Coming Up: Spier Secret Festival

WORDS Malibongwe Tyilo

Come Friday 30 October 2015, foodies will gather at the Spier Wine Farm in Stellenbosch for the fourth annual Spier Secret Festival Conference, billed as “a celebration of creative approaches to food and wine making, craftsmanship and collaboration.”

This year promises to be a far more intimate affair. Unlike previous years where all the delegates sat together in a large room, this year they will be separated into smaller groups, rotating between workshops and talks, which means there will be more opportunity for skills sharing and spending one-on-one time with the speakers.

Attendees can look forward to hearing from a variety of speakers. Locals include Luke Williams, who is a cheese-maker and owner of Cape Town’s Culture Club Cheese, Spier’s very own Cellar Master Frans Smit, and Zayaan Khan, SA’s leading expert in entomophagy – the practice of eating insects.

International speakers include Oxford professor Charles Spence, whose research looks at the role of attention in multi-sensory perception, including the sensory perception of food, as well as Andrew Merritt and Paul Smyth, who are behind London-based social design practice, Something & Son. More speakers will be announced closer to the conference.

Delegates will also be among the first to experience Spier’s new and improved Werf, which includes a boutique wine cellar and renowned chef PJ Vadas’s newly launched Hog House Café. Vadas will also be preparing a late lunch for delegates, which is included in the conference ticket price. The Werf will also be home to the weekly Spier Werf Market, which will showcase fresh organic produce and a variety of food stalls. The market is free to enter and is open to the public. It launches the day after the conference on Saturday 31 October.

As has become tradition leading up to the conference, Spier hosts a series of secret dinners throughout September. Visit spiersecret.co.za to find out about upcoming dinners. Tickets for the conference are R1 100, inclusive of lunch and wine.