In vino veritas

For some reason my thoughts strayed the other weekend to reminiscing about quaffing wine on a sunny day on the Cape, standing with Joerg and Bry assessing the virtues of what was put in front of us and bemoaning the fact that we couldn't take more "home" with us (although Joerg did try his best taking 9 bottles with him!). As I said in my first post about South Africa most of my photos were of vines and mountains. And so my last post will be full of them.

This is the first photo I took in South Africa of the view from the carpark at Rustenberg. I had just successfully completed my first drive on a South African freeway and was there to meet Bry's aunt, uncle and cousins while still recovering from jetlag (or the Christmas party in Portugal - take your pick!). So of course we went wine-tasting! But we were back in Stellenbosch less than a week later fully prepared for a more thorough tour. It's hard to do more here than name-check wineries but rest assured as always I'm only telling you the best. Like Lanzerac where we had a superb lunch.
The cellar at Cabriere - where we had a superb lunch (deja vu? No just spoilt!. If you time your tasting here well the owner opens the bottles of champagne with a sabre (apparently it's easier). After lunch we posed for some photos in the hills above Franschhoek. The area around Franschhoek was settled by the French Huguenots in the 1690's whereas the rest of the Stellenbosch area which was settled by the Dutch.

The first vines planted by the East India Company in 1685 at Groot Constantia on the south-eastern side of Table Mountain (and their Merlot certainly shows the benefit of the years). In fact Napoleon and others in Europe prized the Constantia dessert wine highly. But with the advent of wine tourism wineries like Tokara and Waterford have started in the last 20 years. Waterford offers the wine and chocolate tasting experience, which if nothing else is completely decadent. It also makes girls happy and Germans a little crazy (or is that just a different kind of happy??!!)
Away from the main Stellenbosch region we also tasted in Hermanus in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley where the cooler sea air makes for fuller whites and production of excellent Pinot Noirs at Bouchard Finlayson and Hamilton Russell. On the way back we passed through the much smaller, and less fashionable, Elgin region yet Paul Cluver had some of the best wines I tasted on the trip. Would that the internet allowed me to share it with you! But I can share this idea for every complete outdoor area: a granite ice bar for your champagne