About a week ago we went on a Wine tour. It was a great success and I would like to encourage anybody visiting Cape Town to do the same, even if you only have limited time and/or local knowledge at hand. One day is enough to visit at least three vineyards and it doesn’t have to be expensive. You only need to rent a car, get a map (or a navigator) and do some minor research. Or you can skip the research and just follow our route.
I don’t pretend to know much about wine in general, and my knowledge of South African wine in particular was very limited before we went on this trip. My only preparations, the evening before, included some browsing of an old edition of Frommer’s South Africa and studying and printing of some Google maps showing driving directions.
I had chosen three vineyards in Stellenbosch, based partly on the descriptions in the guide and partly based on their location with respect to each other and the distance to downtown Cape Town – we were staying at Royal Cape Town Yacht Club. Each of these vineyards is different from the other ones, with different architecture, settings and views. All of them were worth visiting and all produce great wine.
Our first stop was at Vergenoegd, only about a 50 km drive from Cape Town, less than an hour. Their main building is a magnificent old Dutch mansion, probably built in the late 1600s. We started the day with a taste of one of their white wines and then tasted three great red wines, rounding up with a port wine and finally bought a case of assorted reds for Christmas.
Our next stop was at Rust en Vrede, in a fantastic setting at the end of Annandale road. Their red wine (they don’t make whites) was chosen by Nelson Mandela to be served at the Nobel Peace Price dinner and one of their wines was nominated as the first South African red wine in the Top 100 Wines of the World. Their restaurant has also been nominated as one of the Top 100 Restaurants.
On the way to our last vineyard we made a stop in the centre of the charming town of Stellenbosch, where we recommend a visit to Oom Sami Se Winkel, a general dealer with an amazing inventory.
We chose our last vinyard Tokara because of the views from its restaurant. Their modern architecture and art exhibition also make for an intresting experience. Tokara produces red wines, white wines, brandy and olives.
From Tokara we could have driven on to Franschhoek, said to be the prettiest valley in the Winelands, but we decided we had experienced enough vineyards for one day.
All wines at all three estates were excellent, and very reasonably priced. It was a good day indeed.