A Good
Thing Happened post took me back a few decades into South Africa days .. Lynn
had posted a photo of a wine bottle with a wonderful label – which she
marvelled at ...
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| The wizened 'old boy' goat on his tower |
...
well the “La Capra” wine with its whimsical label, as she describes it, comes
from Fairview Farm Estates ... which from the early marketing ventures I remember they
have continued to expand their range and develop their vineyard into what looks
like a centre of excellence ...
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| Cheese Tasting |
The
Backs were one of the first to offer wine and cheese tasting evenings in
Johannesburg –and we booked the Back siblings as they were then to put on a
tasting for us. What more would
encourage us to buy ... than tasting, learning the history of the wine and
enjoying a platter or two of different cheeses ... I remember it well!!
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| Cape Regions ... note the 'winelands' |
I’ll
give you some photos and a little of the history of the estate and that back
story to Lynn’s description of the label:
a goat carrying a tower of things
on its back ...
The Back
family bought the vineyard in 1937, which had been through a chequered history
of no less than eight insolvent estates ... the present owner, Charles Back,
declares “he’s doing his best to break
the habit!”
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| Fairview estates with some of their other animals |
In
recent years they’ve cultivated some virgin land unearthing stone tools
providing proof of the presence of hominids at the foot of Paarl Mountain some
700,000 years ago.
Centuries
later, probably about 1,000 years ago, the hills became home to nomadic
pastoralists from the north called Khoi – these peaceful peoples remaining
until the Europeans settled in the mid 1600s.
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| They offer an after-school facility ... making some children very happy |
By 1699
the first wine was made on the farm ... and the official tax records of the
time reflect a farm ‘inventory’ which listed a few barrels of wine, among items
ranging from bags of wheat to rifles and slaves.
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| Happy workers too |
Thankfully someone had the foresight to change the name of the farm to Fairview from its previous descriptive name of 'Cauliflower Fountain' (Bloemkoolfontein - in Afrikaans)!!
I’m
sure I got my love of feta cheese from the Fairview tastings ... and there was
an outlet in Jo’burg where we could go and buy fresh cheese and olives –
delicious! – rather than from a food shop.
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| Wine and cheese lunch .. that looks just delicious! |
Back in
those apartheid days ... a lot of the best produce was sent overseas ... so the
fruits and vegetables weren’t brilliant – unless you grew your own.
I did a
little of that and had a few fruit trees in the houses I owned ... I tried cauliflowers ... which bolted very quickly but at least were fresh.
Reading
about the Fairview goats and their tower I noted that there’s another link to a
holiday my mother and I had together in Portugal – inland from Porto.
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| He's great isn't he .... |
We
stayed with friends but having hired a car were able to drive around and were
sent off on various jaunts ... one of which was to the Aveleda, a winery in the
Vinho Verde region of Portugal.
This
was where we saw goat towers, which reminded us of the climbing goats we’d seen
on our journey across the Rockies to Vancouver – another trip.
The
goats are magnificent creatures aren’t they ... and do they love climbing ...
the first goat tower at a winery was built by Fernando Guedes da Silva da
Fonseca (1871 – 1946) at Aveleda ... Charles Back at Fairview built the second
in South Africa in 1981, and there are now a few others.
The wine label tower described:
Locals
and visitors gather for the ...
Cheeses
- Festival La Capra in Spring
Fork - Goatshed Restaurant
Farmer - long hours and hardwork of the farmer
and
that’s just to get the grapes into the cellar
Violin - contagious beat of La Capra ..
violins,
accordions to drums and tambourines –
brings together a wide variety
of styles, artists
and influences
Globe - travellers and trekkers arrive from
all over
Wine
barrels – wine flows freely, laughter fills the air and
you dance til dawn
Goat -
a mainstay for the La Capra brand, and the
innovative flair of the Back family
at Fairview
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| Fairview estates, Western Cape |
The
first Charles Back, an immigrant from Lithuania, landed in South Africa in 1902
opening a butcher’s shop in Paarl, which also sold fresh farm produce ...
...
from those humble immigrant beginnings, his descendants have continued on his
work ethic with a spirit of endeavour and innovation, as well as ensuring that the
early Charles Back’s knowledge of the vine and wine making will not be forgotten
through the wonderful Cauliflower
Fountain farm that was bequeathed to one of his sons.
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| A Mediterranean flat bread topped with tasty morsels, including tower blue cheese - recipes on website |
Thanks
Lynn you’ve opened up my memory bank to many happy times ... back in South
Africa, a holiday to Portugal and another holiday with my mother to western
Canada ...
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| Fairview logo - recently designed ... the goat, the hard-working farmer, the sheaf of wheat for the bread they bake etc ... |
I highly recommend Fairview as it appears
not to have changed much since my
days in South Africa ... and most of the wording in this post was 'dug' from
their website ... for which I thank them.
Here
are some links: the Tower Label and how
it came about ... you can turn the music off – which you just might want to
quite quickly ...
Hilary
Melton-Butcher
Positive
Letters Inspirational Stories
