'Tiny bubbles in the wine
make me feel happy,
make me feel fine.
Tiny bubbles make me warm all over,
with a feeling that I'm going to love you
‘til the end of time.'
– Don Ho

Summer means it’s bubbles time – although there’s never an excuse not to pop open a bottle – and we are so spoilt for choice, with just under one hundred South African fizzes to choose from.

We used sabrage on many bottles of deliciously intriguing Boschendal MCC at the recent Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards, as well as post celebration.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I manage to get my hands on the real deal – champagne. But very often it’s more like chilled bottles of Miss Molly from Môreson in Franschhoek, which has citrusy and biscuity notes with a gorgeous fine mousse, or Ambeloui (a piece of heaven), from Hout Bay, particularly a full-bodied rosé Rosanne. I do love these Méthode Cap Classiques.

Every year this time we sneak up to Plett and visit Bramon (another piece of heaven) to stock up, and we sit in the vineyard restaurant sipping tiny bubbles in chilled flutes and slurping oysters.

This holiday, though, we have found our own piece of heaven: our new home by the sea. Just got to make sure you-know-what is chilling on ice.

Cheers!
Abigail

Photograph: Colonnade Boston