BootsnAll Travel Network



Wine Route Redux

Day 55

Our time in Cape Town is getting short. At least our time in the Western Cape, as we are heading out to do the Garden Route next week. So today we headed north-east out of town for a drive that last just over an hour and a half. This is the heart of wine country here in the Cape. We have already visited Franschoek and Stellenbosch so today we go to Paarl.

None of these towns are very far apart and Paarl sits on the far north-east side of the region in a wide valley. This whole region looks much like the Pacific Northwest of the US or the Loire Valley in France. We were lucky to have another sunny and warm day. There was a light wind blowing the length of the valley which kept us comfortable in short sleeves.

Our first stop was Fairview Winery. We were greeted with the coolest goat barn/house/shed you could imagine. A three story, silo shaped building with a spiraling staircase around the outside so that the goats can walk up. This has become the symbol of the winery itself and is somewhat famous in the region. Besides wine, Fairview is also noted for it’s goat cheese. Every good winery needs a hook.

Wonderful. We had eight glasses of wine and cheese for a minimal tasting charge of five dollars. The people at the winery were very pleasant, and even insisted we try a ninth wine, one that we had not chosen to taste, because they were very proud of it. The cheese was more amazing. We had more than eight different types. The goat cheese melted on the tongue with no need for chewing. Debbie said that you could spread it on cardboard and it would still be good.

After buying a loaf of bread and a lot of cheese, with a picnic in mind, we ended up sitting down at their restaurant and eating lunch there. We figured that the cheese and bread could be snacks for later. The setting for the restaurant, the warm air, cold white wine and food were too much to just walk away.

After taking much more time at Fairview than we intended, we bolted for the next. This time Seidelberg. This winery was only two miles down the road. It was a long two miles because we drove by a local school and stopped to let Connor and Alexa take pictures. It is amazing, once a camera is produced the kids here flock to it like tourists to a leopard sitting. Connor and Alexa did very well handling both the complexity of the camera and the over eagerness of their subjects. They each captured at least one image that is book material from this impromptu stop. Bravo.

Seidelberg wineries’ hook is glass blowing. They have one of only four operating artistic glass studios in all of South Africa. Their work is very reminiscent of Chiluly, which is very beautiful. Since we had hit the wine pretty hard at Fairview, we passed on the opportunity to taste Seidelberg’s wine. So can’t give any reviews on this one.

Our next and last stop was Warwick. This small and very un-pretentious winery is the only South African winery to have it’s wine served on board the Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 cruise ship. Quite an honor. We had a bottle of this their ‘Trilogy’ one evening at a steak house and had purchased another for our house. So we already knew about this winery and today we made it a point to visit.

Warwick is great. Unlike most other wineries, they do not charge for tasting. They also don’t stand you up at a bar and give you small pours. Instead, we were seated at a long nice table and a young lady began to pour generous portions of four wines. Starting from the lightest and driest white she moved through five wines explaining each in detail. Very impressive. We did not love everything they made, but did purchase a bottle before we departed. While we were there we also took the opportunity to pull both of the girls who were working there and did some portraits of them. We are always looking for an opportunity to capture the people around us and the setting was too perfect. We really appreciated their good nature with such a crazy request.

The kids are also enjoying the wine. We keep them limited, of course, but are making it a point to teach them about the different varietals of wine and how it is produced. Though you have to be eighteen to drink in South Africa, no winery has had an issue with the children tasting the wine and asking questions. This has made the whole experience that much richer for all of us.

By the time we were done with Warwick it was late afternoon. We had considered heading over to Franshoek to have dinner at a winery in this beautiful village but decided to press back to our home in Hout Bay which was still almost an hour and a half away.

Days like this are rewarding and make us cringe at the idea of having to ever ‘work’ again. We had a good family day, we learned new things, we were surrounded by beautiful scenery, photographed amazing children by the road-side and discovered some great food and wine. What more can you ask for?



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