Vineyards near Cape Town

One of the things which I definitely wanted todo while near Cape Town was to do some wine tasting, due to a few days of non-flyable weather, I ended up having more days tasting wine than expected, no bad thing! So in the end I had two days of wine tasting near Porterville, one day with Becky when I picked her up and then we had two days staying in Franschhoek.

Nederburg, Paarl

My first experience was at the beautiful Nederburg wine estate near Paarl. It was really very special driving in down the drive with the views over the vineyards and the mountains. To start with I enjoyed a tasting of 4 wines, along with cheeses. This was exceptionally good value and it was a great way to start the day.

After the wine tasting, I headed to the restaurant where I enjoyed a fantastic lunch of mussels followed by ostrich steak, all of which was very well cooked. Unfortunately there was no more wine with lunch as I had to driver after. After lunch I headed to the Drachenstein Lion Park.

Saronsberg, Talburg

On another non-flying day we headed to the Saronsberg vineyard near Talburg. This time we went as a group with the minibus from the paragliding competition, so it meant I didn’t need to drive. Again this winery was situated with an absolutely stunning view, where you looked over the garden, pond and vineyards towards the mountains from the terrace. Wonderful.

We had the classic wine tasting and shared a number of the sharing platters. The wine tasting was again great value and we tasted a really great variety of local wines. We finished our time off there sharing a few bottles of the wine we had sampled, before heading back to Porterville on the minibus.

Babylonstoren

When Becky flew into Cape Town she got a lift with a friend to Babylonstoren, and as it wasn’t a good flying day, I decided to go down to meet them for lunch to save her waiting for me to finish flying and then drive down.

Here was more than a vineyard, it was beautiful gardens with so many fruits growing and exotic plants. We enjoyed a chilled out lunch at the cafe, then wondered around the gardens, before going for a little wine tasting before the drive back to Porterville.

Franschhoek Day 1

When we arrived in Franschhoek, it became clear we had made a mistake in not booking our trips on the wine tram in advance, after some stress booking the one remaining option for the second day, we were trying to work out what todo on the first day, when we found the option of using a tuk-tuk todo a private wine tour – for less money then the wine tram as well! This worked really well, and is certainly a good alternative option to the wine tram.

• Holden Manz – this was our first stop, and probably the best stop of the entire two days. We had 3 oysters each for a very small amount of money and their old wine tasting which was more expensive than the other tastings but was really very good. The outlook from the terrace for the wine tasting was also beautiful.
• Little Chamonix – we did not like this location so much, despite the good reviews
• Backsberg – we finished the day here, tasting I think 6 wines, but after an entire afternoon of wine tasting, I think the wines were a bit lost on us to be honest.

After a very winey day, we then went out for a very nice dinner and tasting menu to finish the day off. 

Franschhoek Day 2

Today we were on the tram, but on a later departure than we would have liked, so we decided to walk to the first winery to start the day off with a cellar tour. We started with the bus for the first three vineyards, before getting on the wine tram itself to head to Rickety Bridge. The wine tram was a great experience, and was a great way to travel up the valley – but it was certainly touristy.

• Haute Cabrière – we started the day off here with a cellar tour, the wine was a bit lost on me as I was still not feeling like drinking due to the previous day’s overconsumption. During the cellar tour they opened a bottle of fizz with a sabre which was good to see.
• Eikehof – here was really beautiful, it felt really personal and was a very family run vineyard. 
• Lynx – we had a wine and oyster pairing here which was good, but we didn’t like it here anywhere near as much as Eikehof
• Rickety Bridge – after getting off the wine tram there was a tractor transfer to the vineyard, where we enjoyed different wine tastings. I had the reserve tasting and was very surprised to really enjoy the Pinotage, a grape which I didn’t think I liked. 

We got the last wine tram back from Rickety Bridge so it was very quiet and a great tram ride back with the evening light, before stopping for some craft beer before enjoying dinner in Franschhoek.