Wining, dining and music at Solms-Delta

Concerts @ Solms-Delta

Hey la la, hey la la, hey la la — our voices were jiv­ing, our hips sway­ing and our fin­gers click­ing in time to Robbie Jansen's slightly smokey voice as he gave vent to his own inter­pret­a­tion of Cape jazz — a fusion of musical influ­ences ran­ging from tra­di­tional Cape Malay 'goema' and African rhythms to funk and salsa — in a song that most every­one knew, and I couldn't help but learn given its enti­cing tune.

We were at Solms-Delta wine estate just out­side Franschhoek for one of their renowned sun­set sup­per con­certs, ostens­ibly to cel­eb­rate the arrival of sunny days and long, balmy even­ings — neither of which showed up for our con­cert — but this didn't stop us thor­oughly enjoy­ing ourselves, blankets wrapped around our legs and shoulders ...

Saturday sun­set sup­per con­certs play out on the estate, just off the R45 in the Groot Drakenstein dis­trict of the Franschhoek Valley, from 31 October. The set­ting is the grass and front stoep of Fyndraai res­taur­ant, the sur­round­ing moun­tains in the near dis­tance, sil­hou­et­ted against the sky as it slowly darkens, the vine­yards in leaf close by, and a stream trick­ling behind us.

Solms-Delta Wine Estate

It's a superb venue. Even bet­ter still is that the drive here is an effort­less 45 minutes, provided you don't get caught in traffic, and the sun­set con­certs on Saturdays are set between 6pm and 8.30pm, which means you're home in bed by 9.30 if you're me, or you head off to fur­ther the evening's mer­ri­ment else­where, if you're not. If you meet up with friends, which just about every­one at the con­cert appeared to have done, then you might want to get there a little earlier, as once the music starts, there isn't much talk­ing that happens.

Solms-Delta con­certs are not light back­ground music. The even­ing effort­lessly swung into Cape Jazz — Cape Town's very own style of jazz com­bin­ing influ­ences from the car­ni­val, the church, African and America — with the appear­ance of the estate's band, made up of employ­ees and fam­ily from the local com­munity. Their 'ener­getic, foot tap­ping, happy-happy' music got the party going full tilt as people bobbed along, beat time with their glasses on the table or spon­tan­eously leapt up to dance on the grass infront of the res­taur­ant stoep, on which the per­formers swayed.

Solms-Delta is busy estab­lish­ing a Cape Rural Music Centre — 'Music van de Caab' — at the estate to explore the ori­gins of Cape music and the influ­ences that European folk­songs, the Khoekhoe, San musical tra­di­tions and other slave cul­tures from India, Indonesia and Africa have had on it. In the pro­cess they have uncovered a wealth of musical tal­ent among the farm­work­ers and have been instru­mental in reviv­ing and fur­ther devel­op­ing these musical styles, hence provid­ing a stage for the locals.

Fyndraai Restaurant

As they were jiv­ing, Robbie Jansen drove up with his band, and ambled across to join us at our table, oxy­gen tank in tow. It's no secret that Robbie was very ill in 2005 and that the state met his bills, but the con­sequence is that he is sel­dom without his sup­ply of oxy­gen, and can no longer travel long dis­tances because of his res­pir­at­ory con­di­tion. Robbie the man is not phased by this at all. When ques­tioned, rather than see­ing this as a hinder­ance to his con­tin­ued per­form­ing through­out Cape Town, he sees it as an enorm­ous oppor­tun­ity to keep on playing.

And play he does! Completely self-taught, without much formal musical edu­ca­tion — some­thing he has in com­mon with most top jazz per­formers the world over — Robbie's rough, yet lyr­ical voice and his ver­sat­ile sax­o­phone sound are the res­ult of over 30 years in the music busi­ness. Part way through, Robbie hauled out his flute and inspired the audi­ence with yet fur­ther dis­play of his vir­tu­os­ity. He is regarded inter­na­tion­ally as at the fore­front of Cape Jazz, and has con­trib­uted and col­lab­or­ated with some of the country's greats, includ­ing Abdullah Ibrahim, Basil 'Manenberg' Coetzee, and Johnny Clegg, who got him to play flute and sax­o­phone on Juluka's debut album, Universal Men.

No sur­prise then that one of the Solms-Astor wines on the estate is called Cape Jazz Shiraz, which, to Solms-Delta's know­ledge, is the first 'Lambrusco' style wine made in the Cape. Slightly sweet and low in alco­hol, the wine has what is described as a 'cel­eb­rat­ory' fizz, and was just one of the wines on sample at the concert.

We had an amaz­ing even­ing. The food in the form of a 'Kaapse kos' buf­fet was excel­lent, the com­pany at our table stim­u­lat­ing, and the evening's music a feast! According to the line-up, Robbie Jansen is back on 23^rd January. But in the interim there are other not­able per­formers that include Oom Jacobus and Tannie Hester Cloete the inim­it­abe gui­tar duo from Namaqualand, Hilton Schilder with his par­tic­u­lar style of Cape Jazz with indi­gen­ous San fla­vours, and Ghoema Jazz with Mac McKenzie, to name but a few on the agenda. (See the line up here: http://www.solms-delta.co.za/events/).

The con­certs run from October 31^st to December 19^th and, after a break over the fest­ive sea­son, the sched­ule will be repeated from January 9^th to February 27^th. Don't miss the chance to cel­eb­rate regional Cape folk her­it­age fla­vours on a par­tic­u­larly unpre­ten­tious and glor­i­ous wine estate.

All profits from Solms-Delta wine sales are shared equally between Solms-Delta (Pty) Ltd and the Wijn de Caab Trust, whose bene­fi­ciar­ies are the his­tor­ic­ally dis­ad­vant­aged and employ­ees of Delta Estate and sur­round­ing farms and villages.

Details:
Time: 6:00pm – 8.30pm every Saturday.
Cost for an adult includ­ing food is R150 and chil­dren R65.
For book­ings con­tact Annalize (res­taur­ant man­ager) at Fyndraai on +27 (0)21 874‑3937

Useful Links:
Franschhoek Attractions
Things to Do in Franschhoek
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