South Africa - Part II

The Itinerary

South Africa is a stunningly beautiful country. Our base was the Spier Hotel, a four-star hotel with rooms clustered around private plunge pools. (Click on images to enlarge them.)












The hotel was fabulous - apart from the bar unaccountably closing at midnight, often just as we were getting back from some assignation or other. After hours tasting dense thickets of Pinotage and Shiraz, you need cold lager to ungum the tongue, so our shepherdess Jo Mason was often called on to negotiate the unlocking of the beer fridges.

Our first tasting, the afternoon we arrived, involved a wine cruise and buffet on the catamaran Setsea off the coast of Cape Town.

Let’s be honest, there are worse ways to earn a living. It was the perfect antidote to the horrors of the flight, and spirits lifted immediately.

The wine estates we visited were quite something. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are 18,000 word's worth:

Our first tasting on terra firma, in the courtyard of the Waterford Estate

Our second water-bourne tasting, on a riverboat in the Robertson Wine Region

Tasting under the trees at the appropriatly named Fairview estate

The original Dutch colonial house at the ultra-modern Nederburg Estate in Paarl.
This was speed-tasting, covering 35 wines in about 7 minutes, or so it seemed.

The stunning uber-contemporary Vergelen winery

This is part of the 360ºdegree view from the terrace of the winery.
Not at all unpleasant.

In the blasting mid-day sun, it was under the trees for further tastings and buffet lunch with Paul Clever wines

The gorgeous grounds of the Grande Provence estate

First tasting of the day - 9.45 am at Grande Provence

At Boschendal Manor House with DGB - Champagne, Fois Gras, oysters and classical music
on the lawn. Hail storms in the UK.....

Lunch and tasting at Boschendal Manor, one of Cecil Rhodes' properties. Floods in the UK....

Evening Pinotage tasting and braii hosted by Laibach winery...

After a few more Pinotages, the evening mellows out

Sunset over Table mountain from the Laibach terrace, overlooking their lakes
into which we fired golf balls for an hour or so

The morning of the flight home offered another splendid opportunity for a tasting, at the De Grendel facility, Durbanville, overlooking Cape Town

The De Grendel winery. Not too shabby, all in all

When they say Sauvignon Blanc makes a good breakfast wine, they weren't kidding.

As you can see, there are some really magical wine properties in South Africa. The next posting is about South African viticulture, and the strange things they sometimes get up to.....