where [...]
Fynbos Friday 14: Otholobium
Back for another week, and today we are going to be talking nitrogen, soil erosion, etc etc. But firstly, did everyone go out and get an Erica Versicolor this week? The Otholobium family are shrubs and herbaceous perennials. Belonging to the Sweet Pea family, we at Haut Espoir are fond of the Otholobium for 2 [...]
Featured Restaurant : &Union
So first off, its not really a restaurant. But consider how much we all love this place, we are including it here. The space underneath the church on Bree St, just before Heritage Square (travelling away from the mountain), has been converted into several units and the one at the end is & Union. Brought [...]
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